In Formula Student Electric, e-mobility and sustainability are combined, but how?
In the competition and the preparations for it, we deal extensively with our developments. In addition to the technical side, cost and resource aspects are particularly highlighted here. These start with the raw material and extend to manufacturing processes, manual work, and later use and ultimately recycling.
This creates an awareness of sustainability over the complete life cycle of components, which is already consolidated during the development of the parts over the complete workflow. The open set of rules of the competition allows us to learn on the current state of the art, for example by means of novel manufacturing methods.
We then take this workflow and the knowledge we gain to our employers when we graduate and pass it on to our colleagues there.
Energy efficiency and lightweight construction are honored in the competition on the one hand by better lap times and on the other hand by a discipline of their own. We are forced into resource efficiency by our very limited budget. In addition, sustainability aspects are also honored in the theoretical disciplines of the competition. As budding engineers and managers, we are aware of the responsibility we have towards fellow human beings and the environment.
Cost Report
In no discipline does sustainability play such a central element as in the Cost Report. This consists of three parts:
1. Bill of Material (BOM)
2. Cost Understanding
3. Real Case
In the BOM, material usage and manufacturing processes, for specific components are queried, and the understanding of these is assessed. Cost Understanding then deals with more general application issues, including manufacturing methodology, cost and resource efficiency, and mass production of components. In Real Case, the knowledge is applied to an explicit example. For Formula Student Germany 2022, the task here was to calculate the life cycle assessment of the wheel carrier in kg-CO² equivalent.
Energy efficiency and lightweight construction are honored in the competition on the one hand by better lap times and on the other hand by a discipline of their own. We are forced into resource efficiency by our very limited budget. In addition, sustainability aspects are also honored in the theoretical disciplines of the competition. As budding engineers and managers, we are aware of the responsibility we have towards fellow human beings and the environment.
Examples from the competition
