New designs, shapes, functionalities of Light Commercial Vehicles (2ZERO Partnership)

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Develop and demonstrate new and innovative mission focused and efficient Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) battery electric concepts to address new requirements (e.g. growing of e-commerce overall and in segments such as groceries or cold chain products, urban logistics consolidation schemes) from zero emission logistics processes in cities increasing the affordability and scalability of the proposed solutions.
• Demonstrate scalable zero emission real life operations in the city environment including charging and building synergies between the new LCVs and zero emission Heavy Duty Vehicles operations to address user needs in a sustainable and safe manner.
• User and mission-centric definition of requirements on vehicles, infrastructure and system from mobility operators and logistics companies considering new and innovative solutions.

The main objective of this call is to deliver new urban optimized light commercial zero-emission vehicles with a focus on goods transport, that are affordable, safe, sustainable and reliable and with a strong engagement from freight services users and fleet owners in the definition of requirements and testing. The focus will be to identify and overcome the main barriers for the development of new LCV concepts for urban and sub-urban logistics and freight mobility. Proposals are expected to address all of the following aspects:

• Engage with users of the vehicles, define requirements, expectations and potential developments that may influence future demand for these vehicles as well as considering the integration of vehicles in existing and future charging infrastructures.
• Develop and demonstrate new designs, shapes and functionalities of Light Commercial Vehicles to meet current and future needs for commercial delivery of goods, including safety aspects.
• Demonstrate the developed vehicles and operational concepts considering current and future demands for these vehicles in a growing e-commerce market for deliveries and returns of parcels, groceries and refrigerated goods and addressing the challenges holistically (i.e. by demonstrating the concepts in actual current or new logistics operations including charging and addressing requirements in cities with extended zero emission zones).
• Establish synergies and links with new logistics concepts developed in R&I projects focused on logistics operations and innovative concepts (such as the Physical Internet).
• Demonstrated vehicles and operational concepts are expected to target important markets with the potential for the largest environmental impact.
• Optionally and additionally, concepts for demonstration of the combined usage of people and freight vehicle operation, fleet utilisation optimisation in dense-urban areas might be included.
• Development of appropriate operational and control strategies during acceleration and braking to reduce secondary brake and tyre particle emissions, optimise energy recuperation and further reduce environmental impact in urban environments.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Activities are expected to achieve TRL7-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.