Mobility is at the heart of human development and is a fundamental right to which every human being is entitled. As the world is developing and world population is growing, the need for mobility is increasing, with significant and irreversible consequences on the environment.

Providing more mobility with less impact on climate, biodiversity, health, and safety is the major challenge all companies of the mobility industry have to face. 

As a company with a long-standing commitment to sustainable mobility, Michelin must be a leader in facing this challenge and sees this shift as an opportunity to value our technological leadership and innovation capacity.

We set ambitious objectives on the reduction of the environmental impact of our activities, from design to production, logistics, usage and end of life.

At the heart of this approach, is the deployment of Eco design, to develop better, safer products with less material, using less fuel, providing more kilometers.

LCA is becoming our compass and the driver of our decisions. This presentation will focus on the method we used to deploy the approach, the maturity of eco design and how we manage this change within the company.

The automotive industry is engaged in massive electrification today which, combined with the decarbonisation of power generation, will reduce the overall carbon footprint of vehicles by nearly two-thirds over the next few decades. 

A pioneer in electric mobility, Groupe Renault has set itself the goal of going further and achieving carbon neutrality by 2040 in Europe and by 2050 worldwide. Achieving this objective will require a profound change in the methods of production and use of the raw materials necessary for the manufacture of vehicles, which will represent the bulk of their residual carbon footprint as soon as the use phase is based on carbon-free energy.

The growing tensions over the availability and price of fossil and mineral materials only accentuate this requirement for material efficiency, essential for our industry. 

To meet this challenge, Renault can rely on more than 30 years of experience in the voluntary introduction of recycled materials into its vehicles and more than 10 years in the implementation of the circular economy at the different stages of the cycle of its vehicles, through its subsidiaries GAIA, INDRA and BCM (the latter two being held with Suez). 

Renault is now intensifying and diversifying its circular economy initiatives, such as its emblematic Re-Factory project aimed at making the Flins automobile plant the first and largest industrial complex dedicated to the economy. circular mobility around four poles:

• Retrofit dedicated to reconditioning and extending the life of vehicles

• Re-energy around green energy storage and management solutions

• Re-Cycle dedicated to the efficient and circular use of materials through reuse and recycling

• Re-Start aiming to promote innovation and the sharing of knowledge around the circular economy through a training campus, an incubator and an industrial innovation center.

The Group also places more than ever the use of recycled materials at the heart of the eco-design approach for its vehicles, favoring those from end-of-life products and in particular end-of-life vehicles.

Hydrogen is becoming an important energy carrier of the future. It can be produced from renewable electricity, can be stored and transported in gaseous or liquid state as well as using hydrogen derivatives. Hydrogen will contribute to well-to-wheel and life cycle CO2 neutral solutions for future mobility. Important automotive markets like China, United States, EU, Korea and Japan have already started and will accelerate the build-up of a hydrogen refueling infrastructure.

Following a technology open approach, and complementary to fuel cells, hydrogen engine powertrains are considered as attractive option. Potential starting points could be commercial vehicle applications, where high load operation, long driving distances as well as short refueling times are important. Next up could be light commercial vehicles, especially for fleet applications where a fully developed hydrogen refueling infrastructure is not required. With further development of the refueling station network, hydrogen engine powertrains can be attractive also for passenger car applications.

This presentation focuses on hydrogen engine applications, powertrain topologies and operating strategies. Subsystems and components like fuel injection and exhaust gas treatment are considered. The results demonstrate feasibility and attractive characteristics of hydrogen engine powertrains for future mobility