NEWS SECTION – FIND OUT WHAT’S NEW
E-VOLVE at the EARPA FORM Forum 2025
30. September & 01. October 2025 | Brussels, Belgium
The E-VOLVE Cluster was pleased to take part in this year’s Future Road Mobility Forum 2025 (FORM Forum), organised by the European Automotive Research Partners Association (EARPA).
This major European event brought together over 260 participants from industry, academia, and European institutions to explore how Europe can maintain its global leadership in sustainable and innovative road mobility.
The two-day programme included inspiring keynotes, technical sessions, and networking opportunities, all centred around the theme: “Transitioning Road Mobility: Actions to Safeguard Europe’s Competitive Edge.” Highlights included dynamic discussions, project showcases, and the Young Researcher Elevator Pitch, reflecting the energy and innovation driving Europe’s mobility research landscape.
Representing the E-VOLVE Cluster, Bernhard Brandstätter and Medina Ćustić from Virtual Vehicle joined the exhibition with a booth, where they engaged with participants and exchanged insights on the latest developments in electric vehicle efficiency and innovation. They also used the opportunity to catch up with some of our cluster members, such as HiVEP and VOLTCAR. VOLTCAR contributed to this year’s FORM Forum with a poster and a presentation by Lucas Van Belle (KU Leuven). You can find the presentation here.
We were proud to again represent the E-VOLVE Cluster at the EARPA FORM Forum 2025 and would like to thank EARPA and all participants for such a well-organised and engaging event.
You can find more photos from the event here: EARPA FORM Forum 2025 | Flickr
ALERT! New member!
We are pleased to announce another new member of the E-VOLVE Cluster: the ENLIGHTEN project. The acronym stands for “nExt geNeration 1200V eLectric hIGH volTage powErtraiN” and the project is coordinated by the AIT AUSTRIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GMBH.
Read here more about the project’s objective:
ENLIGHTEN aims at developing, integrating and testing a next generation post 800V electric vehicle powertrain with an indicative voltage level of 1200V. It targets a higher performing, cost optimized and more sustainable drivetrain layout that is also backwards compatible to the existing charging infrastructure with 1000V or 500V respectively.
Determining exactly how high the new voltage level should be, to enable expected advantages in a systemic and systematic way is also part of the project. A new voltage level affects the entire sphere of electric mobility, both horizontally (vehicle, charging infrastructure, users, manufacturers) and vertically (OEM, tier1, tier2, single component supplier), hence a deliberate decision is required. To accomplish this an advanced electrical system architecture is presented by the ENLIGHTEN consortium in this proposal on whose basis a specific electric vehicle drivetrain will finally be developed and demonstrated in a C-segment vehicle. The at TRL5 delivered powertrain will consist of a dual voltage battery system and an integrated motor-inverter E-drive system, complemented by an intermediate DCDC converter, an AC and DC capable onboard charger and a power distribution. All power electronic devices will exploit low loss, ultra-fast switching gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors for highest efficiency and to minimize cooling demand and component size. The dual voltage battery can be switched dynamically from one battery voltage into the other while driving. Through these and other measures, the ENLIGHTEN system delivers significant advances over the 2024 State of the Art. The ENLIGHTEN consortium includes 2 automotive companies, 1 Tier1 supplier and 2 SMEs. Their expertise is leveraged by the partnership with 2 research institutions and 4 academia/universities, constituting an ideal setup for strengthening the competitiveness of the European automotive industry.
If you want to find out more about the project use the links we included here.
We are very much looking forward to the collaborative work.
E-VOLVE Cluster Newsletter 05/2025
Welcome to a new newsletter edition of the E-VOLVE Cluster! This time we re-designed the whole issue keeping it more tight and easy to read. However, be sure you don’t miss out on clicking on all those links we built into the newsletter, as there is so much more stuff to read behind them.
Have fun with our latest edition!
Read the full edition of our newsletter HERE!
