Extended lifetime of road Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) (2ZERO Partnership)
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Extended lifetime of road Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) (2ZERO Partnership) offering max €22.5M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description
What the Grant Funds
* Research, technological development and innovation activities that extend the lifetime and increase the residual value of light-duty Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) by addressing ageing and degradation of electric-drive components (except the battery cell level).
* Development and validation of predictive modelling tools, sensor suites, digital product passports, prospective/prescriptive maintenance concepts, circular-economy design strategies and full-scale laboratory demonstrators up to TRL 5-6.
* Open-science compliant data collection, FAIR data management and KPI reporting to the co-programmed 2ZERO Partnership.
Type of Action & Budget
* Action type: HORIZON-RIA – Lump-Sum (simplified cost reporting; payments linked to milestone and deliverable achievement).
* Indicative EU contribution per project: €15–22.5 million (total topic budget normally funds 1–2 large, multi-disciplinary consortia).
* Funding rate: 100 % of eligible direct costs + 25 % flat-rate indirect (already embedded in the lump-sum calculation).
Eligible Applicants
* Minimum consortium: 3 independent legal entities from 3 different EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries; no maximum size.
* Typical partners: OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, SMEs with sensor/AI expertise, research organisations, test houses, recyclers, digital-passport/IT providers, user & fleet operators.
* International partners outside the EU/AC may participate without EU funding (unless their country has a funding agreement).
* Participants must have the operational & financial capacity and comply with Horizon Europe general conditions (ethics, gender equality plan for public bodies with ≥250 employees, etc.).
Key Dates
* Call opens: 06 May 2025
* Single-stage deadline: 04 Sep 2025 – 17:00 Brussels time
* GA signature target: ≈ Q2 2026; project duration typically 36–48 months.
Thematic & Technical Boundaries
* Focused on electric-drive system integration, thermal management and power electronics, including pack & module level; battery cell R&D is out of scope.
* Mandatory adoption of Digital Product Passport principles and contribution to 20 % higher residual value and 20 % resource reduction in use phase compared with state-of-the-art baselines.
Intellectual Property & Open Science
* Results belong to beneficiaries, but the work programme requires Open Access to publications and data managed under FAIR principles.
* Projects must provide periodic KPI data to the 2ZERO Partnership monitoring system.
📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages & Strategic Opportunities for HORIZON-CL5-2025-04-D5-04
1. Single Market Access
• 450 + million potential customers & 27 national fleets: Successful demonstrators can be rolled out simultaneously across all Member States, accelerating time-to-market for extended-lifetime BEV drive-train components, maintenance solutions and digital product passports.
• European type-approval & UNECE alignment: A validated, longer-life e-drive solution can obtain an EU Whole Vehicle Type Approval (WVTA) valid in all countries, avoiding repeated national certification and lowering compliance costs by up to 30 %.
• Growing secondary-market demand: Higher residual-value data can feed EU-wide used-vehicle platforms (e.g. Auto1, Aramis) creating new B2B and B2C revenue streams for refurbishers, leasing companies and OEMs.
2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange
• Multinational consortia mandate: Horizon RIA projects require at least three legal entities from three different eligible countries, automatically opening doors to premier labs (e.g. Fraunhofer, VTT, CEA) and industrial test fleets (e.g. Stellantis, Volvo, Renault).
• Shared real-world duty-cycle datasets: Pooling telematics data from Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean climates enables more robust prescriptive-maintenance algorithms than any national project could deliver.
• Access to living labs & pilot lines: Integration with cross-border test corridors such as TENT-T (Via Baltica, Rhine-Alpine) for on-road validation of ageing models under diverse load profiles.
3. Full Alignment with EU Flagship Policies
• European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Extending BEV life directly reduces lifecycle GHG and material demand, supporting CO₂-fleet-target compliance and the new Battery Regulation’s durability & performance requirements.
• Circular Economy Action Plan (9R hierarchy): Project outcomes (remanufacturing protocols, digital product passports) answer upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive recast.
• Digital Europe & Data Spaces: Sensor-rich drivetrains generate high-value operational data feeding the forthcoming Mobility Data Space and Gaia-X, enhancing EU data sovereignty.
4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits
• Single Digital Product Passport (DPP) standard: The grant’s DPP work can shape the Commission’s delegated acts, ensuring interoperability across divergent national reuse/remanufacture rules.
• Unified battery & e-drive waste codes: Collaboration with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and Eurostat makes it easier to classify and move reused components across borders, lowering logistics barriers.
5. Pan-European Innovation Ecosystem Access
• Clusters & Partnerships: Leverage EIT InnoEnergy, Batteries Europe, CLEPA & EARPA networks for rapid industrial uptake.
• Test & demo facilities: Free/discounted access to JRC Petten’s battery labs, Battery 2030+ pilot lines, and Vehicle Emissions Laboratories (VELA) for ageing studies.
• Talent pipeline: Mobility-specific Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and Erasmus+ alliances supply early-stage researchers for modelling, AI and materials analysis.
6. Funding Synergies & Leverage
• Cohesion Funds & Just Transition: Regions with automotive restructuring challenges (e.g. FIAT plants in PL, BG) can co-finance deployment of refurbished BEV components.
• Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) & Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF): Pair longer-life vehicles with EU-funded charging corridors, enhancing total cost of ownership.
• European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator: SMEs that deliver breakthrough sensor or AI modules can fast-track to blended finance (> €17.5 M) after RIA validation.
• InvestEU & European Investment Bank (EIB): Bankable results (component remanufacturing lines, data-driven maintenance services) qualify for green transition windows.
7. EU-Scale Deployment & Impact
• Replicable business models: Demonstrated 20 % residual-value uplift can be codified in EU vehicle leasing contracts, affecting ~10 M new registrations per year.
• Standardised maintenance protocols: Prescriptive-maintenance libraries can be adopted by pan-EU repair chains (e.g. Bosch Car Service, Mobivia), cutting resource use during the use phase by the targeted 20 %.
• Contribution to European raw-material sovereignty: Each additional year of BEV service defers new battery demand, lowering dependency on critical raw materials (lithium, cobalt) by an estimated 8 kt per year EU-wide.
Actionable Recommendations for Applicants
1. Form a value-chain-wide consortium including OEMs, Tier-1s, recyclers, AI sensor SMEs and at least one circular-economy legal expert to address CE regulatory nuances.
2. Embed FAIR data management compatible with the Mobility Data Space early to ease compliance and future monetisation.
3. Plan for post-grant commercialisation via EIC Accelerator or EIB loan blending—showing TRL path to 8+ within five years.
4. Engage standardisation bodies (CEN/CENELEC, ISO TC-22) during the project to fast-track DPP attributes into upcoming standards, creating a first-mover advantage.
Strategic Value Statement: Operating at EU level multiplies technological credibility, market reach and regulatory influence, turning an extended-lifetime BEV concept from a niche R&D exercise into a cornerstone of Europe’s zero-emission transport, circular-economy and strategic-autonomy agendas.
🏷️ Keywords
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Extended lifetime of road Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) (2ZERO Partnership) offering max €22.5M funding