Dr. Ameya Joshi is the director of emerging technologies and regulations at Corning Incorporated
Key topics in this conversation include:
- The importance of clearly defining our objective – to reduce CO2 and particulate emissions
- What to do when science and public perception point in different directions
- Why environmental justice is so critical as we clean up transportation
- The disproportionate role of cold-start emissions, and technologies to address this
- Regulations, including Euro 7, and the propulsion systems that will define our future
- The downside of blanket bans on ICEs
Listen here:
Apple Podcasts: link
Google Podcasts: link
Spotify: link
Links
- Ameya’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshiav/
- Ameya’s Mobility Notes website and newsletter https://mobilitynotes.com/
- Corning website: https://www.corning.com/worldwide/en.html
Ameya’s Bio:
Dr. Ameya Joshi is the director of emerging technologies and regulations at Corning Incorporated, where he follows advances in engines, emissions control technologies and electrification, for the company’s Environmental Technologies division. He provides credible technical guidance to engage regulators, customers and other automotive suppliers on the direction of emissions regulations globally and their impact on future technology choices.
Ameya currently serves as an associate editor for the SAE Journal of Engines, Publishing Editor for the journal Emission Control Science and Technology and Editorial Board Member of the Transportation Engineering Journal. He is also a reviewer for various projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office through the Annual Merit Review. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in Mechanical Engineering.
About Corning:
Corning is one of the world’s leading innovators in materials science, with a 169-year track record of life-changing inventions. Corning applies its unparalleled expertise in glass science, ceramics science, and optical physics, along with its deep manufacturing and engineering capabilities, to develop category-defining products that transform industries and enhance people’s lives. Corning succeeds through sustained investment in RD&E, a unique combination of material and process innovation, and deep, trust-based relationships with customers who are global leaders in their industries.
Future of Mobility:
The Future of Mobility podcast is focused on the development and implementation of safe, sustainable, and equitable mobility solutions, with a spotlight on the people and technology advancing these fields.
linkedin.com/in/brandonbartneck/
brandonbartneck.com/futureofmobility/
Transcript
Brandon Bartneck 0:06
I’m Brandon Bartneck. And this is the future of mobility podcast. Safe, sustainable and equitable mobility solutions. That’s what this is all about. With the climate situation as it is right now plus many other factors, it’s never been more important for us to continue to improve the sustainability of the way that we’re moving goods and people. At the same time. We need to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians, and we need to get these solutions in the hands of the people who need them need them most. So that’s what I covered primarily interviews I’m talking to the people who are developing and implementing covering these technology solutions. Also, my day job This podcast is brought to you by FEV. FEV is your complete vehicle engineering partner for sustainable energy and mobility solutions. We’re the engineering technology partner behind a lot of what you see on the road and elsewhere. Shoot me a note if you want to learn more, check out fb.com check us out on LinkedIn.
Today’s guest is Ameya Joshi, Ameya is director of emerging technologies and regulations at Corning where he follows advances in engines emissions control technologies and electrification for the company’s environmental Technology Division. He also is currently associate editor for The SAE Journal of engines publishing editor for the emission control science and technology and editorial board member of the transportation engineering journal. Deep Dive conversation today on emissions and emission regulations. So one of the underlying themes I think, if you’ve been following the podcast, so you’ve heard is this idea that electrification is great, great moving in that direction. But fully battery electric vehicles in all applications throughout the transportation sector not only isn’t possible, but it also isn’t the best solution in the short term. So it there’s going there, the vast majority of vehicles in use right now have internal combustion engines and they will for some time period, it’s hard to say exactly what’s gonna happen after that, but that they’re the engine is going to be around so it’s worth thinking about what causes the emissions? How does it work? How have we tried to combat this in the past? How do regulations work? What are they intended to do? Where are the challenges all these types of topics, so we start with kind of a emissions regulations, one on one, maybe a little deeper than that. And then we talk about, you know, the state of the art, where things are moving and what we misconceptions about emission what we can do to make improvements etc. And it’s hard to think of much better person to talk to you than me on this topic, as you’ll quickly hear, you know, he’s very trusted the industry’s leading thinker. I highly recommend one of the things, one of the things we discuss and there’s a link in the show notes here, a man has a monthly newsletter and and additional resources on his website, mobility notes.com, again, a link here but mobility notes, no space.com, where he has a monthly deep brief on the state of a lot of the topics, the regulations and permission set technology, he has conference deep, deep technical, if you care about decarbonisation of the transportation sector, and particularly, I mean, even if you’re not an engineer, again, it’d be interesting, but particularly if you’re in the engineering field, it’s a fantastic resource where he’s not watering anything down. It’s deep technical, you can really understand you know, what is a good picture what rates really well, I highly recommend to check it out mobility and I’ll check I’m considering subscribing to his, his weekly newsletter monthly newsletter. And yeah, get back to the conversation. So we talked about you know how all this works. We talk about the state of the art, common misconceptions for emissions, technology and a bunch of bunch of other stuff. So really fun discussion. I hope you enjoy this as a demo and maybe we shouldn’t have waited whatever this is 70 episodes to go deep into emissions but I’m glad glad to be able to do it now with the mayor. So please enjoy my conversation with a mayor Joshi.
Today I’m joined by Ameya Joshi, thanks for coming on.
Ameya 4:05
Absolutely. Thank you.
Brandon Bartneck 4:07
Yeah, I’m looking forward to this conversation. So the future mobility podcast, so safe, sustainable mobility is what I focus on. And I’ve covered a lot in the propulsion system space and the impacts there but haven’t really gotten too deep into emissions, technology, regulation, everything that goes goes into it. So I’m, I’m really looking forward to kind of getting your thoughts on some of these topics.
Ameya 4:28
Sure. Let’s get into it.
Brandon Bartneck 4:29
Yeah, I guess maybe first, could you introduce yourself and I know your role, what you’re working on, etc?
Ameya 4:34
Absolutely. Yeah. So, again, my name is Amir Joshi, I, um, I have worked in the city of for two decades now. So my role Let me start from now I’m the director of emerging technologies and regulations at Corning Incorporated. So Corning we make substrates and filters that go into our frequent systems emission control systems for cars and libraries. trucks, heavy duty trucks, off road equipment and so on. But I’m just going back to I have a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, and also a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware, I did a postdoc in the Colorado School of Mines. And then I’ve been with Corning since 2006. And I worked in multiple roles, some years and research. Then I’ve worked on modeling and simulation of emission control systems. I’ve worked as a so called regional technology manager where I was working with our customers in Europe and sorry, in Japan and Korea, and just introducing them brand new products and kind of making sure that they’re meeting the upcoming regulations. And then my current role is little sort of unique in this industry where I am somewhere in between commercial and r&d, where I’m looking at how the overall industry is progressing both from regulations and technology. So my role is way to sort of keep a watch for what is coming at us in the 510 year time frame. And so I look at everything from fuels engines, emissions control systems, and then now increasingly electrification as well and so again just preparing for you know, the next wave of inventions that we need to make tailpipes cleaner
Brandon Bartneck 6:25
yeah and how do you go about trying to get an accurate read on what’s what’s coming with the emergent technology is it’s going to be relevant
Ameya 6:34
Yeah, that’s that’s a great question because it’s not it’s not there is no you know, bulleted list of yours the way to do it right it’s just from all directions I of course I travel a lot pre COVID now it’s all on zoom. But but basically I attend a lot of conferences there are a few good ones that I absolutely do and then there’s some new ones that I keep attending I read a lot or lots of journal publications essay publications and then over time I’ve been doing this for I think around five years now you get a feel for like what is good versus what is maybe not so and then you start connecting the dots we also know some technologies are progressing Some are very early stage and so I I try to keep keep an eye out on on everything but occasionally I’m surprised I haven’t heard of something altogether and it’s just something new but then now I’m also getting information from so many different platforms like this podcast appears you know, so as an example you can listen to other people read articles online and just soak it all in but then I think the main point is to have a good filter and saying okay, this looks appeal was this is you know, maybe not so yeah.
Brandon Bartneck 7:48
Yeah, and I think we’ll we’ll get pretty deep into kind of the the objective and come in some of the engineering science perspective of some of this technology. But before we get there, I’d be curious to how you balance the I don’t know that the public perception aspect with kind of the science and everything that goes behind it, because I think they’re, those two things aren’t always aligned. Like for example, I think that the obvious one right now is with electric vehicles were that maybe we’re turning a corner but like the the obvious kind of reaction from someone who’s not really in the industry is you see, wow, electric vehicle, there’s no tailpipe emissions, this is the greatest thing ever. And that you just assume this is so much better than whatever. Any vehicle that has an internal combustion engine and I mean, that’s that’s maybe an extreme example, but it also means something though, because those types of people are the people who are voting for the people who are in regulatory positions right? And so they the the public perception, whether it’s grounded in reality or not, has some impact on what actually ends up in regulations and then that drives some of the technology so how, how do you try to balance the engineering perspective with I guess, the perception perspective perspective?
Ameya 9:03
Yeah, and it’s not easy it’s not easy I mean, I’m struggling as well, to be honest, it’s not it’s there is no silver bullet here. Again, one thing I tried to do and like most of us try to do in this field is try to be objective and and have an integrity about how we’re going about it knowing like what our end goal is, it’s not increasing the sales of electric vehicles not increasing, you know, Mission Control Systems and so on. It is to reduce co2 right? or reduce criteria pollutants once you have that in mind. I, I tried to go to, you know, to your point on public perception, I tried to do some simple calculations to show for example, okay, we have a billion vehicles on the road. And even if we have Eevee, penetrating by, I don’t know 50% by the end of this decade, it would still meet still mean x 100 million vehicles on The road by the end of the decade and so let’s look at other solutions, let’s let’s not just assume that everything’s gonna be solved by Eevee, we are going to have to look at renewable fuels, we’re gonna have to look at continued emissions spent on improving engines, hybridization, and all of that. And so at least just putting it in a, you know, sort of in a way that most people understand that, oh, yeah, right, there’s gonna be a few 100 million vehicles on the road, that I think, you know, is important to show that other side, also, you know, looking at these non tailpipe emissions, you know, brakes tires, and we’ll get into that. But again, the point is to show that Yeah, there are other emissions that are always going to so let me we’re just going to be shifting the problem from one source to another, if we just keep, you know, continuing what what we are thinking you’re doing. So, um, yeah, it’s, it’s having this dialogue with, with people from different, you know, sort of viewpoints on this issue. And then, frankly, also talking to regulators, I mean, policymakers and policy politicians and saying that, yeah, you’re the numbers, I mean, the, you know, let’s make sure one thing and I know I’m getting too deep into this, but just just before I forget, you know, the whole aspect of environmental justice, I’m very passionate about that as well and I to bring that up, as well, it’s a very social aspect to this whole problem. And I just want to make sure that we cover it, right, the fact that, you know, if you’re going to spend a million dollars on solving air quality issues in a certain region, it better help everyone right, even the disadvantaged communities, they’re not just the rich few and that is again, it’s not falling on deaf ears and California for example, is taking a lot of steps in that direction. But again, that continued emphasis on all aspects of this issue. You have to talk to the right people in different sort of positions and that’s what I’m trying to do.
Brandon Bartneck 11:50
I mean let’s maybe let’s take a expand on that just for a couple minutes here. So environmental justice Yeah. How do you define kind of the the objective there and then can you share any thoughts about on that the key steps that we need to be taking to make sure that we are having some type of equitable outcome while we’re trying to improve air quality?
Ameya 12:09
Yeah, so the EPA does have a Office of for environmental justice and again, this is not a new new issue by any means. But it is a difficult one to quantify as far as I can I’m not an expert in that I’ve only spent a few months looking into going deeper, but I certainly can say that it is not an easy topic to quantify right? But having said that, what we need first and foremost is no kidding on air quality measurements on the ground where people live and work right, we currently have these various bright colors yellow, orange, green for you know, good and bad air quality these are based on few air quality sensors that are located somewhere far away from where we actually left right. And so, we don’t have any ultra fine particulate measurements for example today. So I say no, you know very few. And so, the point is really getting to first measure the air quality is the first goal and then there are new studies which have come up recently which have shown that when you do that, you see that there is a systematic you know, disproportionate exposure of of these admissions to disadvantaged communities and and so the idea is how do you produce that that’s that’s the goal ultimately. It’s not It’s not easy by any means. Again, you have to do like really good studies on how that will impact but but I can say this that Yeah, there are technologies available today that are relatively cheap, I would say as compared to like you know, and $10,000 or $7,000 for an Eevee that we can adopt today that would significantly improve the air quality and I just keep talking about those that Yeah, let’s let’s do those while we are also providing subsidies for Evie, because today, quite frankly, the movies are only the rich few are buying them. And let’s make sure that everyone gets that.
Brandon Bartneck 14:18
Yeah, and it’s certainly not a new issue this environmental justice it’s so the, the example that stuck with me what I heard a couple of years ago, and I haven’t looked too deep into this, but a kind of anecdote. Anecdotally it makes sense. And I think I’ve seen it in a couple places. But the there’s a story that like you can look at a US city, especially the ones that were developed later after the the train rail system was in place. And for the most part, the disadvantaged community is going to be on the east side and the more privileged is going to be on the west side because the wind moves west to east you have all this pollution coming from the whether it’s the trailer train or whatever. And right here, quality disparity is what used to be very significant. There’s still so much
Ameya 15:00
I mean, I mean, think of more how do we make decisions on where to live, right? Let’s say, let’s say I’m going and looking for a new house. And there’s a house, which is right next to a major highway with lots of noise and pollution, am I going to buy that if I have an option to buy somewhere inside there unfortunate, but then then the pricing changes, according to that. And so there’s a very direct connection between air pollution and where you choose to live. And so yeah, that’s, by the way, again, car also has their study in their mobile strategy. And I think in print 20, they have it in their document, they show how the air pollution is more for people of color, and from road, economic, you know, income. So yeah, it’s not a new problem by any means. But you’re really trying to address that as well.
Brandon Bartneck 15:45
I want to unpack something that you said earlier and dig a little deeper here. So you mentioned kind of the underlying objective here of what you’re doing. And I think what, to some extent, what I’m doing what I think a lot of people are the people who say that they’re trying to clean up mobility and transportation, we’re working towards an objective that isn’t getting more V’s on the road. It’s not, it’s not at the same time maximizing ice sales. It’s, we’re attacking right? emissions, exactly. And trying to clean up. So can you talk more kind of what what that actually means of like, what is the objective here, whether it’s regulatory technology, etc?
Ameya 16:19
I mean, honestly, okay, so there are two objectives. One is, we have to make the climate goals, right, which is, and we can define it as 1.5 C, or two c, but we have to make sure that the global warming is contained, right, that’s weird. And if that’s the goal, we know there’s a budget of how much co2 we can add to the atmosphere, because before it becomes a runaway problem. And that budget is very small at all the studies that I’ve seen so far indicate that no matter what even if you go to 100%, EBS and do many of the other things in other sectors, we are not going to meet it right, we are not going to meet it which means that there are other technologies such as renewable fuels, co2 capture, I know these are not popular amongst people who like EBS only, but they have to be pursued because at the end of the day, again there are there is going to be co2 in the atmosphere, which is going to be there for for a long time and what do you do with it? So okay, so but I’m I’m jumping into solutions, but the point is that yes, the goal is to reduce co2 that is one and the other is criteria pollutants. And there there are a lot of recent studies which show that there is no minimum below which these do not impact human health. So for example, particularly concentration, right, I mean, the US has a quality standard or you know, 12 micrograms per meter cube, and then you know, every year or every few years, it is either kept the same or lowered and so on. But there are studies now coming out of Harvard, which show that there is no minimum like, Okay, if you reach eight, we are done. That’s it. No, there is no even at a very small quantity, in particular, to affect human health. So we have to make sure that we keep going down. So in that sense, I will say there is the objective is somewhat open ended that just let’s just keep in there till till we don’t have particles and NOx and Sox in the air.
Brandon Bartneck 18:19
And this is certainly not the area where my expertise but if I if I interpret correctly, you’re talking about that the mass of these particulates are particularly mass not but and then I also I guess, I’d be curious your thoughts. So I know at least in the Euro standards, particular number has emerged as an important topic, which as I understand it, to some of these super small particles are as damaging or potentially more, so,
Ameya 18:43
more so. Because Because these are, I mean, we’re talking about 100 nanometers or smaller particles, right? These are so called ultra fine particles, right? So maybe taking a step back for some of the listeners who don’t know, I mean, you know, you we typically talk about particle standards here in the US as Pm 2.5. These are particles which are 2.5 microns, or smaller, right? And these are these fine particles. And yeah, indeed, they’re fine, but still 2.5 microns is 2500 nanometers. What’s coming out of the tailpipe of vehicles is 100 nanometers roughly, you know, media in sight. So, these are still orders of magnitude smaller than those 2.5 micron. Now, particles can be even smaller in Europe now the record regulating particles down to 10 nanometers right. So, there are particles actually which come out of the tailpipe which are that fine and you can imagine these The smaller the particles and for given mass, the surface area increases right as the so as the puddle gets smaller, and so if the surface area increases, they are more active catalytically if you think about as they go into your lungs, they could react more with the, with your, with your body, and they’re just gonna be that much more So coping, the small particles are extremely important than just the overall mass. And so which is why those steps taken by Europe and China and India are actually very good in terms of having a particle number standard. In the US, unfortunately, we do have a particle mass standard for good reasons. But now it is not being as effective in enforcing the latest technologies.
Brandon Bartneck 20:24
And even the and we can talk more, I want to zoom out about regulations in a minute. But this idea of just simply saying, hey, let’s let’s measure smaller particles, isn’t as simple as as it seems either. Because then, as I understand it, the the technology for measuring these particles, whether you’re in a development, right, when you’re in an engine, dymo, dyno chassis dyno setup, and then in real world, it’s, we don’t really have the technology to go down that smaller, at least not easily. Like, oh, boy,
Ameya 20:56
you’re absolutely right. I mean, counting particles down to 10 nanometers or even 24. For that matter. I mean, none of this is trivial. It has to be done in accredited lab with the right equipment and, and so on, and making sure there’s not you know, there are no other factors. Confusing this, this measurement, even even for the particle mass for the standard, I mean, California goes down to one milligram per mile. And measuring particle mass down to one and which means that typically, you want cars with some engineering margin emitting lower than one milligram per mile measuring that is not not easy, right? And so yeah, it’s it’s certainly as the particle measurement. You know, equipments have also become very sophisticated over time. But more work needs to be done for sure.
Brandon Bartneck 21:44
Yeah, so I guess let’s, let’s talk about the role of regulations. So you know, each each region, so we’re talking about the US, we’re talking about Europe, China that have their own regulations on what is allowed from a given vehicle or fleet of vehicles, etc. Can you talk to kind of how, how are these regulations meant to be structured? And then maybe we can talk about, like, how well or what, what are the steps actually tried to achieve the goals that they’re trying to achieve?
Ameya 22:13
Yeah, um, so I mean, of course, you know, regulations started in the 70s, with the Clean Air Act in the US. And so there’s been a long history of how regulations are written and sort of the various regulatory steps on you know, like, for example, in the US, there’s a, typically there’s a, there’s lots of workshops, open workshop discussions on what the agencies are trying to do. There’s debate, there’s a lot of feedback, and then there’s the notice of proposed rulemaking. And then there’s the actual publication of the and so there’s all of these sort of steps. But behind all of this really, what we’re talking about is every region saying hey, yours, our current air quality, right, it starts with measuring. So if you cannot quantify it, you cannot solve the problem. So it starts with saying yours are NOx concentrations are yours particular concentrations, and then saying, on what the goal is, the current goal, for example, let’s say, again, from the US is read micrograms per meter Q, are measuring across the country, and there’s data being measured every day. So it’s already happening, and then saying how many cities or regions are in attainment, right? Or how many are not in attainment? And so if there’s quite a few areas, which are not in attainment, then that says, okay, we need to do more to make sure that, that, that these areas are, are brought in entertainment to improve power regulations and technologies. But again, so so there are, there’s a measurement and to find the current air quality, there’s a target set, but here’s where we want to get to. And then a very important part is also what is feasible, what is actually technically feasible. Because, you know, there’s no point in saying let’s get to two micrograms per meter cubed when there’s no technology so so there’s also that feasibility study being done and then sort of wrapping all of that up is a cost benefit analysis that’s done right to say that okay, even for the technologies that are available on that could be available in the next five to 10 years. How much would that cost? And then what is the benefit and that is of course, the key point of the regulations right? Which is the benefits to human health, everything ultimately what these regulations are trying to do is two things right again, human health and environment and and one being also steel to global one not right. So they typically do cost assessment and lots of inputs go into that you know, there’s a value for human life there is the you know, how many hospitalizations can be reduced how many lost workdays can be reduced, et cetera, et cetera, but then you’ve come up with Okay, so you so many billion dollars can be saved with such regulation. And here’s cost, and then that cost to benefit, of course has to be low, or benefit to cost has to be very high. And then that’s how they justify moving higher with the regulation. So that’s sort of, you know, pretty broad nutshell. But
Brandon Bartneck 25:14
the things I think that makes sense. Yeah. And then how about the definition of kind of the KPIs or the or the the values, the targets that we’re setting and simply, one of the things I think about is like, a cake cafe, so cat cafe, or a corporate average fuel economy, I think, intuitively makes sense at the same time, and not to necessarily poke holes. But I know, it’s not easy, but like, there’s two kind of obvious challenges there. So first of all, mpg doesn’t really make sense as a as a measurement for for vehicles, right? I think what energy usage or fuel usage per mile driven is a much more intuitive number that actually helps us understand. Yeah, yeah, just they’re inverses of each other until it messes with you, when you see 30 versus 50 versus 80. You think about it as a as intuitively as you should, but then the other one is average fuel economy. But the electrification thing is kind of thrown that for, for a world as a, we’ve had a hard time, I think putting an equivalent impact of electric vehicles and trying to accurately compare vehicles with internal combustion engines with vehicles without so again, not not saying I have a perfect answer, but just kind of pointing out that, um, there’s a, there’s challenges even in something that seems fairly obvious. So I guess there’s not a question there. But no,
Ameya 26:40
I agree. I mean, the whole idea of fuel economy and, you know, is very tricky, right? Because especially in the context today, I mean, initially, it was, Well, yeah, you can get more mileage out of your out of a garden. And that’s, that’s great for the consumer knowing that okay, am I you know, every dollar goes much further. That’s, that’s, but in the, in the context today of reducing co2, it becomes less useful. I mean, yeah, you’re right, I mean, gallons per mile would be a better, better usage, better metric. But, but more importantly, perhaps, with electrification. And with everything that we’re doing, it’s, I mean, we have to expand that box, right to say, not just from our tank to wheel perspective, but from a vegetable or even the Cradle to Cradle perspective. And that’s where it starts getting really complicated, because just because I moved from one vehicle, which gives me 30 miles per gallon to another, which gives me 50 miles per gallon doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve, you know, solve the problem. You know, that’s, it may be that, you know, there’s still a lot of human missions, or there’s other things that that need to be improved to rapidly reduce my total co2 that I’m emitting into the, I mean, take not to digress but take the whole ride sharing as an example, right? I mean, the whole, there’s so much debate on whether it reduces co2 or not, I mean, on one hand, you don’t need to own a vehicle. On the other hand, now, people driving more, because there’s just you can get a car whenever you want one. And so there are estimates which show that Oh, you see roads actually going up. And so this whole, the point is that these, you know, you always have unintended consequences and how we capture those. And just, mpg is definitely not the only metric that should be used in this in this debate.
Brandon Bartneck 28:28
And the I think, maybe we don’t need to go too deep here. But the lifecycle analysis, I think, is maybe a good place. I mean, that itself isn’t a obvious topic, either. Because, yeah, you mentioned going from mining oil materials through after great and there’s there’s a lot of assumptions that go into there and sensitivity analysis that can really skew the results. But it’s a much better approach than simply defining a fuel economy.
Ameya 28:53
Oh, and it’s imperative that we have to do that, if we are going to make policies and promote technologies based on, you know, the co2 reduction, you have to know, at each step where the co2 is being emitted, right, and how much water I mean, there’s a recent paper on heavy duty vehicles by Argonne National Lab, where they’ve done a very good analysis looking at various classes of vehicles and various parts of the country. And, you know, broadly, yes, you’re saying that, you know, heavy duty vehicles as an overall segment, if you electrify, you can make a 15% reduction in co2, right. And then they want to look at the various sub grids within the US and they show that and I forget the exact numbers I showed, but it was like you either get a improvement of not just 15 but all the way I think it was like up to 25% or so in some of the cleanup groups. Oh, sorry. I think it was like 44%, the cleanest screens, great. And then the, on the other hand, there weren’t many grids in which you actually increased co2 emissions by as much as 25% Think about I mean, you’re actually going to be electrifying the truck and then and then emitting more co2 in the air. And by the way, for those who will immediately our grid is getting clean, I sure but do consider 2030 grid, not today’s grid. So they were actually projecting what could be on the 2013. Grid? And again, this is not to say that, therefore we should shop electrification, I want to make that very clear in the point is that, yes, we need to look at every sort of situation very carefully and make sure that you know, the grid is actually clean before we just, you know, pursue one technology.
Brandon Bartneck 30:34
How do you maybe maybe in that vein, how do you think about the different ice bands that have been announced from from various regions, whether it’s 2030 2035, etc.
Ameya 30:45
I mean, I don’t know, I don’t like technology bands, per se, it’s it’s, again, these are, you know, politicians, and, you know, policymakers coming and saying, we know that beyond green 35, this one technology is going to be the solution. And I, I really think none of us know, 15 years from now, what is going to be the solution? And so why have a bad why not just let the market? I mean, there are so many studies, which say that electric vehicles are going to be at cost parity in what 25 right or so we keep hearing that? Why would someone buy an ice and Bernie 35? If electrics are going to be cheaper than ice is in that time frame? Why have abandoned the Firstly, let’s let the market do its job? And of course, then you could say that for the remaining 10% that you have, sorry, switch over to an electric vehicle in that time frame rate. Let’s revisit that in the year. 2030. Why today? Like I think that’s that’s just not and I think the the, the problem is that it then start stifling other technologies, right? I mean, like people looking at hydrogen ICS and hydrogen fuel cells, and I know, there’s a lot of address that hydrogen gets, but but again, in the product team of, we have to continue to clean up the existing feed as well. You know, we have to look at our solution. So yeah, by the way, on that note, maybe I’ll just also throw in one more thing, this whole idea, I like this idea of geo fencing. Like, you know, I mean, okay, so if you want to really make sure that city centers are clean, which is a fantastic thing to do. Yeah. How about plug in hybrids, which turn off when they enter the cities? Yeah, that song I mean, that that will go a long way. So again, there’s so many ways to look at this problem. I don’t think necessary bands is the only way forward.
Brandon Bartneck 32:44
Yeah, tender green, I was actually gonna said same thing that Yeah, that makes makes a lot of sense. Urban’s areas, I mean, you, all you’re doing is moving the, the emission someplace else. But it makes sense when you have a highly dense, densely populated area that you don’t want emissions in the area where a lot of people are. So I, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Ameya 33:03
Oh, no, no, exactly. That’s, and again, you know, we are finally still gonna be left with these other non tailpipe emissions, which we’ll have to take care of, etc. So I think it’s better to just look at the entire sector together and make policies which start reducing emissions as a whole. Right? And that would be probably the right thing to
Brandon Bartneck 33:24
Yeah, and I know you’re looking at a lot of second second segments. But let’s, I guess, start talking about onroad. I think a lot of I know that there’s a lot of talk, at least of kind of the big next admission being the Euro seven emission regulations that are being defined. Can you speak to kind of what, what that is meant to be? And what, at the current stage, because I know they’re struggling to find out what kind of the key implications are of what could be coming out there.
Ameya 33:52
Yeah, so euro seven is very interesting. I mean, obviously, there’s nothing formal yet this is still being discussed. But what we see as the main changes, clearly, there will be reductions for NOx, tailpipe limits, reductions in hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and all of these criteria pollutants will be what I know roughly a factor of 250 percent or so reduction, or couldn’t be even more. Now, remember that triangle six B, so the latest Chinese regulation that kicks in during grade three is already tighter than euro six. So in some ways, that sets the benchmark for Euro seven, right? Like they have to be at least that bite if not tighter. And so yeah, there is there’ll be that reducing those state by limits, but perhaps also very interestingly And surprisingly, that the particle number could further be reduced as well. So the current limit is 6 billion particles per kilometre 6211. And there are talks of reducing that further. And I say that’s surprising because you know, The when particle number limits were introduced those led to the adoption of filters and once you add a filter you typically you know reduce particulars you know 90% or more and and so that you’re already you know well below the limit and so it was not expected that there will be another tightening of that of those particular standards but anyway that’s that’s being discussed as well
Brandon Bartneck 35:24
how do you think I’ve done the technology impact so I guess I don’t know if you which of these you want to talk about but I tend to think of it as the I’m improving the efficiency of an internal combustion engine so that you’re turning energy more efficiently into some power output and then also cleaning up the after treatment system right so it’s cleaning up the emissions that are emitted so that they’re captured before they go into into the air? So what were the key technologies that you have on your radar?
Ameya 35:52
Um, yes, all of them all of them I mean, now we are reaching a point where we have to attack this problem from all directions right? I mean, we are truly reaching the so called zero impact emitting vehicles and and to do that it’s not trivial. So while these criteria pollutant regulations are happening, Euro seven there’s also the co2 regulations, right? And by 2030, this is like 55% reduction compared to 2019 baseline right? So that’s, that’s a big big reduction required this decade. Now, so a engines have to get more efficient, right? Right. Thermal efficiencies are improving every year, you know, we are about 40% now, but could be 45% pathways being shown to 50% beauty. So okay, engines are getting better, they will therefore convert the fuel more efficiently and emit less co2 and create your blooms on hybridization. very key, right. So not just full, but also mild and, and full and plug in.
Brandon Bartneck 36:53
Right, and also the system optimization that goes with that and controls
Ameya 36:57
to do the engine calibration, everything right gets improved, I mean, injectors, systems, injection systems, and COVID, everything that goes along with the turbo charging systems, error handling, and so on. So that that’s clearly you know, so when hybridization happened, that means that, you know, yes, you’re converting or extracting much more of the fuel energy. At the same time, it also means that the exhaust tends to get cooler, because while rejecting less heat into the exhaust, and so that means emissions control systems have to now have a, you know, even more important role to play. Yeah, I
Brandon Bartneck 37:34
guess could just I think a lot of people are following along. But for those who aren’t, can you talk to why that matters to the capitalist? And yeah, just captured?
Ameya 37:41
Absolutely. So I think that if there’s one problem that we are trying to solve today with catalytic systems is this cold start emissions, right. So what happens when when you turn on your car in the morning is that it’s cold overnight, and then you turn on the on the car catalyst, just cold emissions control systems, coal and engine as you know, engine out emissions are high. And then basically, the catalyst is doing nothing. So for the first minute or so, it’s emitting a lot of emissions and then the catalyst warms up because of the exhaust and then you have practically 100% conversion.
Brandon Bartneck 38:20
And we’re not just talking about winter right? So so cold is
Ameya 38:23
exactly even even though a hot summer day initially is the catalyst at room temperature. Most catalysts are not active till the ratio 200 to 5300 C, right? So there’s a lag between starting your car and reaching that temperature. That’s when so if you think about it, catalysts are incredibly efficient, I mean, if you if you do you know if you go for a 300 mile drive, all your emissions are going to be in that first few miles you know, or first minute or so and after that you’re emitting almost nothing. So it is that that cools the so called cold shot emission that we are trying to address and to various technologies, right, but so yeah, so coming back to the hybrids, that’s the problem now the exhaust gets cooler, you’re now making it even more harder for the emissions to warm up. But so yeah, that’s that’s the idea that you notions could also have to improve filtration efficiencies have to improve because if the particle number limits are getting tighter, we have to have better and better filters. And then also very importantly, the addition of components to the affreightment system or improved performance can cannot come with increased back pressure right. So they cannot add more fuel penalty. So when we are trying to make sure that the new technologies whatever they are, are not coming with the co2 penalty price, you just have to reduce. So again, so it’s a fairly complicated Oh, and then sorry, not to not do forget them. Perhaps one of the most important aspects is cost, right. You have to read the cost remains and so from emissions from You cannot keep adding precious metal, for example. So that’s the other aspect. How do we do it while reducing precious metal usage? and so on so many, many different angles to this problem.
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