LONGLIFE and SECONDLIFE: two concepts, one goal
RELiVE Consortium
At the heart of RELiVE are two vehicle concepts that attack the same problem (the cost and waste of today's electric powertrains) from opposite ends. Understanding how they complement each other is the best way to understand the project.
LONGLIFE: built to keep going
The LONGLIFE concept targets vehicles with a heavily extended lifetime for intensive use: taxis, delivery fleets and mobility services, where vehicles accumulate mileage several times faster than private cars.
Four innovation streams make this possible: new materials selected for extended lifetime, modularity and repairability designed into the battery and e-motor, continuous monitoring and control of the e-motor and storage system, and smart maintenance that intervenes before degradation becomes failure. The aim is simple: improve the cost-effectiveness of the vehicle by increasing the kilometres it can deliver.
SECONDLIFE: value from a first life
The SECONDLIFE concept builds a reliable, low-cost vehicle around a powertrain assembled from components that have already served: reused rare earth magnets, a refurbished e-motor and storage system, and remanufactured bearings.
Because trust is everything when components have a history, SECONDLIFE leans on two enablers: a Digital Product Passport that documents each component across its lifecycle, and smart maintenance informed by real state-of-health data. The aim mirrors LONGLIFE's: improve cost-effectiveness, this time by decreasing the cost of the vehicle while keeping a reasonable remaining lifetime.
Why both, together
The two concepts share the same building blocks (modular design, health monitoring, smart maintenance) and feed each other: the longer first lives that LONGLIFE enables produce healthier components, and SECONDLIFE turns those components into affordable new powertrains. One loop, two entry points, and a common set of targets: +50% powertrain lifetime, −27% total cost of ownership and −50% critical raw materials per kilometre across the project.