We were reading through the announcement of the Challenge Innovative Batteries for eVehicles. To our astonishment it appeared from the rules for the contest that the challenge is only open for manufacturers of batteries for electric cars.

We are completely in the dark as to the reason for not opening up this challenge for manufacturers of batteries for light, electric vehicles. There are still a lot of issues to be resolved in this field, whilst some light, electric vehicles prove to be much more popular and successful than electric cars. Last year, an estimated 3 million electric bicycles were sold. Nevertheless, the business is still looking into weight reduction, range increase, new materials as well as into making batteries more sustainable. All e-bike batteries are Lithium-Ion, which as you undoubtedly know, still causes some sustainability issues.

LEVs other than electric bicycles also still have battery issues. The uptake of E-mopeds and E-motorcycles for instance is hindered by the fact that, due to the battery, their price-level is not yet competitive with their ICE counterparts. Furthermore, a growing number of LEVs, such as e-scooters, are being deployed in sharing systems, a trend that creates new challenges for the batteries.

In view of all the above, we would like to learn from the EIC what the reasons are for limiting the Challenge Innovative Batteries to electric cars and for not including LEVs