My name is Marjan van Aubel...
...and I'm a solar designer.
What if I told you...
...that you can greatly impact how sustainable an electric vehicle really is?
Let me explain.
Imagine two lightbulbs.
Both are turned off.
The lightbulbs are identical.
They're equally efficient.
Made of the same materials...
...and both run on electricity.
But when we switch the lights on...
...the bulbs are fundamentally different.
One is green...
...and will remain green, no matter how long we leave it on.
The other one isn't.
It leaves an increasing carbon footprint...
...with every second it burns.
The difference is not the bulb itself...
...but the way we power it.
This seems obvious at first.
However, it's something we tend to forget...
...when we create new technologies...
...that use batteries, like electric cars.
You see, the battery in your car is not the source of the energy.
It's just a tool to temporarily store it.
The energy in the battery might be green...
...or not at all.
It all comes down to how you charge your car.
I believe design contributes towards a more sustainable world.
And with my work I do that by capturing the power of the sun.
We generally think of solar cells as these technical, unappealing blue panels.
I think they're both fascinating and beautiful.
I create objects that don't hide their solar cells...
...but make them a part of their aesthetics.
And I believe by doing so it becomes easier for us...
...to integrate sustainable solutions into our daily lives.
And there's still a lot of integration to be done.
Solar energy only accounts for a small percentage...
...of the electricity in the European grid.
And just 34% of the energy we use...
...comes from renewable resources.
So every time you charge your car from the grid...
...only a small percentage of its fuel is actually green.
Driving this car means you're mostly using energy from fossil fuels to do so.
So how do we deal with that?
Together we're expanding the possibilities of generating energy...
...from wind, water, and sunlight.
And designers are coming up with completely new ideas too:
We're finding ways to harvest energy from temperature differences in the ocean.
And ways to create electricity from rain...
...by making the raindrops fall onto a special surface that can capture the kinetic energy.
We're coming up with new ways to store green energy...
...by building levitating flywheels that can spin around, without losing their energy.
All these ideas are incredibly strong examples of what nature can provide us with.
They're proof that we're well on the way to creating a fully renewable energy grid...
...and truly sustainable electric driving.