The future of battery electric vehicles (BEV) depends on numerous factors. These range from electricity generation to customer acceptance. In the ``e performance'' pro-ject funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) the focus lies on the technical challenges facing engineers developing the next generation of BEVs. One of the biggest concerns regarding the range of BEVs is how to deal with the lack of waste heat compared to that of an internal combustion engine (ICE), but there are also other issues in the area of thermal management that needs to be re-evaluated for BEVs. This paper will give a short introduction of the difficulties at hand and present the approach chosen in the ``e performance'' project.     «

The future of battery electric vehicles (BEV) depends on numerous factors. These range from electricity generation to customer acceptance. In the ``e performance'' pro-ject funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) the focus lies on the technical challenges facing engineers developing the next generation of BEVs. One of the biggest concerns regarding the range of BEVs is how to deal with the lack of waste heat compared to that of an internal combustion engine (ICE),...     »