According to the Global EV Outlook 2024, in the first quarter of 2024, electric car sales saw an increase of approximately 25% compared to the same period in 2023 and it is predicted to see 17 million in sales by the end of 2024. EVs and hybrid vehicles (HEVs) are among the most talked-about new vehicle models.

While both options present fascinating alternatives to the traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) model cars, they also have distinct differences that potential buyers should understand before making their choice between Electric, Hybrid, or ICE. 

Traditional ICE vehicles rely solely on engines powered by petrol or diesel and have been the standard for over a century, with familiarity, widespread availability, and well-established refueling infrastructure – from the network of service stations to more recent ‘fuel-delivery’ innovations like Cafu. The European Environment Agency confirms that while ICE vehicles generally offer long-range and quick refueling times, they produce higher emissions than EVs and HEVs.

Hybrid Vehicles (HEVs)

Hybrid vehicles (HEVs) combine an ICE model with an electric motor, which supports the engine in moving the car forward to deliver improved fuel efficiency. Traditional hybrids do not need to be plugged in to recharge them. Instead, it charges itself through regenerative braking and the internal combustion engine. So, while HEVs still use petrol, they use far less of it, making them a greener option. Hybrids also offer the flexibility of using petrol for longer trips while benefiting from electric power for shorter urban commutes. 

Plug-In Hybrids (PHEVs)

Plug-In Hybrids are a step up from traditional hybrids. They work similarly, combining an engine with an electric motor. However, they have larger batteries that you can charge by plugging them in. This means they can run on electricity alone for short trips, and then switch to petrol for longer journeys, giving you the best of both worlds.

Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Electric Vehicles run entirely on electric motor and have zero tailpipe emissions, making them the most environment-friendly or sustainable form of driving. One of the most common fears about EVs is ‘range anxiety’ - the worry that the battery will run out of charge before reaching a destination. Fortunately, today’s EVs provide a substantial range per charge, with many models capable of travelling over 300 km on a single charge. Also helping to reduce that anxiety is the fact that across the Arabian Gulf, governments and the private sector are working together to increase the network of charging stations - making it easier than ever to find a point to recharge, whether at home, at work, or on the go. 

Both EV and HEV batteries are designed to last for years, often exceeding the vehicle's lifespan – with many manufacturers offering 8-year battery warranties for increased peace of mind. Advancements in battery technology also drive down replacement costs, making long-term ownership more affordable.

Tips for choosing the right vehicle:

·        Assess Your Driving Habits Consider your daily commute and long-distance travel needs. EVs are great for urban driving and short trips, while hybrids offer flexibility for longer journeys.

·        Evaluate Charging Infrastructure Check the availability of charging stations in your area and whether you can access a home charger or recharge while you’re at work. 

·        Consider Maintenance Costs While EVs generally require less maintenance, hybrids might offer lower overall fuel costs compared to ICE vehicles.

·        Test Drive Take the time to test drive different models of ICE, electric, and hybrid vehicles. Pay attention to how each vehicle handles, accelerates, and the overall driving experience to see which one suits you best.

·        Long-Term Costs Factor in potential savings from EVs in terms of total cost of ownership, thanks to lower fuel costs, decreased maintenance, and other incentives for electric and hybrid vehicles.

This article was written by Marco Melani, managing director at Al-Futtaim Automotive – Trading Enterprises and DOMASCO. It has been slightly modified by the editors of Technical Review Middle East for brevity.

MBZUAI is exploring various ways in which hardware-software co-design can reduce the energy consumption of artificial intelligence.

AI has huge potential to reduce waste and enhance efficiency across many sectors, including power and water distribution. While these topics are under the spotlight at the World Future Energy Summit, they are likely to be partly overshadowed by concerns about the enormous energy demands of AI systems.

But as well as consuming energy, AI-driven solutions could hold the key to resolving one of the most fundamental questions of our age – how can we keep developing and utilising powerful AI models while still moving towards carbon-free, sustainable economies?

Research currently being undertaken at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) takes a multi-pronged approach toward this challenge.

Hardware specialisation

One area of focus is Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Traditional computing architectures such as CPUs are not always the most efficient for AI tasks, so GPUs and TPUs have emerged as specialised tools designed specifically for the parallel processing requirements of AI. These architectures are the building blocks of AI, with tens of thousands at work in data centres right now, and many more required for the new generation of data centres currently in development. To continue fueling the AI revolution, all these devices must conserve and limit energy usage, increasing processor performance with the minimal number of Joules possible.

Hardware specialisation holds the key. By manufacturing specialised AI hardware pipelines such as in GPUs or TPUs to be energy efficient, it will be possible to increase the energy efficiency of data centres at scale, even as they manage an ever-growing volume and complexity of calculations. The aim is to develop individual components in a co-designed way, so that energy consumption is reduced at the hardware level without impacting software performance.

Reliability and sustainability

As transistors continue to scale and become smaller, an important consideration is to ensure their reliability in the face of errors. Errors in hardware have been a thorn in the side of large-scale data centre companies such as Google and Meta . Yet building reliable processors can not only address energy efficiency but can further help build a sustainable future. The longer a manufactured processor can be utilised in a data centre (i.e., because of its reliability), the lower its carbon footprint due to the huge upfront cost of building these processors.

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) offer another alternative, allowing for customisable hardware solutions tailored to specific AI tasks. By enabling developers to optimise circuits for applications, FPGAs can significantly reduce energy consumption while maintaining high performance.

Reducing waste

In parallel, MBZUAI is looking at ways to reduce waste and deploy resources more efficiently in the upper layers, building sustainability in the development and application of AI models. System software used for large language models, both training (to build the models) and inference (to use them), needs to work closely with the hardware design to achieve better energy efficiency.

Two lines in the current systems research done by MBZUAI researchers to this end strive toward AI sustainability. One is to improve the distributed model training through aggressive overlapping operators using heterogeneous resources within a GPU server, such as compute-intensive matrix multiplication ones with network-intensive communication ones. This way, we improve both overall performance and resource utilisation.

The other is to reduce the amount of computation in inference. Potential solutions in this direction examine efficient and scalable deployment of smaller, specialised models, as well as caching for model inference, where responses (or intermediate inference results leading to them) can be cached and reused in processing similar prompts.

This piece was authored by Xiaosong Ma, acting department chair and professor of computer science at MBZUAI, and Abdulrahman Mahmoud, assistant professor of computer science at MBZUAI. It has been edited for brevity. 

The Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City project in Kuwait's Al Khiran region is an engineering marvel. Unlike typical artificial developments in the Gulf that rely on land reclamation, this ambitious endeavour carved approximately 300 km of canals directly into the desert and filled them with seawater.

With a projected construction timeline of 46 years divided into ten phases, the project aims to create a city for 250,000 residents. Upon completion, it will include a comprehensive infrastructure network, utilities, and luxury buildings.

A major challenge for such a project is constructing stable structures on desert sand. Dynamic soil compaction has proven to be an effective solution for stabilising loose, non-cohesive desert soils. This method increases soil density and reduces the risk of liquefaction during earthquakes, making it ideal for desert conditions, according to Steffen Fuchsa, head of duty-cycle crane division at BAUER Maschinen GmbH.

How it works

Dynamic compaction involves dropping 25-tonne steel plates, called pounders, from a duty-cycle crane to compact the soil. These plates are hoisted into the air and dropped in controlled free-fall up to 15 times, creating craters and compacting deeper soil layers through kinetic energy. The process is fully automated, with operators inputting target parameters like compaction levels and impact counts into the crane’s intelligent control system.

After the first phase of crater formation, the gaps between the craters are compacted in a second phase to ensure uniform soil stability. The craters are then backfilled and further compacted, creating a load-bearing surface ready for construction.

“In their basic design, our duty-cycle cranes are extremely stable and robust specialist foundation engineering equipment designed for high dynamic loads,” said Fuchsa. This is clear to see in the solid steel construction components of the upper and undercarriages as well as the boom. On the other hand, highly robust and powerful diesel engines are built into Bauer’s MC duty-cycle cranes. The coordinated hydraulic system transfers this power to the hoists. “This alone makes Bauer’s duty-cycle cranes the optimal equipment for dynamic soil compaction.”

^{On the project in Kuwait, six BAUER MC 96 duty-cycle cranes are currently in use.}

Dynamic soil compaction presents significant challenges for specialist foundation engineering equipment, particularly in projects of this scale and environment. In Kuwait, the sheer size of the area requiring compaction, coupled with tight project deadlines, necessitates 24/7 equipment operation. The desert environment adds further complications: extreme heat demands constant cooling to prevent equipment overheating, and pervasive sand poses a threat to machinery. To address these issues, protective measures, such as reinforced sealing and cooler guards, have been installed on the duty-cycle cranes to ensure reliable performance under harsh conditions.

“One of the major challenges when executing this method is to always roll the rope perfectly up and down into the groove of the hoist, otherwise there is excessive wear on the rope, which causes high costs for the operator,” said Fuchsa. “Bauer has developed and in some cases even patented several smart solutions for this problem which are unique features of the MC series. The active rope tightening system and the winding assistant should be mentioned here, they make the difference in daily operation compared to competing products.”