Classifications of Hybrid Electric Vehicles Essay Example for Free

Classifications of Hybrid Electric Vehicles Essay 1. Technology Although the Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been around since the earliest days of automotive industry, they were not able to live up to consumer demand in terms of price range and charging time until recently. A recent survey has revealed what the consumer demands from EVs. According to a study based on a survey conducted in 17 countries with 13,000 individuals the demanded technology and the result of the study is that EV technology is at a period of its lifecycle where the performance of the technology is not at a level that customer expects. 1. 1. Range Although there is a high consumer willingness recently to either consider to purchase EV or willing to be a first mover when it comes to EV adoption, many of them does not compromise in Range. Despite the fact that the average consumer does not exceed 50 miles per day, the consumer still demands further range capacity from EVs. The majority of the consumers correlate EVs range with conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles [1]. Also According to Hidrue, M. (2010) â€Å"range anxiety† is the primary concern of a potential EV consumer. As the figure illustrates, although the greater majority (78%) of consumers in the US drives around 50 miles, a big portion of them have expectation for EV to be able to drive around 300 miles. The current technology allows EVs to drive between approximately 100 miles between charges. The only EV that can get close to consumer demand in terms of range is Tesla S (which drives 265 miles) as of 2013. However, the average technology does not live up to consumer demand in terms of drivable range between charges currently. The main constraint for the low range is energy density. According to Deploit (2011), the forecast was revealing that with the battery technology in hand the driving range still would fall short of consumer expectations. 1. 2 Top Speed and Acceleration There are multiple schools of thought about how consumer behavior affects EV market. According to those consumers would purchase new vehicles whose attributes are superior to those of currently in the market, they would not seek alternatives which are worse than what they have currently [4]. As an example Nissan Leaf is rated up to 90 kW of power which is approximately 120 horsepower in ICE which is in line with a large number of compact and intermediate vehicles such as CW Jetta, Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus. There are also better EVs in the market in terms of performance, in example Tesla S series can produce 416 horsepower and can go up to 130 mph on a highway [5]. The reason why EV generally does not go more than that is that high speeds drop the fuel efficiency dramatically. Table. 1 The performance chart of Tesla S [5] 2. Vehicle Architecture 3. 1. Vehicle Architecture. Although there are different frames that can model a vehicle’s architecture, the following one is a comprehensive way to understand the functions and interrelationships of the components. In order to adjust the high speed of the electric machine to the low speed wheels, the torque of the left and right wheels are provided by a differential. Basically, the inverter inverts DC voltage battery into three-phase AC voltage that is required by the electric machine. Furthermore, it is also important to account for losses due to the components, which are not a part of the power chain when analyzing the energy consumption. These auxiliary losses comprise lighting system, comfort system, safety systems, etc. It is also very critical that the maximum voltage of the battery is not exceeded during the regenerative braking, to prevent that from happening the architecture is reinforced by braking resistor [6]. Exhibit 1. Architecture of a typical Electric vehicle [6] 3. 1. System Architecture Electric Vehicle’s architecture is similar at certain points to ICE. Driver interface and command interpreter receives input from users through steering wheel, brakes, and gas pedal and then by considering vehicle speed and vehicle path, creates propulsion. The motion control comprises two primary blocks such as the path controller and energy management controller. Path controller gives forces and moments demands to the force distributor. The energy management controller determines the state of the charge and estimates the overall traction force to be sent to command controller unit [7]. Exhibit 2. System architecture[7] References [1] Deloitte (2011), Survey: Electric vehicle realities versus consumer expectations [2] Hidrue, M., (2010) Willingness to Pay for Electric Vehicles and their Attributes [3] Wikipedia, (2013) Plug-in electric cars in the United States: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States [4] Lee, H. , Lovellette, G. , (2011) Will Electric Cars transform the U. S. Vehicle Market. [5]Wikipedia, Tesla S (2013), http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S [6] Shaltz, E. , (2011), Electric Vehicle Design and Modeling. [7] Sinha, P. , Agrawal, V. , (2011), Evaluation of Electric Vehicle Architecture Alternatives.