The Development of an Electric Highbrid Vehicle with Range Extender

Abstract

Electric vehicles have been in operation for more than a century and were invented about fifty-two years before the conventional combustion engine automobiles. EVs originated from Asia, Europe, and the U.S.A. Although more efficient, the vehicles are yet to find widespread applications due to their expensive nature and poor technology in some regions. Electric cars are categorized into pure Battery (BEV) or Plug-in hybrid (PHEVs) electric vehicles depending on their mode of power. BEVs purely run on battery power, while PHEVs have a battery and an auxiliary combustion engine that powers the automobile as the batteries recharge. Although electric vehicles are a significant concern of everyone today, we cannot rely on electric cars to last for a long trip. Many automobile companies have been working on ways to improve fuel consumption or even ending the use of fuel. Auto stop-start is a new way that many car makers have been using that helps reduces the fuel consumption.

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As a group, our focus is to design a hybrid electric vehicle that will handle long range trips but also minimize emissions drastically. For the past couple of years, we have seen the auto- stop-start option in cars that does reduce fuel consumption in the range of 3-10 percent. We will equip our prototype with another technology that will drastically lower the fuel consumption by at least 30 percent. Electric drive assist is a feature that will use an electric motor to get the vehicle to a speed of 50 km/h from rest then switch to the combustion engine on to take over. Frequent stopping and moving vehicles use up more gas due to the weight of the car and accelerating the vehicle to optimal city speeds. Our new feature will eliminate the substantial fuel consumption used by accelerating the vehicle to the optimal speed by using electric motors that will accelerate the vehicle. By doing so, fuel consumption will be minimized this yields better fuel consumption and very low emissions. Our project will have three different driving modes (gas and electric) or electric drive assist.

The consumer will have the ability to choose to drive the vehicle fully electric mode, normal mode, or electric drive assist mode with a press of a button. The project aimed at designing and fabricating a modified electric-train driven a pair of 48V/1800 W brushless motors with speed rating of 4800 RPM and eight lead-acid accumulators connected in series to produce the input voltage required by the engines, along with an 80cc IC motor that will charge and drive the vehicle. To ensure a more extended range of operating a portable charger will be made to load the system and extend the field by at least 10 km. The portable charger will be light and sufficient to ensure that the consumer will not be stranded in case of fuel outage or battery drainage.

Executive SummaryAs a group of engineers, we have decided to build an electric vehicle prototype with battery life extender to ensure a longer mileage on electric vehicles. We have picked to work with a go-kart due to its simple chassis design and lightweight. As a group, we have researched many ways to increase the battery life of an electric vehicle. As a result, we thought of many ways that would help us achieve that. From the list of ideas, we could increase we picked the cheapest and reliable techniques. We chose to use solar power and also a hybrid system to recharge the batteries. We will be using solar panels along-side a 50cc gas powered motor that would be used to run an alternator in which it will restore the batteries when needed.

The primary objective of the project was to design and construct a range extender which functions to increase the mileage range of electric cars by at least 30 to 40 percent. The hybrid system will ensure that the vehicle can charge even when there are no charging stations available. This prototype will utilize a solar panel, a battery pack, two electric motors and engine and alternator set as the main components. The essential element that sets this project apart is the electric drive train which allows the car to accelerate from rest to 50km per hour using electric motors after which the driver can opt to switch to either solar power or power from the ICE to propel the vehicle with a simple push of a button. The new product increased the range of an electric car by 35% and also significantly reduced pollutant emissions as the internal combustion engine only comes into play when the vehicle has already attained an equilibrium propulsion speed, and thus its power demands have been considerably reduced.

First, different components of the electric hybrid vehicle (a Go-kart) were designed independently. Group members suggested and integrated designs. Possible sketches were then created, and deliberations regarding the proposed functionality of the mechanisms and the overall electric vehicle were made.

After the designs had been created, we constructed and tested some of the modules both exclusively and in combination with other components as well. Initial prototypes of these modules consisted of the use of four batteries. However, the final design incorporated eight cells for satisfactory results.

Introduction

In recent years, oil consumption by the automobile industry has considerably increased. According to a statistical report, Iraq hosts the largest oil reserves (official Iraqi oil reserves) in the world and considering the current oil consumption rate, and it can only serve us until 2065. The majority of vehicles use internal combustion engines (ICE) for propulsion. The transport industry has a crucial role to play in the daily human activities. Besides high oil consumption by vehicles, automobile emissions resulting from the burning of petroleum products is a major environmental pollutant necessitating a need for reduction of use of oil products in the transport industry. The automobile industry has in recent years shown sincere efforts to reduce oil consumption and consequently reduce atmospheric pollution. Most companies in the automobile manufacturing industry have adopted the development of electric vehicles (EV) (battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV) and fuel cell powered cars) as part of their efforts to reduce fuel consumption and atmospheric pollution. Since battery power propels electric cars, they produce no environmentally harmful emissions. Electric cars also have the advantage of generating less acoustic noises than cars using ICE. However, EVs are faced with the disadvantage of having a shorter mileage range. To minimize the effects of this disadvantage, most automobile manufacturers are shifting towards the development of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). Hybrid electric cars integrate multiple energy sources for their propulsion. Adding more sources of energy to an electric car can increase the distance covered by EVs and also produces less unwanted emissions compared to conventional cars which utilize ICE as their only source of energy for propulsion.

Objectives of the Capstone Project

The primary aim of this project was to develop a hybrid range extended prototype of a go-kart using a drive train and an additional solar power source that recharges the battery pack of the hybrid system. The drivetrain was incorporated to allow the vehicle to accelerate on electric motor power up to 50 miles per hour before switching on the internal combustion engine. Overall all these components were integrated to reduce the fuel consumption rate of the go-kart and consequently save the world's oil reserves as well as protecting the global environment from pollutants that could lead to climate change, acid rain, global warming as well as environment-related health conditions.

Project Motivation

Combustion is a process involving several exothermic reactions resulting from burning fuel containing oxidants. Combustion produces a lot of heat energy. Vehicles which use ICE for propulsion combust oil (gasoline or diesel) in the presence of air releasing heat energy that is used for propulsion of the automobile. By-products resulting from this combustion include carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) together with other particulates that contribute to pollution of the atmosphere. According to estimates, about 32% of the total oil consumed in the world goes to the transport sector. Most of this fuel is consumed by conventional vehicles using ICE for propulsion. Additionally, ICEs also pose a significant problem for our environment.

With regards to this scenario, electric vehicles seem to be the only viable option to reduce fuel consumption and environmental pollution. Electric cars utilize high energy battery packs for energy production. Battery power emits zero environmental pollutants and has been dubbed zero-emission vehicles. However, the top energy battery packs have limited energy capacity and are thus incapable of supplying the car with enough energy for long distance travels. To circumvent this challenge of electric cars, hybrid vehicles have been created to increase the mileage; however, this compromises some of the advantages of EVs.

Electric Vehicles

Engineers have put a lot of effort towards increasing the fuel efficiency of hybrid vehicles and to minimize their effects on the environment as compared to conventional cars. To overcome the challenges faced by electric cars and ICE powered vehicles, it is of the essence to develop appropriate range extenders to increase the mileage of a hybrid vehicle without increasing the number of battery packs used.

In this project, we design and construct a prototype of a hybrid electric vehicle (Go-Kart) that includes a battery life extender to ensure more extended range. Sizing of all design components, battery charger and battery charging control algorithm has been appropriately modeled i...