Light Electric Vehicles

Summary form only given. The lecture deals with the recent activities carried out in the Laboratory of Industrial Automation of the University of Padova, Italy, in the field of electric propulsion systems for light vehicles. Two projects are illustrated. The first project has been completed and was concerning with an electric tilting 3-wheel vehicle. The project was aimed at showing the possibilities offered by the integration of novel mechanical and electrical technologies in the development of a vehicle for a sustainable urban mobility. The electric propulsion systems utilized advanced solutions for the traction, supply and driving systems. Indeed, the traction apparatus was endowed with wheel motors of brushless dc type, the supply equipment was constituted by a Lithium-ion battery with the relevant management system and the driving control was based on the by-wire approach. The vehicle retained the performance (i.e. acceleration, maximum speed, range) of a light internal-combustion engine vehicle with two or four wheels while exhibiting zero road emissions and superior maneuverability. The other project is in progress and is concerning with an electrically power assisted cycle. The project is aimed at demonstrating the capabilities of the modern electric energy sources for motive applications in increasing the range of the existing vehicles and speeding up the charging process. The supply equipment is built up on a fuel cell of PEM type fed by an hydrogen canister operating at low pressure, and on a pack of ultracapacitors utilized as peak load shaving devices.The traction system relies on a hub motor again of brushless dc type. For both the projects, the adopted technical solutions are discussed, the design of the electric propulsion system is illustrated, and the devices used for its arrangement are presented.