PREDICTING THE ENERGY USE OF A SOLAR-ELECTRIC COMMUTER CAR

The University of South Australia is developing a low-mass, energy-efficient, solar-electric commuter car that can be powered entirely by non-polluting renewable energy. To predict the energy that will be used by the solar-electric commuter car we need to know how the car is likely to be driven. Instantaneous power use will depend on speed, acceleration and gradient, and on the efficiency of the drive system. The energy required to recharge the car will also depend on the efficiency of the battery. The Transport Systems Centre at the University of South Australia has instrumented an electric car and collected GPS data during urban driving. The authors use this data to calculate the proportion of time the car spent in each state. This new data can be used to model the performance of the car, and to predict the performance of the proposed solar-electric commuter car. The energy required to run the proposed commuter car will be about 1/5 of the energy required to run a conventional car. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E210528.