Energy investigation in electric vehicles

• Main Author: Say, Kin Hian.
• Other Authors: Luo Fang Lin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50976
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

HEVs/ EV are seen as alternatives to conventional vehicles (CVs), by employing electric energy as one of the traction energy sources. The main idea is to compare HEV with tradition CV, and identify possible ways and sources to improve fuel consumption rate and efficiencies of the proposed HEV. Currently there are still limitations with HEV/EV due to limited power discharge of the batteries. This report also look into possible ways of improving the efficiencies of the HEV/EV by comparing the different batteries sources and the discussion of the how improvement in technology has lead the change in type of traction batteries implemented in commercial HEV/EVs. The limitation in ESS using traction batteries has led to the exploration with Hybrid ESS, by combining another source of energy storage to be used in conjunction with the batteries. Various type of HESS is also discussed in details. The recent advancement in ultra-capacitor technology has enabled them to be applicable in high power energy storage system for electric and hybrid electric vehicular power trains. When HESS are integrated with batteries, eg in a hybrid energy storage system, it is possible to yield higher instantaneous charge and discharge rate while at the same time reducing the size of batteries. Thus life cycle of batteries can also be improved. Therefore, HESS such as ultra-capacitor is of significance importance to Electric vehicles, which will be discussed in-depth. Besides researching on how to improve the HEV/EVs, there is also detailed discussion on various type of alternatives fuels which could serve as an alternatives to replace petroleum fuels in the future.