Abstract. Modern electric automobiles tend to have greater battery capacities. Battery packs with an average capacity of 16-22 kWh were used at the initial stage of manufacturing serial electric vehicles. A number of new models of electric vehicles are equipped with batteries, the capacity of which exceeds 30 kWh, which can result in a significant increase in the basic weight of the electric vehicle. Any increase in the weight can lead to an increase in energy consumption per km travelled. The present research developed a methodology for determining the range and dynamic parameters of electric vehicles depending on changes in the basic weight of the vehicles. The present research also calculated the effect of changes in the weight for various serial electric automobiles.Keywords: battery weight, electric automobile range, battery capacity, energy consumption, electric automobile dynamics. IntroductionDue to the need to reduce CO 2 emissions, the EU's climate protection programmes introduce support for alternative energy vehicles and related infrastructure. Electric automobiles are one of the kinds of alternative energy vehicles. Even though the first electric automobiles emerged along with internal combustion vehicles, i.e. more than 110 years ago, the electric automobiles have not become popular. The key reason that prevented electric automobiles from being broadly introduced was their heavy batteries and the relatively limited autonomy per charge. The reason of their relatively limited autonomy was the relatively low density of energy stored in the batteries, compared with the amount of energy available in liquid fuel. Electric automobiles were referred to many times during the evolution of auto transport, yet they were usually manufactured in small experimental series and were mainly custom-made.First hybrid technology automobiles were introduced at the beginning of the 21 st century, and later electric automobiles appeared as well. However, the key disadvantage of electric automobiles, just like it was 110 years ago, was the relatively heavy battery packs that did not allow considerably increasing the travel range of the electric automobiles. A lot of funds were invested in the fields of science related to the development of battery technologies for electric automobiles; however, at present, no very light and cheap batteries that, in terms of the weight and energy capacity, are equivalent to the fuel tank of internal combustion automobiles have been designed. For this reason, the buyers of electric automobiles need to choose the automobiles meeting the necessary operational conditions, one of which is the travel range per charge. An essential aspect in purchasing an electric automobile is the price of it [1].Research on the effects of the weight of batteries of an electric automobile and of the total weight of the electric automobile on its performance parameters is very urgent. In designing a greater capacity fuel tank for an internal combustion engine automobile, auto manufacturers only risk decreasing the...
When converting an internal combustion vehicle to electric power, it is important to choose the right transmission gear ratio to ensure optimum performance of the vehicle. A converted automobile is usually equipped with a standard transmission gearbox, while the motor control block is programmed for one particular gear. During the operation of an electric automobile, the gears could be shifted, when the automobile is stopped, as the clutch is not used by the electric automobile. In choosing a gear ratio, a priority could be to ensure good dynamic performance or high speed achievement. However, one of the most important parameters is energy consumption and the distance covered per charge. After identifying the optimum gear ratio or the gear to be used, the unused gears of the transmission gearbox of the converted vehicle could be dismantled, thereby reducing the weight of the vehicle and increasing the transmission gear ratio. A converted Renault Clio with a 96 V battery system and a standard 5-speed transmission gearbox was road tested. The experimental dataspeed, change in voltage and current, battery temperature and measurement time were recorded by a multichannel data logger. The road tests were carried out at constant speeds-50 and 90 km•h-1. The road tests showed that energy consumption by the electric automobile in the fourth gear at 50 km•h-1 was the lowest, consuming a power of 5.86 kW, while in the fourth gear at 90 km•h-1 it consumed 15.43 kW.
As the use of fossil energy sources in transport declines, new technologies, e.g., electric vehicles, are being introduced. One of the advantages of electric vehicles in urban driving is the possibility to charge their batteries with regenerative energy during braking. For this reason, electric cars usually have a longer range per charge in urban driving than in non-urban driving. This research experimentally examined the regenerative braking of a converted Renault Clio electric car at different regenerative braking settings in the range of 0–100%. An original research methodology was developed for road tests in urban driving. The driving cycle included aggressive driving with rapid acceleration and braking. The road test was conducted in second and third gears, which are the usual gears for driving an electric car in a city. The highest regenerative braking efficiencies were achieved at a 100% setting, which in some replications reached 24% of the total electrical energy consumed; however, the 100% setting was too high from the perspective of comfortable driving of the electric car and contributed to a too significant increase in the braking force at the initial stages of braking.
In the last decade, alternative energy is being used in various vehicles due to the depletion of fossil energy resources. One of the kinds of alternative energy is electricity. Electric drive can be used in land vehicles, aircraft and watercraft. To identify the possibility of using electric watercraft and the technical parameters, an experiment was conducted in real navigation conditions in the territory of Jelgava city on the Driksa canal on a 1.62 km long route. The experiment used a data logger to take measurements of parameters of the motor and the solar cell, as well as of solar intensity. The experiment was done with a rebuilt pedal-powered catamaran equipped with a 445 W solar panel, a 40 Ah lithium-ion battery and a Minn Kota Endura C2 34 electric motor. The experimental data were processed to identify the power and energy generated and consumed parameters for the electric motor, the solar panel and the battery of the watercraft. On the day of the experiment at a solar intensity of 500-600 W·m-2, the catamaran could cover an unlimited distance at power settings 3 to 5 at a speed of 2.73 km h-1 to 3.79 km h-1. At power setting 5, the electric motor consumed a power input of 320-330 W – a power output generated by the solar cell in sunny weather. If the battery is discharged, the solar cell charges it when the watercraft is anchored in the port, as well as when moving in case the solar cell generates more energy than the motor consumes at a particular power setting. According to the results of the experiment, low-speed electric-drive watercraft equipped with solar cells can be operated without additional battery charging at all power settings at geographical latitudes up to 57° and solar altitudes up to 35°-56°.
Since the world's energy resources decrease, it is necessary to seek for opportunities to use renewable energy sources. One of the renewable sources is solar energy. During the last decade, solar energy was used by stationary installations for electricity generation, yet the use of solar energy by mobile installations is limited due to the size of solar photovoltaic panels. Modern vehicles typically use low-power solar panels to charge their batteries and power low-power electric devices. The present research used a plastic hull boat equipped with a standard electric motor Minn Kota Endura 30 and a 330W 36 V photovoltaic panel. Two experiments were conducted on the boat. During the pilot experiment, a distance of 41.5 km was covered by the boat equipped with a 5 Ah battery and a solar panel in 8.5 hours. The experiment was conducted on the Lielupe River upstream and downstream, seeking to reach the highest speed at different solar intensities in the month of August. The second experiment was conducted in September on a circular route in standing water, operating the boat at 5 different speed settings with average motor current consumption ranging from 7.3 to 21.86 A. The experiment identified the battery's charging and discharging current and voltage, and the motor's current and voltage at all the speed settings. The experiments showed that on a sunny day in the conditions in Latvia, the boat equipped with a stationary 330W solar photovoltaic panel can reach a maximum speed of up to 6 kmh -1 without using the battery. The efficiency of the solar panel was significantly affected by the direction of the boat's movement, which affected the angle of solar radiation and therefore the efficiency of the solar panel. To improve the efficiency of the solar panel, it is necessary to design a solar panel angle adjustment device that should be controlled automatically. Such a device is planned to be developed at the next stages of the research.
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