Electric and hybrid vehicles

Abstract

The following chapter will introduce the reader in the main characteristics of electric and hybrid vehicles. These vehicles are propelled by electric motors, sometimes in combination with combustion engines, and draw their power from onboard energy sources. Pure electric vehicles appear to have advantages over the internal combustion engine vehicles. They do not release pollutants at their point of use, they are quiet, the infrastructure needed for their implementation can be achieved using the existing one, the electric motors exhibit high efficiency performance and they can recover the kinetic energy by means of regenerative braking. On the other hand, limited range and charging times present mayor disadvantages for these vehicles users. This chapter will focus on the physic laws acting in these road vehicles, on the different vehicle configurations, remarking pure electric vehicle and series hybrid vehicle configurations and the subsystems that integrate them. Finally battery management systems, several computer based simulations, design examples and future trends are presented and described.