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Hello everyone. Welcome to the online MOC course on electric vehicles. Let us discuss the next
topic under introduction to EV which is motor drive technologies.
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In order to appreciate the features of electric motor for EV application, let us first discuss the
principle of transmission of mechanical energy used in a typical IC engine based vehicle. IC
engine cannot operate in wide torque and speed regions on its own. Therefore, it requires the
support of clutch and multiple transmission gears to achieve multiple speed and multiple torque
profiles required in a vehicle application.
So when the clutch is engaged, the IC engine is coupled to the gear box and energy is transferred
from the IC engine to the wheels using gearbox. So when a different torque and speed
requirement needs to be delivered from IC engine, the clutch is disengaged and a different gear is
used to meet the requirement such that the required torque and speed is achieved at the wheels.
So a typical IC engine based vehicle uses multiple gear systems. So it can be around five gears
for a typical car and it is around 16 gears for a big trucks or buses.
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So this figure shows the force-speed characteristics of IC engine based vehicle which has five
gears means it can operate at five different speeds. So in first gear, the IC engine can deliver a
very high torque in the shaft and enable low speed operation. So this mode is required for
starting and acceleration. So when the vehicle is required to go at high speeds, the gear needs to
be changed such that high speed operation is possible but now the torque that is available on the
shaft is very low. So what does the gear do? So gear enables increase in speed together with
decrease in torque such that the power input from the IC engine remains constant.
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On the other hand, if we see the force-speed characteristics offered by an electric motor with
fixed gearing, it can be seen that an electric motor readily provides a high torque at starting and
also enables high speed operation at reduced torque. So this operation can be achieved without
the necessity of clutch or variable gears. Therefore, the battery electric vehicle does not require
the complex gearing and transmission systems required in an IC engine based vehicle. It also
enables smooth driving experience and the transmission efficiency of a BEV is higher compared
to an IC engine based vehicle.
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So summarizing what we have discussed now. So an IC engine based vehicle requires clutch,
multiple gears and a differential. On the other hand, the battery electric vehicle does not require
clutch and only fixed gears are used. This requirement is also absent in some of the recent
configurations. We will discuss that in our next interactions. It's also possible to remove
differential.
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So what are the design requirements of a typical EV motor? It can be thought that we can use the
on the shelf industrial motors for this application. But that is not true. A typical industrial motor
gives a maximum torque equal to twice the rated torque of the machine. But the maximum
torque requirement of an EV motor is four to five times the rated torque of the motor for starting,
hill climbing, overtaking, etc. Similarly, the maximum speed required in a industrial motor is
around two times the rated speed. While this requirement is very high in a EV application, it is
also around four to five times the rated speed for high speed highway cruising. The EV motor
has to be designed considering the vehicle driving profiles which means that it should have a
good efficiency map in wide range of speed operation. If possible, the motor has to be high
power density so that the total vehicle weight is less and it will enable extension of driving range.
Since the motors directly control the wheel, it is decided that they should have high
controllability and good steady-state and dynamic performance. EV motor also needs to operate
in harsh conditions such as high temperature, bad weather and frequent vibrations. Therefore,
there is a need to provide thermal and IP protection together with good suspension.
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So summarizing the points we discussed, an EV motor should be having high torque density and
high power density. It should operate in a very wide speed range that is low speed constant
torque region and high speed constant power region. It should be having a high efficiency in all
those regions. There is a requirement for high reliability and robustness. It should be less costly
for mass vehicles. If the electric motor is used for HEV application, it should also deliver high
efficiency during regenerative braking. It should maintain good voltage regulation in wide speed
generation. It should also be capable of being integrated with a IC engine.
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So what are the different types of EV motors used for electric vehicle applications? So these
motors are generally classified into two types, commutator motors and commutator-less motors.
So commutator motors have commutator in them while it is absent in commutator-less motors.
Typically, all DC motors are commutator motors. For control purpose, generally PM-excited,
separately excited DC motor is used since it offers high power density and it is smaller in size.
DC motors also provide very simple control since its construction offers orthogonal control of
the flux and torque. So PMDC motors are used for low rated two wheeler applications.
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So commutator-less motor offers high efficiency, high power density as well as maintenance free
operation. Therefore, these kind of motors are more preferred for EV applications. As all of you
know, the induction machine is widely preferred in industry because of its long life and
maintenance free operation. The highest efficiency of an induction machine ranges from 85% to
91%. This kind of efficiency can be achieved if rotor copper bars are used in cage rotor motors.
So this kind of technology was used in early Tesla car models. On the other side, wound rotor
induction machine although has higher weight compared to cage rotors, it does offer high power
density at higher speeds with complex control. So this configuration is also picking up slowly in
the research domain.
The most widely used motor in EV application is synchronous machine. Out of the different
types of synchronous machine, the PM rotor type of synchronous machine is preferred for EV
applications since it offers high torque density, high power density, and high efficiency which is
the highest among all these motors. Brushless DC machine is very popular in two and three
wheeler domain. The operation is very simple, similar to a DC machine. It is also known as
commutator-less DC machine. Surface mounted permanent magnet synchronous machine is used
at power rating greater than 15 kilowatt. So in these type of motors, the stator is similar to the
one used in induction machine but the rotor is fitted with permanent magnets. So permanent
magnets are rare earth magnets pasted on the surface of the rotor such that it offers
characteristics very similar to cylindrical rotor synchronous machine without any saliency.
So BLDC motors are used upto typical power rating of 15 kilowatt and above that, surface
mounted PMSM is preferred. These two motors are very similar. The difference is in terms of the
back-emf wave form. In a BLDC, the back-emf waveform is trapezoidal in nature while it is
sinusoidal in a surface mounted PMSM.
There is a another variety of motor which is called interior permanent magnet synchronous
machine. In these motors, the permanent magnets are embedded within the surface of the rotor
such that not only the electromagnetic torque is available in these machines but it also offers
reluctance torque which is very handy especially in high speed operation or popularly known as
deep flux weakening region. Another motor which is upcoming in EV domain is synchronous
reluctance motors. So in this motor, the torque is achieved only by reluctance phenomena. There
is no electromagnetic torque and no PM is used. It is very simpler in construction. The only
disadvantage is; it is not able to get high power for its value. There is another type of motor
which is called doubly-salient motors which is upcoming in EV domain. So as you can note the
saliency is inbuilt both in stator as well as rotor.
There is a machine known as Switched Reluctance Machine which falls under this category. This
is a type of motor derived from reluctance machine. The construction of this machine is very
simple but the design of this machines is complex and the control of this machine is also
complex. This machine has disadvantage of high noise but slowly this machine is picking up and
maybe available for EV applications in the near future.
There is a machine known as stator PM type, doubly salient machine where the PM is embedded
in the stator saliency where the rotor is salient structure without any PM. So these machines offer
very simple rotor construction and this kind of machine is upcoming in EV application. So this is
known as doubly salient PM machines. There is another configuration where a field winding is
also embedded in stator in addition to PM such that we both have a constant flux and a variable
flux operation possible from the stator side. This feature enables a good EV vehicle performance
and this is an upcoming motor popularly known as FC-DSPM. The machine design for EV
application is a very challenging area and lot of industries and academic circles are working on
this side, such that this kind of very high demanding EV motors can be developed which can
deliver the performance required to make this a successful area.
So this is the end of the topic motor drive technologies. We will start discussion on our next
topic which is energy source technologies used in EV applications in our next interaction. So
thank you for listening.