GOVERNMENT POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE KALAMASSERY

DEPARTMENT OF AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING

ELECTRIC AND HYBRID VEHICLES
Module 2: Questions and answers

Module contents:
Design requirement for electric vehicles- Range, maximum velocity, acceleration, power
requirement, mass of the vehicle. Various Resistances, Performance of electric vehicles-
acceleration, coasting, moving up and down a hill. Tractive Effort and Transmission
Requirement, Transmission efficiency, energy consumption.

Motor drive Technologies: Electric propulsion unit - Classification of EV Motors,

Configuration and control of DC Motor drives, Induction Motor drives, Permanent
Magnet Motor drives, Switched reluctance motor dives.
1 Design requirements for electric vehicles

Range: distance a vehicle can travel on one full charge. It is a crucial factor for buyers to
consider while buying a new EV.
maximum velocity: Maximum speed an electric vehicle can achieve
acceleration: The time taken by an electric vehicle to reach a specific speed usually
measured from 0-40 kmph, reflecting its power and responsiveness.
power requirement: Power required to achieve the performance
mass of the vehicle: composite mass of the vehicle including passengers and goods

Design Hint
• How much power is required to drive a vehicle
• How much energy is required to carry out the road trip
An Electric Vehicle contains 3 main parts . (1) Energy Source. (2) Power Converter. (3)
Traction Motor. The energy sources consist of Rechargeable batteries, ultra capacitors
and fuel cell. The electronic controller controls the flow of power from energy source to
traction motors. The power converter adjusts the voltage according to the load demand.
Li-Ion battery is better preferred as energy source because of long life and high energy
density but it is not economically feasible.
The vehicle dynamics are studied first and the values of tractive force, Motor Torque and
Motor angular speed is found out with the help of equations.
Vehicle need traction power. This traction power creates traction force to move the
vehicle and accelerate
2 Tractive force must overcomes following
• Aerodynamic drag
• Rolling resistance
• Uphill resistance/gradient resistance
• Acceleration
Tractive force created by power train first overcomes the resistances and then provides
acceleration

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 Transmission efficiency
Transmission efficiency is defined as the power output divided by the input power,
multiplied by 100.
The transmitting power from an EV's motor to its wheels is 89% to 98% efficient,
depending on the vehicle, whereas in an ICE car, the same process from engine to wheels
is only 14% to 26% efficient. An EV electric drive system is only responsible for a 15% to
20% energy loss compared to 64% to 75% for a gasoline engine. EVs also use regenerative
braking to recapture and reuse energy that normally would be lost in braking and waste
no energy idling. The optimum efficiency of electric vehicles is typically at high or
medium speed and at high load.
3 The EV energy consumption refers to the sum of:
Energy that is required at the wheels to propel the vehicle,
Energy losses along the powertrain, and
Energy that is required for the operation of the auxiliary devices.
kW H/ Km (Kilo watt hour per kilometer)
The most popular EVs have an efficiency of 0.15 to 0.20 kWh per km.
4 Electric vehicle acceleration performance
Tractive force created by power train first overcomes the resistances and then provides
acceleration
EV acceleration is to measure how quickly the electric vehicle can go from a standstill to
60 km/hour in seconds.
As electric cars have instant torque where the motor directly powers the wheels,
acceleration timings are speed than gas-powered cars.
We generally use acceleration to measure the quickness of the vehicle, which acts as a
factor to determine which EV has the best performance.
The electric cars having the highest acceleration.
The 3 levels of acceleration in a car are light acceleration, progressive acceleration, and
thrust acceleration.
Electric vehicles (EVs) achieve rapid acceleration due to instant torque delivery from
electric motors, fewer moving parts, and advanced power electronics.
Electric cars are fast for different reasons. The first reason is that they have instant
torque, and the second is that they are lightweight when compared with ICE vehicles
which helps to improve acceleration and overall performance.
The acceleration pedal sends a signal to the controller which adjusts the vehicle's speed
by changing the frequency of the AC power from the inverter to the motor.
Example: The Nexon EV does it with ease and is claimed to accelerate from zero to 100
kmph in just under ten seconds while the zero to 60 kmph is deal with in less than four
seconds.
5 Brushless DC Motor
It consists of two main parts: The stator, which has windings. The rotor, which has
permanent magnets
The Lorentz force law states that a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field
experiences a force, causing the rotor to rotate. The stator generates a rotating magnetic
field that interacts with the rotor's magnets, resulting in continuous rotation of the
motor shaft.
The rotor consists of a permanent magnet
The current flows in the direction that magnetises the stator

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The rotor is turned clockwise

The rotor passes between the poles of the stator

Stator current switched off
Momentum carries the rotor on

The stator coil is re energised

Hence current and magnetic field are reversed
So the rotor is pulled on round in a clockwise direction.
This process continues, with the current in the stator coil alternating

The switching of the current must be synchronized with the position of the rotor.
This is done using hall effect sensors.
This sensor use the magnetism of the rotor to sense its position.
Optical sensors are also used.
Torque is unsteady with single coil system.
Torque is improved by three coils

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6 DC Motor drive system
A DC drive is a functional circuitry used to regulate the speed of a DC motor. It facilitates
starting, stopping, reversing direction, and varying the speed. At its core, a DC drive uses
a controlled rectifier to convert the AC input into DC. This DC is fed to the armature of
the DC motor.
7 DC Motor controllers
A DC motor controller is a device that regulates the speed, direction and other
parameters of a direct (DC) motor. It commonly employed techniques such as pulse
width modulation (PWM) for speed control and H-bridge configuration for direction
control.
Some controllers include current sensing, voltage regulation and feedback mechanisms
(close loop & open loop) also some are use hall effect sensors for control.

Key components
Controller:
In this step the system checks how well the motor is performing compared to the desired
speed or position. If there is a difference (an error) occur then the controller figures out
the right adjustments needs and sends those instructions to the motor driver for
correction.
Motor Driver:
This stage boosts the control signal which come from the controller and directs it to the
motor. The motor driver adjusts the average voltage to the motor using a method called
pulse-width-modulation (PWM). If the controller gives some error signal, only then this
driver adjusted the motor applied voltage.
DC motor:
The motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy, such parameters like
speed, torque are depending on applied voltage to the motor.
Speed sensor:
A speed sensor measures the velocity of the motor and provides corresponding feedback
to the system.
Feedback speed:
In this block the system keeps an eye on the real speed or position of the motor and
share this data with the controller.
Again, the controller takes the feedback of motor speed and measure it with desired
speed if there is any error signal occur then provide it to driver, this process is continuous
in real time.

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 Working principle of DC motor controller

A DC motor controller handles the power going to the motor to control its speed and
direction. It’s like a smart system that checks how the motor is doing and makes
adjustments to keep it run smoothly.

DC motor controllers typically include components such as transistors MOSFETs (Metal-

Oxide-Field-Effect-Transistor) in some rarely cases relays can be uses, so basically these
devices perform switching to modulate the current flowing through the motor. By
adjusting the voltage or current supplied to the motor the controller can regulated the
motor’s speed, torque and directions of motor.
8 Variable resister type DC motor control system

Armature controller: variable resistance

In DC motor controller there is another method which is armature controller. By changing

the resistance in the motor circuit. In this method a variable resistor is connected in
series with the armature winding of the motor.
As the resistance increases, the voltage drop also increases and the voltage available to
the armature will be reduced. In this way by reducing the flow of current flowing through
the armature we can control the speed of motor. To achieve that we can use Rheostat,
potentiometer or solid-state devices these all are variable resistance devices.
It is simple and inexpensive, easy to implant and provides good speed control. There are
some disadvantages like as- wastage of energy in form of heat, it can reduce only speed
of motor but cannot increase.

9 Pulse width type DC Controller

Speed controller: pulse width modulation (PWM)

Instead of adjusting the voltage directly, pulse width modulation (PWM) is like a speed
regulator for DC motors. PWM controls the average power delivered to the motor by
rapidly tuning it on and off. By adjusting the duty cycle (percentage of time the power is
on) we can precisely set the motor speed that making it versatile for various applications.
PWM speed control is widely used in robotics, fans and other devices where precise
control over speed is essential.

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10 Permanent Magnet Synchronize Motor (PMSM)
Construction
The permanent magnet synchronous motor construction is similar to the basic
synchronous motor, but the only difference is with the rotor. The rotor doesn’t have any
field winding, but the permanent magnets are used to create field poles.
The most widely used permanent magnet is neodymium-boron-iron because of its
effective cost and ease of availability. In this type, the permanent magnets are mounted
on the rotor. Based on the mounting of the permanent magnet on the rotor, the
construction of a permanent magnet synchronous motor is divided into two types. They
are,
Surface-mounted PMSM
In this construction, the magnet is mounted on the surface of the rotor. It is suited for
high-speed applications, as it is not robust. It provides a uniform air gap because the
permeability of the permanent magnet and the air gap is the same. No reluctance
torque, high dynamic performance, and suitable for high-speed devices like robotics and
tool drives.

Interior PMSM
In this type of construction, the permanent magnet is embedded into the rotor. It is
suitable for high-speed applications and gets robustness. Reluctance torque is due to the
saliency of the motor.

The Stator:
As in common AC induction motors, electrical power is supplied through the stator
windings.
PMSM stator windings are typically distributed over multiple slots in order to
approximate a sinusoidal distribution so that the resulting back-EMF waveforms
generated are Sinusoidal shaped.
Working of PMSM Motor for Electric Vehicles:

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 A “PMSM”, which stands for “permanent magnet synchronous motor”, relies on magnets
to turn the rotor, which spins at the same speed as the PMSM’s internal rotating
magnetic field.

PMSM motor drives the three phases are always excited during the electrical period,
making it necessary to use at least one rotor position sensor.
By continuously detecting the rotor angular position and rotational speed, the excitation
can be properly switched among the PMSM motor phases in exact synchronism with the
rotor motion using a Power electronic control circuit known as PMSM Drive.
This concept, commonly known as self-synchronization, uses direct feedback of the rotor
angular position to ensure that the PMSM machine never loses synchronization.
Generally, Hall sensors are used to get information about the angular position of the
rotor, detecting the magnetic field direction generated by the rotor.
11 Advantages
The advantages of permanent magnet synchronous motor include,

• provides higher efficiency at high speeds

• available in small sizes at different packages
• maintenance and installation is very easy than an induction motor
• capable of maintaining full torque at low speeds.
• high efficiency and reliability
• gives smooth torque and dynamic performance
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of permanent magnet synchronous motors are,
• These types of motors are very expensive when compared to induction motors
• Somehow difficult to start-up because they are not self-starting motors.

12 Switched reluctance motor

Switched reluctance motor works based on the variable reluctance principle.

The rotating magnetic field is created with the help of power electronics switching
circuit.
By changing the air gap between the rotor and stator, the reluctance of the motor can
be changed.
Reluctance is resistance to the magnetic flux. (Opposes the magnetic flux. For Electrical
circuit it is resistance and magnetic circuit it is reluctance).
Construction of SRM
In switched reluctance motor, the stator and rotor have projected pole made up of soft
iron and silicon stampings. Silicon stamping is used to reduce hysteresis losses.
Stator => Inward projection
Rotor => Outward projection.

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The rotor does not have winding and stator only carries main field winding.
Each winding in the stator is connected in series with the opposite poles to increase the
MMF of the circuit. It is called phase winding.
Refer to AA’, BB’ and CC’. The number of poles in the stator will be around 6 to 8
numbers. But the rotor carries a smaller number of poles with respect to the stator. The
rotor poles will be 4 to 8 numbers.
The rotor’s shaft is mounted with a position sensor. The position sensor is used to
determine the position of the rotor by a control circuit.
Working
Consider an iron piece. Keep it in a magnetic field, the iron piece will align with the
minimum reluctance position and get locked magnetically.
The same principle is followed in the switched reluctance motor. The minimum
reluctance portion of the rotor tries to align itself with the stator magnetic field. Hence
the reluctance torque is developed in the rotor.
Consider the following notations.
Stator Poles:
AA’ poles axis for A phase, BB’ poles axis for B phase, CC’ poles axis for C Phase
Rotor poles:
aa’ rotor poles axis for Position 1, bb’ rotor poles axis for position 2

Now the input is given to the A-phase, other B and C phase neither maximum nor
minimum, then stator pole axis AA‘ and rotor pole axis aa‘ are in alignment.
Because the air gap between the stator and rotor is very less, and they are minimum
reluctance position as compared with other poles.

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 Now, Phase A will be turned off and the B phase is energized. Then the rotor axis bb’
turns to stator axis BB’. Move clockwise as per our diagram. By changing the polarity of
the motor, we can easily reverse the motor.
The torque develops since the reluctance changes from maximum to a minimum.
The rotor movement is depending upon the number of poles and in our case, we get 30
deg rotation by energizing one phase at a time.
Now the B phase will be turned off, and the C phase will be turned on. Then the torque
is developed because of rotor axis aa’ is aligned with the stator axis CC’. The rotor
continues to rotate for another 30deg.
Again, C will be turned off and A will be stared. The motor operation continues until the
input power supply. Here the motor is rotating by self. Thus, switched reluctance motors
are self-starting motor.
The control circuit continuously monitors the motor speed and input current. if the
motor speed falls with respect to the reference, then the control considers as there is a
requirement of high torque.
Therefore, it increases the input current to the motor to meet the speed requirement. In
case if the motor current is reached beyond the full load current, it trips the motor.
13 Control of SRM
The control circuit always collects the information of the rotor position and based on that
the controller gives the input to the motor.

The DC input is connected to the driver/converter circuit and the output is connected to
the motor. The rotor sensor’s feedback wire is connected to the controller circuit and it
provides the position of the rotor with reference to the reference axis. Finally, the
controller collects all information and based on that, reference will be given to the stator.
Also, the controller monitors the motor current to protect the motor from internal and
external faults.

14 Advantages and disadvantages of SRM

Control flexibility, simple structure, lower cost and high efficiency.
The lack of winding or permanent magnet on the rotor means that an SRM is appropriate
for extremely high-speed applications, and can withstand high temperatures.
Rugged and simple structure and low manufacturing cost.
If a fault occurs in any one winding or phase, the motor can still work but at a reduced
load.

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 SRM has non-linear characteristics because of magnetic saturation, which makes it
complicated to accurately control its torque.
The most crucial disadvantages of SRMs are high noise, vibrations and torque ripple.
It requires advanced control methods when compared with other AC and DC motor
drives.
15 Induction Motor
Asynchronous motors, also known as induction motors, are commonly used in electric
vehicles (EVs) for propulsion. They are renowned for their simplicity, reliability, and
efficiency, making them well-suited for automotive applications.
Operation
1. Magnetic Field Generation: When alternating current (AC) flows through the
stator windings, it creates a rotating magnetic field.
2. Induced Current: This magnetic field induces a current in the rotor conductors,
producing a secondary magnetic field.
3. Torque Production: The interaction between the stator’s rotating magnetic field
and the rotor’s magnetic field generates torque, causing the rotor to spin.
Induction motors operate based on the principle of electromagnetic induction.
The stator winding is connected to an AC power supply, creating a rotating magnetic field.
This field induces currents in the rotor winding, generating a magnetic field in the rotor.
The interaction between the rotor's magnetic field and the stator's rotating magnetic
field produces torque, driving the motor and the vehicle.

Asynchronous motors do not require a physical connection between the rotor and the
stator, unlike synchronous motors that use permanent magnets. This makes them
inherently more robust and less prone to wear and tear, as there are no brushes or slip
rings to maintain or replace.
Asynchronous motors used in EVs are typically three-phase motors, meaning they have
three sets of windings in the stator that are electrically separated by 120 degrees. This
allows for smooth and continuous rotation of the motor without needing additional
components, such as a gearbox, to convert the power from the battery to the wheels.

There are two main types of induction motors used in EVs: squirrel cage rotor and wound
rotor. Squirrel cage rotor induction motors are the most commonly used type in EVs due
to their simple construction, high reliability, and low maintenance requirements. Wound

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 rotor induction motors have a more complex construction with externally accessible
rotor windings, allowing for better control of motor performance but may require
additional maintenance.
16 Advantages
Induction motors offer several advantages for EV applications, including:

• Ruggedness and Reliability: robust construction and ability to withstand harsh

operating conditions.

• High Torque at Low Speed: Asynchronous motors can provide high torque at low
speeds, which is crucial for EVs during startup and hill climbing.

• Cost-effectiveness: Induction motors do not require permanent magnets, making

them more cost-effective compared to other motor types, such as permanent
magnet motors.

• Low Drag When Rolling: When an EV is coasting or rolling without power, the
electric motor can create a drag effect, often referred to as "motor drag" or
"coasting drag." This drag is caused by the electromagnetic forces within the
motor, which can resist the rotor's motion and create resistance against the
vehicle's movement.

Limitations
Induction motors also have some limitations in the context of EVs, including:

• Lower Efficiency at High Speeds: Induction motors may have lower efficiency
compared to some other motor types, such as permanent magnet motors, at high
speeds, which can affect overall vehicle efficiency.

• More Complex Control: Induction motors require complex control algorithms to

achieve optimal performance, including control of motor speed, torque, and
power factor, which can require sophisticated power electronics and control
systems.

• Higher Weight and Size: Induction motors may be larger and heavier compared
to some other motor types, impacting vehicle weight and packaging
considerations.

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