World Electric Vehicle Journal

The real-time monitoring of the vertical force of the tire is the basis for ensuring the driving safety, handling stability, fuel economy and the riding comfort of the vehicle. An algorithm for the vertical force of the tire estimation based on the combination of intelligent tire technology and neural network theory is herein proposed. Firstly, the finite element model of the 205/55/R16 radial tire was established by ABAQUS and the validity of the finite element model was verified through static experiment and dynamic experiment. Secondly, the effects of inflation pressure, speed, load and tread wear on the tire contact patch length and the radial displacement at the virtual acceleration sensor were analyzed based on the finite element analysis method and control variable method. Finally, three kinds of the vertical force prediction algorithms based on the GA-BP neural network algorithm were established, and the network performance of each prediction model was tested. The results show that the vertical force prediction model with inflation pressure and the peak value of radial displacement as the characteristic input parameters has the highest prediction accuracy and the shortest calculation time. At the same time, the mathematical formula of the Model 3 was built. Full article

The exponential increase in the number of daily traveling vehicles has exacerbated global warming and environmental pollution issues. These problems directly threaten the continuity and quality of life on the planet. Several techniques and technologies have been used and developed to reduce fuel consumption and gas emissions of traveling vehicles over the road network. Here, we investigate some solutions that assist drivers to follow efficient driving tips during their trips. Advanced technologies of communications or vehicle manufacturing have enhanced traffic efficiency over road networks. In addition, several advisory systems have been proposed to recommend to drivers the most efficient speed, route, or other decisions to follow towards their targeted destinations. These recommendations are selected according to the real-time traffic distribution and the context of the road network. In this paper, different high fuel consumption scenarios are investigated over the road networks. Next, the details of efficient driving techniques that were proposed to tackle each case accordingly are reviewed and categorized for downtown and highway driving. Finally, a set of remarks and existing gaps are reported to researchers in this field. Full article

Electric powertrains in terms of battery electric vehicles (BEV) are considered to be very interesting for heavy truck transportations. The challenge is the need for very large onboard energy and batteries. Long-term fuel cells (FCs) are considered an interesting support system for heavy-duty BEV, but in the short term, a range extender (REX) is also interesting. A heavy-duty BEV with 970 kWh batteries installed can handle 27% of all possible missions for the Scania fleet considering daily recharging. The back-up range extender (BUREX) can expand this figure to 55% utilized 20 days per year. If a customer has a few very energy-demanding use cases each year and does not want to pay for all the batteries needed, the BUREX may be an especially good option. The BUREX reduces life-cycle CO₂ emissions, irrespective of the generation mix of the grid supplying the electricity used in vehicle manufacturing and battery charging. The BUREX reuse of the existing electric components of the BEV powertrain enables the installation of a 10% larger battery pack while being 80% less costly. The BUREX also adds redundancy to the BEV concept while recharging infrastructure improves, especially in rural places. These results indicate that the BUREX concept is a powerful short-term solution that could enable greater use of HD FC and BEV trucks while charging infrastructure and FC technologies gradually become more mature. Full article

In recent years, the throughput of cargo ports has increased rapidly. It is urgent to improve the operating efficiency of ports for its increasing demands. Both industry and academia have shown great interest in adopting 5G and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to improve the efficiency and safety of industrial operations. However, such technologies have not been well explored in port operations. This paper proposes a 5G-based VR smart port to support intelligent management for five typical port operations. The overall architecture of the smart port and its key processes, major advantages, and limitations are discussed in this paper. An application of the proposed smart port system is demonstrated. The performance study based on network Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of user Experience (QoE) proves the feasibility of the proposed architecture. The architecture supports efficient interaction in real-time, making comprehensive decisions, and staff training. The smart port architecture is suitable for tasks of high working intensity and can dramatically increase operational efficiency. Full article

Autonomous driving has been a topic of great interest in several areas, of which motor racing is no exception. The aim of this work is the autonomous control of the future Formula Student Lisboa vehicle, by implementing different strategies for control and path planning, with the purpose of minimising race lap times. These strategies are tested in simulation, using a realistic model of the prototype. The approach followed involves the decoupling of the lateral and longitudinal subsystems and obtaining the reference path using artificial potential fields, combined with a two-pass algorithm developed to generate a speed profile. In this way, a sub-optimal solution is reached that adequately portrays the expected behaviour of a human driver while respecting traction conditions. The process of generating the speed reference requires prior knowledge of the track layout. This assumption is then eased for obstacle avoidance, i.e., for a scenario where, in addition to the track limits, unknown static obstacles are present. A decoupled control approach is followed controlling each of the two subsystems individually. Full article

Electricity from renewable energy sources represents the most promising way to decarbonize energy systems. A grid connection of car Electricity Storage Systems (ESSs) represents an opportunity to tackle issues regarding electricity production non-programmability, only if sufficiently smart bi-directional Vehicle to Grid technologies (V2G) are widely implemented. Fully Bi-directional grid capabilities are still poor and must be increased, both physically and in terms of management and billing possibilities (in the so-called smart-grid paradigm). However, some V2G technologies may be already implemented in smaller individual contexts: so-called Vehicle to Home, V2H technologies. Starting from these considerations, within the frame of an Italian publicly funded research project, the authors categorized and described many possible application contexts and developed an open-source dynamic simulation (fully available under request for the scientific community) to identify most promising conditions. To this aim, they also synthetized and tested an effective energy optimization algorithm which will soon be implemented on a prototypal wireless V2H device, built by ENEA in cooperation with Cassino University, in Italy. The performances of the system were assessed evaluating electricity auto-consumption and home auto-feeding ratios. Simulations show that very relevant performances can be obtained, up to the values 69% for electricity auto-consumption and 82% of home auto-feeding. Full article

Transitioning the automotive industry from internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric vehicles (EV) has arisen as a critical challenge for global countries in achieving human resource development, owing to the need of new labor skills and replacement of automation systems. By applying a case study of Thailand’s automotive industry in response to this challenge, we aimed to plot out the trajectory of changes involved in the industry’s workforce during its transition with a central focus on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), in order to make sound suggestions to the government on how to build an effective policy for industry growth. An exploratory research design was adopted for the investigation. Both primary and secondary sources were collected. Interviews with key stakeholders, including official agencies, organizations in the business sector, and academic institutions, were conducted in a semi-structured format to collect as primary data. Meanwhile, secondary data were gathered from reports and other scholarly contributions that are relevant. All of the data that were collected were subjected to qualitative methods of analysis, including content and theme analysis. We found that the advances in technology and associated skills have posed challenges to the SMEs for the workforce relocations in terms of occupational shifts and skill development, with engineering demand potentially growing 10% while low labor skills declined by nearly 70%. We emphasized that without effective policies for establishing EV roadmap and coordination practices between public and private stakeholders, this transition would have a detrimental effect on the workforce development of SMEs, which would ultimately have a harmful impact on the automotive industry and the economy. Full article

In the study of autonomous obstacle avoidance of intelligent vehicles, the traditional artificial potential field method has the problem that the vehicle may fall into the local minima and lead to obstacle avoidance failure. Therefore, this paper improves the traditional potential field function. Based on the vehicle dynamics model, a strategy of jumping out of local minima based on smaller steering angles is proposed. By finding a smaller steering angle and setting a suitable jump out step length, the intelligent vehicle is enabled to jump out of the local minima. Simulation experiments by MATLAB show that the improved method can jump out of the local minima. By comparing the planned trajectories of the traditional method and the improved method in static and dynamic obstacles situations, the trajectory planned by the improved method is smooth and the curvature is smaller. The planned trajectory is tracked by the Carsim platform, and the test results show that the improved method reduces the front steering wheel angle while the intelligent vehicle satisfies the vehicle dynamics constraints during active obstacle avoidance, which verifies the stability and rationality of the improved method. Full article

With the dynamic development of renewable energies, energy storage devices, and electric vehicles, microgrids have been playing an increasingly vital role in smart power grids. Under the recent development of carbon neutralisation, microgrid systems containing multiple clean energy sources have become significant modules for energy conservation and emission reduction. Considering technological and environmental elements, we investigated the economic operation of microgrids with the integration of electric vehicles. In this paper, carbon trading mechanisms and operation scheduling strategies are analysed in the simulation models. Then, transaction costs and power balance are discussed. Industrial applications and policy implications are also presented. Full article

To evaluate the electromagnetic exposure safety of multiple wireless charging vehicles charging simultaneously and explore simple, effective electromagnetic protection methods, in this paper, car model, wireless charger model, and human body models were established by using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The influence of different relative positions of two wireless chargers on magnetic induction strength (B) in simulation space when two cars are charging simultaneously and the influence of different car body materials on a driver’s body surface B and internal induced electric field strength (E) were analyzed. The simulation results showed that the maximum value of B in the car when two wireless chargers work simultaneously was 1.30 times that when a single wireless charger works. The maximum value of simulation space B could be reduced by 24.23% by staggering the front and rear positions of the two wireless chargers. The use of aluminum alloy car body could reduce the maximum value of human body surface B of the driver in the car by 99.76%. The B of the driver’s body surface in the aluminum alloy car body combined with the staggering method of two chargers was the smallest, which was 42.86% of that when the two chargers were not staggered, and its electromagnetic exposure level was 1.33% of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection public exposure limit. The results showed that the protection method is effective. Full article

The current increase of electric vehicles in Germany requires an adequately developed charging infrastructure. Large numbers of public and semi-public charging stations are necessary to ensure sufficient coverage. To make the installation worthwhile for the mostly private operators as well as public ones, a sufficient utilization is decisive. An essential factor for the degree of utilization is the placement of a charging station. Therefore, the initial site selection plays a critical role in the planning process. This paper proposes a charging station placement procedure based on real-world data on charging station utilization and places of common interest. In the first step, we correlate utilization rates of existing charging infrastructure with places of common interest such as restaurants, shops, bars and sports facilities. This allows us to estimate the untapped potential of unexploited areas across Germany in a second step. In the last step, we employ the resulting geographical extrapolation to derive two optimized expansion strategies based on the attractiveness of locations for electric vehicle charging. Full article

Brushless stator-mounted traction motors, which are new and emerging, have many potential applications in the electrified transport industry. Brushless stator-mounted machines (BSSMs), with the so-called flux modulation (FM) effects, use asynchronous field harmonics to realize energy conversion by altering the basic principle for conventional machine design which requires the stator and rotor to have the same pole number. The machines show promise of meeting the challenging requirements of electric vehicle (EV) traction motors. Therefore, in this paper, a review is undertaken on the state-of-the-art and potentials of the BSSMs for EV drives. The focus on BSSMs is due to their suitability for high-speed high torque density performance, as well as possessing suitable heat dissipation and flux weakening capabilities. The study is used to first rehash and discuss the design and excitation topologies, operating principles, and some emerging trends based on the basic BSSM variants, e.g., the doubly salient machine, flux reversal machine, and flux switching machine, while also undertaking a bibliometric synthesis on relevant studies highlighting the design and performance candidature of these niche BSSMs in EV applications, especially when compared to the well-developed Prius–IPM motor. Full article

The increasing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) in the transportation industry, especially for efficient battery–electric trucks, has led to an increase in studies on the efficiency or energy consumption of commercial vehicles. In this paper, average energy consumption was investigated in terms of the effect of different transmission types in vehicle models considering three routes, and the effect of the number of gears on energy consumption for each transmission type was analyzed. Target performance specifications and packaging were also evaluated. The optimal design could be identified in terms of transmission type, the number of gears, vehicle performance, and packaging. Vehicle models with two types of electric drive units (EDUs) were developed in a MATLAB/Simulink environment. Driving cycles were obtained from collected road load data of municipal, intercity, and regional areas operated by heavy-duty trucks using nCode software. The battery model was developed based on the electric circuit network (ECN) modeling technique. The main research purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of multispeed and multimodal EDUs and the number of gears on the energy consumption of heavy commercial electric vehicles from actual road conditions in Turkey. The three-speed EDU was the optimal design, providing 7.83, 7.26, and 7.21% less energy consumption on the three routes, compared with three-mode electric drive units. Consequently, the energy consumption difference was 7.5% for combined real road conditions. Full article

The inductor-based and capacitor-free bipolar pulse converter can be applied to electric vehicle charging and realize an efficient and reliable charging-control strategy. Inductor-based converters can avoid the converter failure caused by the failure of energy storage capacitors and improve the reliability. An overvoltage protection scheme based on active clamping topology is used to protect this converter when the load impedance is too large. This overvoltage protection can take effect in an extremely short time (~50 ns) with little energy wasted. Furthermore, mathematical analyses of the proposed topology are presented and simulations based on LTspice are made, showing the feasibility and reliability of this circuit. Moreover, calculation of the power loss on MOSFETs is presented. A 201 W prototype converter with an efficiency of 83% is presented, and experimental results show that the converter can work reliably. This manuscript also proves the feasibility and application prospect of using this current-source-based converter for EV charging. Full article

The dual-credit policy advances the process of vehicle electrification; however, few studies have reviewed the policy preferences and development trends of the Chinese new energy vehicle industrial policy at different stages from the development angle of the dual-credit policy. This article reviews the policy evolution of the Chinese new energy vehicle industrial policy based on the 2T model (time and types) and evaluates the policy intensity of different industrial policies by PI index. The results find that the Chinese new energy vehicle industry policy is divided into three development periods: 2004–2008—promotion policy and technological policy; 2009–2013—financial policy; and 2014–2020—charging infrastructure policy. The early policy preference for new energy vehicles was not found to be significant. Financial policies have significantly stimulated the development of the new energy vehicle industry, and the implementation of the charging infrastructure policy is late. The policy intensity of the promotion policy is the strongest, followed by the technological policy, and the policy intensity of the charging infrastructure is the weakest. The policy intensity of the financial policy will weaken in the later period. The promulgation of the dual-credit policy reflects the continuity and synergy of policy development. Full article

In the development of actual vehicles, manufacturers usually adopt a simplified control strategy to ensure the reliability of the control strategy based on the application scenarios. There are two main working modes for the fuel cell system in fuel cell electric vehicles in China. One is the stepped power type, and the other is the following power type. Therefore, the analysis and comparison of these two typical working modes in the power test of fuel cell electric vehicles helps determine how the fuel cell system works in the actual vehicle and how to choose energy management strategies in different application scenarios. We do the actual tests to explore how the two typical control strategies perform in actual vehicles. These two typical control strategies show different characteristics in the same test. It shows that the energy management strategies should be adopted according to the application scenarios and optimization goals. In the stepped power control strategy, the fluctuation of the fuel cell system and the frequency of starting and stopping are significantly reduced, which is beneficial to the durability of the fuel cell system. Compared with the stepped control strategy, the fluctuation of the output power of fuel cell electric vehicles with the following power control strategy increased significantly. At the same time, a simplified state of charge (SOC) test method is proposed. Due to the particularity of the stepped power control strategy, the change of capacity can be used to replace the change of SOC. For the following power control strategy, the change of electric energy can be used instead of SOC changes. Full article

The excessive use of fossil fuels has caused great concern due to modern environmental problems, particularly air pollution. The above situation demands that different areas of research aim at a sustainable movement to reduce CO${}_2$ emissions caused by non-renewable organic fuels. A solution to this problem is the use of Electric Vehicles (EV) for mass transportation of people. However, these systems require high-power DC/DC converters capable of handling high current levels and should feature high efficiencies to charge their batteries. For this application, a single-stage converter is not viable for these applications due to the high current stress in a switch, the low power density, and its low efficiency due to higher switching losses. One solution to this problem is Multiphase Converters, which offer high efficiency, high power density, and low current ripple on the battery side. However, these characteristics are affected by the current imbalance in the phases. This paper is focused on the study of the effects of the current imbalance in a Multiphase Buck Converter, used as an intermediate cover between a power supply and the battery of an EV. Analyzing the efficiency and thermal stress parameters in different scenarios of current balance and current imbalance in each phase. Full article

Nowadays, technology is developed rapidly in communication technology. Several new technologies have been introduced due to the evolution of wireless communication and this provided the way to communicate among vehicles, using a Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANETs). Routing in VANETs becomes most challenging because of the huge mobility and dynamical topology changes, which lead to reduced efficiency in the network. The core idea of this network is to increase the efficiency during the process of the communication. The most suited routing protocol for VANETs is Geographic routing, for the reason that it provides higher scalability and low overheads. The major challenges in VANETs are the selection of best neighbor in dynamically changing VANET topology. Furthermore, to provide better QoS needful actions are essential. In this paper, we introduced a new MAC/NET with Updated Genetic Algorithm—A Cross Layer Approach, (MNUG-CLA) based on a MAC layer and network layer to overcome the drawbacks of the network. In the network layer, a new neighbor discovery protocol is developed to select the best next hop for the dynamically varying network. In the MAC layer, in order to improve the quality, multi-channel MAC model is introduced for instantaneous transmission from various service channels. For overall optimal path selection, we used an updated GA algorithm. The performance was demonstrated through the use of an extensive simulation environment, NS-2. The simulation results prove that this protocol provides better results, in terms of energy efficiency, energy consumption and successive packet transmission, when compared with the earlier approaches. Full article

Lithium-ion capacitors (LiC) are hybrid energy storage systems (ESS) combining the advantages of lithium-ion batteries and electric double-layer capacitors, including longer lifetime, high power, and energy densities. LiCs are popular for high-power applications where fast charge and discharge driving profiles are demanded from electric vehicles (EV). However, LiCs generate excess heat when they are exposed to fast charging/discharging profiles. Therefore, a robust thermal management system (TMS) is crucial, in order to ensure reliable operation. In this study, a novel hybrid TMS based on air-cooling system assisted phase change materials (PCM), heat pipes, and a heat sink is proposed for an LiC module under a 150 A continuous current profile. A very thin aluminum heat sink and flat copper heat pipes were added to the PCM to increase its thermal conductivity. An experimental test bench of the proposed TMS was developed, and the temperature distribution of the module for each of the individual LiC cells was studied. The maximum temperature of the module under natural convection, when there was not any cooling system, reached almost 59.8 °C. The experimental results showed that after using the proposed hybrid TMS, the hottest cell reached 36.18 °C while the coldest cell reached 35.54 °C. Therefore, 39.5% improvement could be seen during the whole charge and discharge process after 3000 s. Moreover, the temperature difference within the module, of four LiCs, was around 0.64 °C, which was exceptional. Full article