Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
electric batteries. Improved-capacity storage batteries were developed by G.
Plante in 1881, paving a promising way for electric vehicles. Then, mass
production of rechargeable batteries made possible a fairly wide use of electric
vehicles, which began to be commercialized by the end of the nineteenth
century. The first car to exceed 100 km/h was an electric vehicle, well know as
'La Jamais Contente', driven by the Belgium racing driver Camille Jenatzy.
Later in 1916, Woods proposed a hybrid car with both an internal combustion
engine and an electric motor. At that time electric vehicles had many advan-
tages over the other vehicles, such as gasoline or steam cars, especially in terms
of reliability, vibration, smell, and noise. On the other hand, the other type of
vehicles, such as steam engine and internal combustion engine vehicles, needed
start up devices and their thermal efficiency were low. Nevertheless, at the
beginning of the twentieth century, the decline of electric vehicles occurred,
and was caused by several factors: the long time required to recharge the
batteries, the increasing necessity of longer-range vehicles, discovery of new
oil wells, the invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering, the mass
production of internal combustion engine vehicles. Among the above problems,
the limited range of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) still remains the most
critical one, together with the higher cost with respect to internal combustion
vehicles of similar size [
3
,
4
].
The use of electric vehicles on a large scale implies that batteries need to be
recharged, and this can be accomplished by three different ways.
The first solution to recharge an electric vehicle is the domestic charger
installation, used for overnight charging. The second form of charging is repre-
sented by public charging stations, which provide the recharge of batteries while
cars are parked at supermarket, railway stations, work places or even residential
roads. Finally, the third form of recharging is represented by roadside recharging
stations with similar service as petrol station offer for conventional vehicles
nowadays.
The wide use of electric vehicles should imply the widespread of battery
charging facilities, which represent an essential and substantial investment for the
development of the electric vehicle technology. The consequence would be the
further development of both battery chargers and power supply infrastructures,
together with the innovation of the components strictly related to electric vehicles.
In any case, the recharge of an electric vehicle would take much longer time
than the few minutes required for refueling the tank of both liquid and gaseous
fuels. The possibility to overcome the problem of refueling rate by the adoption of
hybrid electric technologies represents one of the reasons that justify the increasing
interest towards these vehicle configurations [
3
].
The main components of BEVs are a rechargeable battery pack, an electric
machine with its power drive, a cabling system, a cooling system and a vehicle
structure [
5
]. The electric and mechanical connections between the main com-
ponents of a BEV are shown in Fig.
5.1
. The battery pack is generally recharged
from the electric distribution network via a plug. The battery charger can either be
on board or part of the charging point.
