Power Sources for Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Abstract: This thesis has been carried out to investigate a few areas concerning electric and hybrid electric powered land vehicles. The main objective has been to analyze the efficiency of such power trains to compare them with canonical combustion engines, both in a tank-to-wheels basis and a well-to-wheels basis. One of the question formulations is if an electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle charged by public electricity generated by a fossil plant will result in any environmental alleviation at all, in excess of reducing the local tailpipe pollution. To establish reasonable figures about a car's energy consumption in dynamic drive cycles such as the NEDC and the US06, a comprehensive simulation model has been used. The simulation results are presented as an analysis of waste energy, directly leading to an estimation of the potential of hybrid electric locomotion as a method to save energy and thus fuel. To form an overview about the new emerging market of hybrid electric vehicles, some of the topical key power train components are briefly discussed; combustion engines, electric machines, supercapacitors and batteries. The overview is rounded off with a brief discussion about motives behind the popularity of hybrid propulsion as well as some economical aspects from an end user point of view.