28th Aachen Colloquium Automobile and Engine Technology 2019
Tracked Electric Vehicle (TEV) Project
Authors
Saleh Ali, Prof. Volker Pickert, Mohammed A. Al-harbi, Dr. Haris Patsios, Hanndog Li, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Summary
Today Electric Vehicles (EVs) narrow down two of the three main obstacles for massmarket introduction: range and cost. Charging stations for inter-city distance are, however, still a bottleneck where high charging power requires expensive grid supplies. This paper describes the Tracked Electric Vehicle (TEV) project merging the EVhighway infrastructure with the grid supply infrastructure. Power transfer is enabled by conductive dynamic road charging powering 10 EVs in a platoon drive autonomously at a speed of 200 km/h. The TEV system provides power savings of 40 % because EVs drive at an inter-vehicle distance of 0.25 car lengths and therefore reducing significantly the overall drag coefficient of the platoon. In addition, EVs drive at a steady speed, smooth track surfaces and power is transferred directly to the electric traction motor. It is estimated that one TEV lane replaces 17 traditional highway lanes.
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