An Integrated Electric Vehicle Curriculum

Abstract

Electric Vehicles (EV) have been available in the market the last 110 years. During the first stage of vehicles’ development there were only two competitors, internal combustion engine (ICE) and EV. The EV was a lead vehicle compared to ICE until 1930; after that time the panorama changed due to the maturity of gasoline, the mass production of Ford Model T, the high performance of ICE and its low cost. Those facts and a limited electricity infrastructure produced a lack of interest and development of EV technology (Chan & Chau, 2001). This forgotten research area for near 40 years came back in the early 70 s with more strength since the appearance and continue development of advanced semiconductor devices, new storage technologies, sophisticated materials, advanced modeling and simulation techniques, real time implementation of complex control algorithms, maturity of power electronics and motor drives area. Since it is second big pushed to EV, a lot of improvements have been achieved by the constant effort of physics, chemical, mathematics, mechanical, computer, electrical and electronics specialists committed to develop a highly energy efficient device of transportation (Chan & Chau, 1997). Nowadays, the term EV includes plug-in hybrids, extended range EV and all-EV, (Department of Energy of the United States of America, 2011). One big step forward to the mass introduction of all-EV has been the introduction of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) in several automobile companies. The mass introduction of HEV started in 1997 by Toyota with the Hybrid-Prius, a parallel configuration integrated with a Toyota Hybrid Systems (THS). The THS-C was implemented later to the Estima Hybrid, (a THS combined with a continuous variable transmission (CVT)). Following this trend, a Toyota Hybrid Systems for Mild hybrid system (THS-M) was implemented in the Crown. In 2004, the THS II was installed in a new Prius, which had the main characteristic to increase the power supply voltage. This electric drive train added a direct current to direct current (DC/DC) converter, between the low voltage battery pack (276-288V) and the traction motor (500V or more), to use a smaller battery pack and more powerful motors compared with its previous version. In addition the THS name was modified to Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) to allow its use in other vehicles brands (Pyrzak, 2009). It is necessary to say that Toyota is not the only vehicles manufacturer to develop hybrid technology other brands include Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, etc. Today, the $12 billion investment to develop vehicle technologies given by the Department of Energy (DOE) from the United States of America (USA) has opened a third stage in the development of EV. It is foreseen that the classical high vehicle costs, performance