Abstract
Light Electric Vehicles (LEV) form a group of promising alternative vehicles for personal mobility and goods delivery. This manuscript reports about the European industrial EUREKA project called ‘New Electric Postman Helper.’ This project aims to develop the drive train for a range of mobility devices for postal distribution. The severe postal requirements which are not fully fulfilled by the vehicles on the European market today, and the strong interest of the postal organizations in solutions towards this issue, induced the set-up of this project in 2005. The introduction of LEV, in particular two- and three-wheelers, in the postal delivery business allows longer, more efficient and more sustainable delivery rounds. The close collaboration with several European postal organizations has allowed definition of the specifications of the electric power systems with characteristics meeting their specific needs. From an extensive questionnaire, the requirements of the different European postal operators were determined. A set of discriminating parameters was identified and used to calculate the design parameters of the electrical power system range starting from the postal requirements. The required energy capacity of the battery pack and the required motor torque were calculated from the postal parameters by using a dedicated design tool and resulted in the conception of a modular concept for postal electric vehicles.
Highlights
This manuscript reports about the European industrial Eureka project called ‘New Electric Postman Helper.’ The group of ‘Light Electric Vehicles,’ sometimes referred to as LEV’s, is a promising alternative for vehicles for personal mobility and goods delivery
A clear interest for LEV’s suitable for postal delivery exists among the European postal operators
In particular electrically assisted bicycles for postal delivery seem to have a very high potential. This is confirmed by the fact that several European postal operators have launched calls for tenders to purchase a large number of electrically assisted bicycles, tricycles and trolleys to implement in their postal vehicle fleets
Summary
This manuscript reports about the European industrial Eureka project called ‘New Electric Postman Helper.’ The group of ‘Light Electric Vehicles,’ sometimes referred to as LEV’s, is a promising alternative for vehicles for personal mobility and goods delivery. The E-TOUR project showed that the performances of electric bicycles for the normal consumer market offered on the European market are often disappointing This was mainly due to a lack of reliability of the offered. As the power train system is a key component of these electric mobility devices, the main technical objectives of the NEPH industrial project can be summarized as follows: to realise an improvement of the electric and mechanical reliability of the vehicles, to integrate new motor system technology associated with advanced battery technologies (both Ni-MH and Li-Ion based batteries), to include intelligent energy management in order to have an efficient use of the battery capacity (whatever the technology used), to realise a cost decrease due to a modular approach of the system concept, and to have an innovative design in order to facilitate the setting up of associated services required by postal operators. Industrial project will focus on the three main parts of the power train system: battery system, electric motor system and the human-machine interface
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
