Production Of Electric Vehicles Research Articles

A Paradox over Electric Vehicles, Mining of Lithium for Car Batteries

Lithium, a silver-white alkali metal, with significantly high energy density, has been exploited for making rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LiBs). They have become one of the main energy storage solutions in modern electric cars (EVs). Cobalt, nickel, and manganese are three other key components of LiBs that power electric vehicles (EVs). Neodymium and dysprosium, two rare earth metals, are used in the permanent magnet-based motors of EVs. The operation of EVs also requires a high amount of electricity for recharging their LiBs. Thus, the CO2 emission is reduced during the operation of an EV if the recharged electricity is generated from non-carbon sources such as hydroelectricity, solar energy, and nuclear energy. LiBs in EVs have been pushed to the limit because of their limited storage capacity and charge/discharge cycles. Batteries account for a substantial portion of the size and weight of an EV and occupy the entire chassis. Thus, future LiBs must be smaller and more powerful with extended driving ranges and short charging times. The extended range and longevity of LiBs are feasible with advances in solid-state electrolytes and robust electrode materials. Attention must also be focused on the high-cost, energy, and time-demand steps of LiB manufacturing to reduce cost and turnover time. Solid strategies are required to promote the deployment of spent LiBs for power storage, solar energy, power grids, and other stationary usages. Recycling spent LiBs will alleviate the demand for virgin lithium and 2.6 × 1011 tons of lithium in seawater is a definite asset. Nonetheless, it remains unknown whether advances in battery production technology and recycling will substantially reduce the demand for lithium and other metals beyond 2050. Technical challenges in LiB manufacturing and lithium recycling must be overcome to sustain the deployment of EVs for reducing CO2 emissions. However, potential environmental problems associated with the production and operation of EVs deserve further studies while promoting their global deployment. Moreover, the combined repurposing and remanufacturing of spent LiBs also increases the environmental benefits of EVs. EVs will be equipped with more powerful computers and reliable software to monitor and optimize the operation of LiBs.

Lithium‐Ion Battery Thermal Management Techniques and Their Current Readiness Level

The lithium‐ion battery (LiB) is currently an essential part of electric vehicles (EVs). The popularity of LiBs among EV manufacturers is because of their long life, fewer memory effects, high specific energy density, and lightweight. However, temperature affects the LiB life and performance to a great extent. The burden on battery thermal management (BTM) is significantly increased by the need to increase battery capacity and decrease the battery charging time. Hence, reliable and effective BTM is the need of the hour. Herein, the current status of different battery cooling techniques has been discussed along with their merits and demerits. The main objective of this paper is to inform the readers and give them a clear understanding of various cooling techniques and their current status and highlight any novel approaches being used by the researchers to improve these cooling techniques. Future needs and opportunities in this field have also been discussed.

BATTERY MANAGEMENT IN ELECTRICAL VEHICLES USING MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are increasing production in order to keep up with the fast growing demand from customers. To meet the ever-increasing demand for electric vehicles (EVs), both well enough and up-and-coming manufacturers of automobiles will need to immediately boost their production of EVs while simultaneously lowering their prices in order to compete. However, the production of electric vehicles comes with its own set of challenges for automotive manufacturers who are looking to survive in the years to come. By generating digital twins of both their products and their production processes, businesses have the ability to virtually develop and test complete assembly processes as well as entire facilities. This speeds up the process of transitioning to high-volume production without compromising the product's quality. Battery management is one of the most challenging components of driving electric vehicles (EV). Batteries and the amounts of energy that they can store were the focus of this research. Researchers make use of a technique that is referred to as "machine learning" in order to monitor and improve the management of electric car batteries.One of the most challenging factors in Electrical Vehicles (EV) is battery management. This research paper discussed the effective use of battery management and it's capacity. Researchers uses a Machine learning technique to monitor and improve the level of managing techniques in EV's batteries.

Energy and Carbon Loss Management in an Electric Bus Factory for Energy Sustainability

Increasing energy need brings people one step closer to energy saving and alternative sources. The search for reliable and sustainable resources also contributes greatly to technological progress. Thanks to advanced technology, energy use becomes more efficient. However, the concept of sustainability emerges in the field of energy as in other sectors. It is expected that electric vehicles, which have started to increase in interest in recent years, will make a positive contribution to issues such as environmental protection and sustainable energy. In addition, production centers for electric vehicles should also be sustainable and sensitive to carbon emissions. In this study, energy and carbon loss assessment was carried out in an electric bus manufacturing factory. With the help of linear regression analysis, the data of the last 3 years were evaluated. Moreover, as a result of internal audits, energy loss points were determined. As a result of this study, sustainability, carbon loss, and energy management issues in an electric vehicle production factory were evaluated and guiding qualities for today's and future technology companies were revealed.

High Road Strategy in the Era of Eco-friendly Car Paradigm - Making of Korean Production System Version 4.0

R&D enables car manufacturers to remain innovative and competitive. For example, producing eco-friendly cars in light of environmental concerns. Professor Hyung Je Jo, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ulsan University, South Korea, has studied the development process of the Korean automobile industry for more than 30 years and is conducting research to help this industry transition to the ‘green car’ paradigm and overcome interrelated challenges. A current research focus for Jo and the team is how internal combustion and electric vehicle production systems are impacted when this is transferred to a different country. The researchers have performed a case study looking at Hyundai’s motor plant in Alabama, US for which Jo visited the plant for a week in July 2009, during which time he conducted interviews and performed participant observation and then published a paper. He revisited the plant in July 2012 for a complementary study. The team also compared German and Korean automotive manufacturers in Central-Eastern Europe, discovering that the disparate strategies and labour-management relations of the mother company have different effects on the product development and human resource management methods of local factories in Slovakia. Now, the researchers are working on a ‘high road strategy’ in the era of the eco-friendly car paradigm.

Breakthrough Energy Technologies Toward a Solution for Climatic Change

In this age of climate change, the corporate, academic, and government research into new, green sources of power and energy still has not been well-funded nor forthcoming in this century. This presentation will review some of the best emerging energy technologies that promise green and carbon-free sustainable generation as well as food and water energy innovations, including a bioenergetics discovery. Progress is being made presently by academic and industry that will create a future having greater ease in newly developed renewable energy generation with much better, localized energy sources that do not use fossil fuel for power and heat. Beyond the realm of fuel cells and wind power is the non- conventional world of emerging energy technologies. Some of the best examples are new and exciting generators that release trapped potential energy from nature in ways never dreamed of before. Others innovatively apply clean fuels in conventional systems that are the focus of attention for NASA, DARPA, and the USDOE. Some of the more exotic examples include a recent breakthrough with graphene energy harvesting, which has thermal and nonthermal (quantum vacuum) sources to it. This illustrated slideshow presentation summarizes the research that has been accomplished so far in the development of highly efficient, energy harvesting inventions, as well as other future energy breakthroughs. The most exciting reason for the interest in this area of research is the promise that it holds for boosting electric vehicle production by providing an onboard electric battery charger. These energy generation developments, derived from relatively new paradigm science discoveries, also have many other applications, including a design for rural stand-alone electrical generators. Most of them have one thing in common: they are relatively unknown to the general public.

Cobalt enrichment in some ores of the Bergslagen province, south central Sweden

ABSTRACT The presence of cobalt (Co) in sulphide deposits or sulphide-bearing iron oxide deposits in and around the Palaeoproterozoic Bergslagen ore province, south central Sweden, led to focused mining and extraction of this metal, particularly during the nineteenth century. Today, Co is considered a critical metal in the EU and among the more sought-after raw materials, not least due to its use in batteries for the rapidly increasing production of electric vehicles. Here we report new observations and data on Co concentrations in variably mineralised and not necessarily statistically representative samples from a suite of mainly skarn-hosted, at least locally, sulphide-dominated mineralisations from Bergslagen. While several localities that exhibit substantial Co concentrations represent deposits previously known to carry this metal (generally in a field/district or specifically in a mine), the majority are from mines or prospects in which the presence of Co have been hitherto unknown. Several of them share the enrichment of, e.g., Co and Cu, but the overall picture is one of more complex interrelations between the variable metal endowments in the known occurrences of Co in this province. While representing a modest dataset, our new observations complement previously available information on the occurrence of Co in Bergslagen and highlights both the need for, and potential of, new and more detailed studies on the distribution, mineralogy and origin of Co as well as other critical or near-critical metals in this and other ore provinces in Sweden.

Exploring the role of environmental regulations in the production and diffusion of electric vehicles

Recently, the governments worldwide are focusing on the role of environmental regulation policies for promoting the vigorous development of electric vehicles (EVs). To this end, it is particularly important to explore the potential effect of environmental regulation policies after its promulgation on the production and diffusion of EVs. In this paper, a novel modeling approach based on the evolutionary game model and epidemic model is developed and used to reveal the production and diffusion of EVs at different stages. The simulation results show that the strategies of vehicle enterprises and local governments will gradually approach (1,0) in the early infancy; and the maximum diffusion of EVs in the market will not be presented at this stage. Research results also illustrate that all equilibrium point are the saddle points in the development stage, but the degree of EVs diffusion in the market is likely to be small. With the implementation of stricter environmental regulations at the mature stage, the figures of equilibrium points gather to (1,1). However, EVs will be been diffused over large areas in the market by implementing the medium levels of environmental regulations at the mature stage. These findings will help the Chinese government in applying differentiated environmental regulation standards to promote the production and diffusion of EVs at different stages.

Reward–Penalty vs. Deposit–Refund: Government Incentive Mechanisms for EV Battery Recycling

With the rapid development of electric vehicles (EVs), many EV batteries have entered the retirement stage, leading to increasing concerns about the impact of resource recycling and environmental sustainability. Some countries have successfully applied reward–penalty and deposit–refund mechanisms in similar fields, such as lead-acid and waste portable batteries. However, whether these mechanisms are conducive to collecting waste EV batteries is unclear. This study aims to comprehensively analyze the influence of reward–penalty and deposit–refund mechanisms in EV battery collection by developing a Stackelberg game theoretical model. In the model, the recycling enterprise is the leader and the EV manufacturer is the follower. Furthermore, the total social welfare is used as the indicator to select the optimal incentive mechanisms. The results show that (1) both mechanisms could improve collection rates and recycling enterprises’ profits, though the collection rate is lower under the reward–penalty mechanism than the deposit–refund mechanism unless the reward/penalty coefficient takes a very high value. (2) Regardless of government focus on increasing the sales volume of new EV batteries, collection rates, or social welfare, the boundary conditions of the choice of the two mechanisms are obtained. Additionally, the boundary conditions are related to the trade-in discount and refund coefficient. (3) Under the deposit–refund mechanism, even if the refund coefficient is less than 1, the mechanism may still lead to a higher collection rate than the reward–penalty mechanism.

Thermoelectric cooler performance enhancement using thermoelectric generators and their use as a single model to improve the performance of thermal battery management systems for electric vehicles

AbstractConventional automobiles that operate on fossil fuels have recently been recognized as one of the significant contributors to environmental pollution, particularly given their increasing numbers in relation to the global population. Electric vehicle (EV) is considered as an excellent solution to this problem. The most difficult challenge is increasing the production of EVs using efficient and affordable batteries. All types of batteries used in EV have a power loss occurs in the form of temperature. The development of a battery thermal management system (BTMS) is a formidable obstacle. The new concept aims to improve the thermoelectric cooler (TEC) efficiency by integrating it with a thermoelectric generator (TEG), which is accomplished by fabricating a TEC‐TEG model. The goal of combining a TEG and a TEC is to utilize waste heat generated on the TEC hot side and convert it into a stream that can be used to feed the TEC and increase its efficiency. Finally, the objectives of this paper are: To investigate the working principle of TEC‐TEG model to regulate EV battery's temperature. To design a hybrid air‐forced TEC‐TEG model for EV batteries. To assess and verify the efficiency of a hybrid TEC‐TEG model in regulating an EV battery temperature.

Multicriteria decision making and goal programming for determination of electric automobile aimed at sustainable green environment: a case study.

In this paper, we consider the problem of automobile selection for transportation in inner city using a hybrid multicriteria decision making approach. The electric automobiles that are a relatively new concept in the world of the automotive industry, are widely viewed as attractive among its alternatives day by day. Fuel-vehicles produce a lot of carbon emissions that are ejected into our natural atmosphere, leaving us vulnerable to things like pollution and greenhouse gases. So, electric vehicle and automobiles have emerged as a more efficient alternative and these vehicles have been a great step forward to help positively the environment with zero emissions and total energy consumption in their lifecycle. Many companies focus on electric vehicle production with the development of electric vehicle technology. Therefore, the selection process emerges among the various electric automobile technologies for the users. The selection process includes several conflicting factors which are such as economic, technical and technological factors. In the present study, we propose a hybrid approach for electric automobile selection that combines analytic hierarchy process (AHP), technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and goal programming (GP) is used to determine the weights to assign to the factors that go into these selection decisions and TOPSIS method is used for preference ranking. These weights founded by AHP are inputted into a GP model to determine the best alternative among the electric automobiles. Finally, the study used three methods TOPSIS, AHP- TOPSIS and AHP-GP for better comparison and evaluation. The most suitable electric automobile is selected among their alternatives by using analytic methods and goal programming.

Impact of regional temperature on the adoption of electric vehicles: an empirical study based on 20 provinces in China.

The development of electric vehicles (EVs) is not only a necessary path for China to move from a big country to a powerful country in automobile industry, but also a strategic measure to achieve the goal of "peak carbon dioxide emissions" and "carbon neutrality." However, in the low and high temperature environment, EVs may face problems such as a large reduction in cruising range, slow charging and poor safety, which decrease the attractiveness of EVs to consumers and hinder the EV adoption. However, existing research rarely pays attention to the impact of temperature on the EV adoption. Based on the panel data of electric vehicle sales in 20 Chinese provinces from 2010 to 2018, this paper uses interaction fixed effect (FE) model to test the effect of temperature on the EV adoption and explains the causes of regional differences in EV adoption. The study has the following findings. Firstly, EV sales show an inverted U-shaped trend with the change of temperature. Secondly, compared to extreme high temperature, extreme low temperature has a greater negative impact on the EV adoption. Thirdly, the negative impact of extreme temperature on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is greater than that of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Finally, temperature will make consumers' behavior adaptive by affecting their expectations. These findings can provide policy makers, department of urban planning and building, EV technology and quality inspection department, non-governmental organizations, and EV manufacturer, aiming at accelerating the market proliferation of EVs, with theoretical basis and targeted insights.

An Octopus Charger-Based Smart Protocol for Battery Electric Vehicle Charging at a Workplace Parking Structure

The transportation sector produces a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Meeting ambitious reductions in greenhouse gasses requires large-scale adoption of battery electric vehicles and has led to several policies and laws aimed at incentivizing their sales. While electric vehicles comprise a small percentage of the overall fleets of vehicles, the expected production of electric vehicles is soon expected to be in the millions. This will create challenges in providing an adequate charging infrastructure, as well as the ensuing management of the overall electricity demand at the grid level. In this work, a novel smart-charging protocol for battery electric vehicle charging at workplace parking structures is proposed. The Octopus Charger-based Mixed Integer Linear Programming protocol allows octopus chargers (i.e., charging stations with multiple cables) to independently schedule charging periods for their assigned vehicles. The proposed protocols can manage a parking structure demand load while reducing the number of installed charging stations. Driving patterns from the National Household Travel Survey were used to perform simulations, to verify and quantify the effectiveness of the proposed protocol. The proposed protocol resulted in improved peak load reductions for all simulated smart-charging scenarios when compared with uncontrolled charging. Critically, the assignment algorithm resulted in a number of required chargers close to the theoretical minimum.

Study the thermal management of Li-ion batteries using looped heat pipes with different nanofluids

The production of electric vehicles and their accessories is grooming day by day in the automotive industry. The heart of these electric vehicles is the power source, which is known as batteries. The capacity and performance of such batteries demand a high rating, due to the customer's need and improved vehicle features. Unfortunately, the batteries are facing thermal failures caused by the poor thermal management approach. Li-ion batteries are the most familiar ones which have a very high energy density compared to others. But, these batteries lead to the breakdown of ions and lithium plating because of the fluctuation in temperature distribution and fast charging characteristics. The temperature distribution varies with respect to loading and application. However, this process is accompanied by thermal runaway, which may result in the fatal destruction of batteries. To overcome such issues, the present work selected looped heat pipes (LHP) as a device to transfer the excessive temperature on batteries using nanofluids. Water, Ethylene glycol and acetone were selected as working fluids along with graphene oxide (GO) Nanoparticles. The experiment is conducted for a constant heat input of 30W and various filling ratios (20%, 35%, 50%, 65%). Stability, thermal conductivity, thermal resistance and temperature distributions are discussed. The experiment results are validated with Computational fluid dynamics.

Decarbonising the automotive sector: a primary raw material perspective on targets and timescales

Decarbonisation of the automotive sector will require increased amounts of raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements. Consequently, it is crucial to assess whether supply will be able to meet forecast demand within the required timescale. The automotive sector relies on complex global supply chains comprising four tiers. We have developed an integrated timeline from tier 4 (supply of raw materials) through to tier 1, the production of electric vehicles (EVs). Numerous factors, mainly economic, political, social and environmental, influence the duration of tier 4 leading to considerable variation between projects. However, our analysis demonstrates that it commonly takes more than 30 years from initial exploration to EV production. Tier 4, which is often neglected by the automotive industry, may account for 20 years of that period. This suggests that raw material supply is unlikely to match the projected demand from electrification of the automotive sector up to 2030. Reducing the duration of tier 4 will be difficult, although governments and industry can mitigate supply risks in various ways. These include multi-disciplinary international research across the supply chain and the transformation of research findings into policy and best practice. Supply chain convergence, with businesses across the supply chain working to develop long-term plans for secure and sustainable supply, will also be beneficial. In addition, global stakeholders should work together to resolve ESG challenges to supply. All these measures depend on the availability of researchers and industry personnel with appropriate skills and knowledge.

Identification of Potential Barriers to Electric Vehicle Adoption in Oil-Producing Nations—The Case of Saudi Arabia

Electric vehicles (EVs) are important elements in the global strategy to tackle climate change; however, research often fails to sufficiently identify the range of barriers which affect their adoption. Taking Saudi Arabia as a case study, this paper analyses responses from 698 potential drivers in order to identify and rank the infrastructure, performance, financial, social, and policy barriers to EV adoption in a major oil-producing nation with a hot climate and a desert terrain. According to this study’s findings, the most important barriers in this context are the lack of charging infrastructure and the additional load placed on the national grid, while others include the safety and effectiveness of batteries at high temperatures, and the ability of EVs to perform in desert conditions. Common themes also include concerns that EVs may damage Saudi’s oil-based economy, cost of purchase and maintenance, low resale value, and the absence of awareness about EVs. The study concludes that EV manufacturers must demonstrate that their vehicles are suitable for the Saudi climate. Governments should also provide subsidies, or other incentives, to promote adoption of EVs as the study also found that variations in the cost of different EV models in Saudi Arabia, for example, the Tesla Model 3, is up to 40% more expensive to own than a Toyota Camry, mean that owning EVs can cost significantly more than small sized internal combustion engine-based vehicles (ICEVs). This paper identifies and ranks the barriers to EV ownership in a desert nation which is a leading petroleum producer and compares the relative costs of EVs and ICEVs in the country. As such, it has immediate relevance in countries with similar economic, geographic, and climatic conditions.

Reduced Graphene Oxide-Coated Separator to Activate Dead Potassium for Efficient Potassium Batteries.

Potassium (K) metal batteries (KMBs) have the advantages of relatively low electric potential (−2.93 V), high specific capacity (687 mAh g−1), and low cost, which are highly appealing to manufacturers of portable electric products and vehicles. However, the large amounts of “dead K” caused by K dendrite growth and volumetric expansion can cause severe K metal anode deactivation. Here, a thin layer of conductive reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was coated on a GF separator (rGO@GF) to activate the generated dead K. Compared with the batteries adopting an original separator, those adopting a modified separator have significantly improved specific capacity and cycling stability. The life of full-cell of KMBs combining an rGO@GF separator with synthesized K0.51V2O5 is expected to exceed 400 cycles, with an initial capacity of 92 mAh g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and an attenuation rate per cycle as low as 0.03%. Our work demonstrates that a composite separator of high conductivity is beneficial for high performance KMBs.

Optimal policy for the recycling of electric vehicle retired power batteries

How to design subsidy policies to promote the recycling of retired power batteries (RPBs) of electric vehicles (EVs) is the focus of the sustainable development of EVs. In this paper, we consider a supply chain with one EV manufacturer and one power battery manufacturer, and construct game models to compare three policies that have emerged in industry practice, namely, no policy subsidy, subsidy for endurance level and one time quota subsidy, respectively. We show that subsidies are more beneficial than no subsidy and the two subsidy policies are suitable for different situations. Without considering the subsidy budget, one time subsidy is better. Specifically, under different corresponding thresholds, the wholesale price of batteries, the endurance level, the quantity of EVs, the profits of battery manufacturers, the profits of EV manufacturers, consumer surplus and social welfare are higher, and the retail price of EVs is lower. In addition, with subsidy budget constraints, the subsidy for endurance level is better, specifically, the wholesale price of batteries, the endurance level, EV production quantity, EV manufacturer’s profit and consumer surplus are higher; under different corresponding thresholds, the retail price of EVs is lower, the profits of battery manufacturers and social welfare are higher.

Power quality assessment of novel multilevel and multistring inverters for electric vehicle applications

The requirement and demand of electric vehicles is extravagantly increasing in the current era for avoiding pollutions and as well to overcome the consumptions of liquid fuels. Under this scenario, for the production and applicability of electric vehicles, inverters play a major role to render appropriate battery power supply for the perfect operation of the electric vehicle. This research study devises a novel modified multilevel inverter and a new multistring inverter designed by reducing the number of switches and enabling the effective operation of the electric vehicle. Both the developed multilevel and multistring inverter is analyzed with respect to their switching states, their output voltage and the evaluated harmonic distortion. For comparison, a sinusoidal alternating current voltage is considered as reference and all the newly modeled configurations are compared with that of the existing inverter models to prove their superiority. The switched states of the designed inverters as applicable for electric vehicles are examined to attain a logical analysis with respect to the duty cycle of the individual switches. The power quality assessment of the designed inverter models are guaranteed based on the minimized total harmonic distortion and on comparison with the other inverter models from the earlier state-of-the-art techniques.

Supply Chain Kinks

Abstract GM, Ford, and other automakers are chasing Tesla in the manufacture and marketing of electric vehicles. In turn this is sparking an upheaval the auto industry has not seen since Henry Ford’s Model T, which introduced manufacturing to the assembly line, and its effects are roiling the parts supply industry.