Charging Options Supported by Connected Vehicle Technology - An Analysis

摘要

While electric vehicle (EV) technology becomes a viable alternative to Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles, several challenges are still affecting a wide consumer acceptance of EVs. Increasing EV's driving range and the associated added cost and mass represent major challenges, as the battery pack cost often accounts for over one half of the vehicle cost. In-motion Inductively Coupled Power Transfer (ICPT) is the focus of this study as a potential solution to EV operational issues and compared with an EV stationary fast charging technology, which can fully charge an EV within an hour in this study. Connected Vehicle technology, which establishes a realtime communication among vehicles and infrastructure, can potentially improve both ICPT and fast charging operations for EVs. This paper evaluates the impact brought by integrating the Connected Vehicle technology with ICPT and stationary fast charging. This study found that the battery size of the EV can be effectively reduced with Connected Vehicle integrated ICPT and the system provided higher efficiency by eliminating the need for stop-and-go behavior as required for stationary charging. With fast charging stations, reducing the battery size led to frequent charging sessions and corresponding stop-and-go conditions, which resulted in lower energy efficiency compared to ICPT. At network level EV operations, both ICPT and fast charging with the Connected Vehicle technology provided shorter travel times compared to these charging options without the Connected Vehicle technology, and the ICPT option for EV charging provided shorter travel time compared to the stationary fast charging option.