Comparison and On-Road Performance of Two Drive Systems for Public Transport Vehicles: Battery Electric and Hybrid Electric Systems

摘要

EVermont, a public-private partnership demonstrating electric transportation systems in Vermont, has recently road-tested public transport vehicles with two drive configurations: battery electric and hybrid electric. The battery electric vehicle is a shuttle bus manufactured by AVS Corporation. The bus was originally manufactured with lead-acid batteries, but was later modified and fitted with NIMH batteries under a DARPA demonstration project to demonstrate NIMH battery performance in a medium heavyduty vehicle. The hybrid electric bus is a prototype version of the familiar and popular "All-American" big yellow school bus. This vehicle was developed under a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)/Northeast Advanced Vehicle Consortium (NAVC) cooperative venture with Blue Bird Bus Company and Solectria Corporation. The AVS shuttle bus has a weight rating of 6,500kg, a transport capacity of 22 passengers and is propelled solely by NiMH batteries (see Figure 1). This bus has undergone a number of controlled tests to demonstrate range and performance, and has now been placed in routine service on a commercial public transit route in a small city in Vermont. The Blue Bird bus has a weight rating of 15,000kg, a transport capacity of 66-passengers and is fitted with a low-cost series-hybrid system (see Figure 2). This hybrid drive system is a battery dominant design, and therefore the vehicle is grid-connected. The Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) consists of a 38 Kw diesel engine with an AC induction generator providing supplemental power through a Solectria DMOC 445 controller managing. As with the battery electric vehicle, this vehicle has been the subject of controlled tests and routine service at the University of Vermont's campus-wide transit service. Both vehicles are fully instrumented to record data to document energy consumption and vehicle performance.