Race. 421 042067
Race. 421 042067
szymon.racewicz@uwm.edu.pl
Abstract. The article presents design and construction of the light two-wheeled vehicle
powered by the brushless DC motor of 3 kW. The construction of the vehicle is based on a
steel frame similar to the classical bicycle frame. The vehicle has been additionally equipped
with pedals as an alternative driving source as well as with the standard motorcycle equipment,
i.e. lamps, breaking light, horn, front disc brake, etc. The prime power source which is the
BLDC motor has been installed in the rear wheel hub and is powered by a pack of 220 lithium-
ion power cells of 2600 mAh each. The nominal parameters of the designed power pack is 72
V and 27.5 Ah of capacity. The motor controller which can be powered by the voltage from 36
V to 95 V can deliver up to 80 A of current. It enables regenerative braking which increases an
overall range of the vehicle. The article discusses also the problem of classification of such
construction according to the Polish law described in the Act on the Law of Road Traffic as
well as in the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of 31 December 2002 on the
technical conditions of vehicles and the scope of their necessary equipment. Finally, the
designed construction has been tested on the MAHA LPS 3000 chassis dynamometer in order
to measure mechanical and electrical parameters like maximal electric power of the motor,
maximal mechanical power on the wheel, motor torque, maximal rotational speed, energy
consumption, windings temperature reached, etc. These quantities will serve to further
development of the designed construction.
1. Introduction
Electric vehicles have been known since 19th century. In general, they can be divided into few groups:
bicycles, motorcycles, cars and buses. One of the first electric car was constructed in 1834 by Thomas
Davenport [1]. For comparison, the first car with combustion engine was built by Carl Benz in 1885.
At that time, electrical technology was developed on a par with combustion technology. Even
Ferdinand Porsche, known today as a legendary designer of the super sports cars with powerful
combustion engines, in 1900 unveiled his electric front-wheel drive car. However, at the beginning of
the 20th century, Ford started the mass production of the Ford T model. It was a relatively cheap car
which has motorized the USA. From that moment, the combustion engines began to gain in popularity.
After all, in the recent years one can observe a return to the electrical technology. This is because
of the huge progress in the field of energy storage, batteries, electrical motors, permanent magnets,
frequency converters and control strategies. Second important reason for the electrical energy use in
automotive applications is fast decreasing fossil fuel resources like petroleum and so the uncertain
future of the combustion technology. At the same time, the cost of electrical energy in comparison to
the energy from fuel is several times smaller. Moreover, nowadays the electrical energy from
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Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
renewable sources is playing the more and more important role in the global energy market because
the production cost of 1 kWh of so called green energy is now much more profitable and achievable
than a few decades ago. Furthermore, one can observe the growing demand for the environment
protection which forces the biggest energy companies and automotive concerns to implement the
newest technology achievements for continuous reduction of pollution emissions [2], especially in the
cities [3]. The above mentioned arguments have encouraged authors of the article to design and to
build a light two-wheeled electric vehicle similar to a bicycle.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
vehicle is based on the bicycle frame and is equipped with pedals but its auxiliary electric motor can
accelerate the vehicle to a speed of more than 45 km/h it should be classified as a motorcycle and
should subject to totally different law regulations than a classic electric bicycle. One driving such a
vehicle must among other have a valid registration document with positive technical examination,
cannot drive on sidewalks or without helmet. That is why a lot of people are hiding the real potential
of their constructions by installing an electronic power and speed limiter in case of police control
while driving on public roads or sidewalks. Officially, owners of such constructions admits that they
use their vehicles only on closed tracks or private terrains.
During the tests on the chassis dynamometer, the temperature of the battery pack did not exceed
35°C.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
up to 80 A of current. Therefore, 20 cells have been connected in series and 11 such sets of 20 cells
have been connected in parallel. In order to gain in space, the battery pack has been additionally
splitted into 2 sections: 17x11 and 3x11 what is shown in the Fig. 2. The overall maximum voltage of
the designed battery pack is 84 V with the capacity of 27.5 Ah. Taking into account that the maximal
continuous discharging current for one cell is equal to 10 A, the battery can deliver up to 110 A of
current for about 15 minutes. As the maximum current output of the Sabvoton controller is 80 A, the
cells are discharged by the maximal current of 7.27 A what is the safe level in terms of battery life.
Consuming the current of 7 A, the time needed to discharge the SONY cell to a safe voltage of 2.8 V
is about 22 minutes [5].
The battery pack is charged with the automatic charger via BMS system (Battery Management
System), which continuously controls the charging and discharging process parameters of the battery.
The purpose of this device is to prevent the cell from being charged above 4.2 V and discharged below
2.8 V. Exceeding these values causes disconnection of the power supply [6]. After charging process,
the BMS performs a passive balancing of the battery cell sections which takes from 6 to 8 hours [7].
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
Wheel speed for a diameter of 26" 0.9 km/h for each 1 V of power supply
Torque > 125 Nm
Weight 9.2 kg
Fork spacing (dropout) 145 mm (36 spokes)
Hall sensor yes
Number of magnets 46 (23 pairs)
Fig. 3 presents the photos of disassembled rotor and stator of the motor. In the BLDC motors the
windings are connected directly to the controller which switches the voltage on the corresponding
winding using information from the three Hall sensors placed inside the motor every 120 of electric
degrees. Despite sophisticated control strategy, the BLDC motors have stable torque characteristics as
a function of rotational speed. The lack of mechanical commutator makes them more durable and
silent than the classic DC motors. They can also reach higher speeds [9].
Fig. 3. Photos of the rotor and the stator respectively of the Mxus 3K-Turbo motor.
1 – stationary motor shaft, 2 – shaft and stator fixing element, 3 – windings, 4 – stationary stator,
5 – rotating neodymium magnets of the rotor
Three-phase motors are divided into two types: outrunners – where the casing rotates and inrunners
– where the interior of the motor rotates. The presented Mxus 3K-Turbo motor is the outrunner type.
Windings of the stator are connected in star.
One of the main problem during electric vehicle design and construction is a heat dissipation from
the motor. The temperature inside the motor can reach up to 170°C what negatively affects the
insulation of leads and windings and weakens the magnetic induction of the neodymium magnets.
They have to be therefore assembled with a strong high-temperature adhesive. During the tests on the
chassis dynamometer, the maximal temperature inside the motor has reached 150°C. This has been
caused by very intensive tests with high dynamometer resistance. During normal road exploitation of
the vehicle the temperature usually does not exceed 50°C. The distribution of the temperature on the
motor housing has been registered by the thermal imaging camera FLIR and is shown in the Fig. 4.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
The controller enables speed and breaking control by the lever based on the Hall sensor. It has also
regenerative breaking function which enables charging the battery during deceleration what increases
an overall range of the vehicle. Furthermore, it is equipped with the extensive diagnostic system and
the several protections such as: overcurrent, overload, too high temperature, too high or too low
voltage or accidental handle lock. The photo of the Sabvoton controller is shown in the Fig. 5.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
The heart of the controller are the IRFB4410ZPbF transistors, 470μF 100V electrolytic capacitors
and the TMS 320F28015PZA integrated circuit. Unfortunately, most of the elements do not have a
catalog number or any description due to the manufacturer's protection against copying a given
product. During the tests on the chassis dynamometer, the temperature of the controller did not exceed
30 ºC.
Acceleration measurements have been carried out on the road conditions as the mass of the
dynamometer measuring rollers and the lack of wind resistance could significantly perturb the results.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
The weight of the E-bike has been equal to 78 kg and the driver has weighed 72 kg. The final results
of the vehicle acceleration have been shown in Table 5.
Table 5. Acceleration results of the E-bike
Speed Acceleration time
From 5 km/h to 30 km/h 2.1 sec.
From 5 km/h to 60 km/h 4.3 sec.
From 5 km/h to 78 km/h 6.9 sec.
∙ ∙ /
𝐶= (1)
/
where:
C – energy consumption in [Wh/km],
U – motor voltage in [V],
I – motor current in [A],
t – time of drive in [s],
s – distance covered in [m].
The main problem with performing such a test in the laboratory condition is the lack of wind
resistance but on the other hand too high minimal load produced by the dynamometer measuring
rollers which are originally dedicated to the more heavy and powerful vehicles and therefore giving
too much of resistance. The MAHA dynamometer has a lot of predefined parameters but for the
internal combustion vehicle testing, where the parameters such as wind resistance and road conditions
can be simulated automatically by the dynamometer. For the electric vehicle testing these different
conditions may influence the results and will be investigated in further research by comparing the
laboratory tests with the road condition tests.
Fig. 6 shows the laboratory test results for the energy consumption of the constructed electric
vehicle in the above described conditions. Additionally, taking into account the bigger weight and
wider tires of the studied construction they are comparable to those presented in [10] which have been
obtained in the road conditions for lighter and less powerful construction. One has to take also into
account that the drive’s rated power influences not only vehicle’s dynamics but also its energy
efficiency [11].
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
27,50
Energy consumption [Wh/km]
27,00
26,50
26,00
25,50
25,00
24,50
24,00
23,50
23,00
25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Driving speed[km/h]
Taking into consideration the capacity of the designed battery pack which is equal to 27.5 Ah and
the nominal voltage of the battery which is 72 V, the energy source can deliver up to 1.98 kWh of
electric energy what enables to cover the very theoretical distance of about 85 km driving with the
speed of 27.5 km/h and the distance of about 72 km driving with the speed of 61.2 km/h. Obtained
results show that the higher but constant resistance of the measuring rollers does not compensate the
nonlinear dependence of the wind resistance for higher speeds. Nevertheless, in everyday use in the
road conditions and at variable speeds, the constructed vehicle is able to reach the average distance of
about 70 km on one battery charge.
5. Conclusion
In the article the construction of the light two-wheeled electric vehicle has been presented and tested.
The vehicle is powered by the brushless DC motor (BLDC) of 3 kW of nominal power which seems to
be the best solution for this type of construction. The presented vehicle is based on a steel durable
bicycle frame and has been additionally equipped with pedals as an alternative driving source which
by the significant power of the electric motor do not contribute much to the driving dynamics.
Nevertheless, according to the Polish law such a construction cannot be called an electric bicycle as its
auxiliary driving source parameters considerably exceed the requirements for the electric bicycles
described in the Act on Road Traffic of June 20, 1997.
The use of BLDC motor of 3 kW in such a construction makes the vehicle relatively fast and
powerful as the motorcycle. During the laboratory tests performed on the MAHA chassis
dynamometer the built E-bike has reached almost 80 km/h of maximum speed. The measured
mechanical power and the torque on the wheel has been equal respectively to 3.6 kW and 132 Nm.
The acceleration to 78 km/h is less than 7 seconds.
The last chapter of the article has been dedicated to the energy consumption of the presented
vehicle. With the 27.5 Ah of battery capacity the E-bike can cover the average theoretical distance of
about 80 km consuming about 25 Wh/km. The road tests confirmed the average distance of about
70 km on one battery charge. After all, if there were no legal aspects of driving such a vehicle it would
be a very economic and pleasure giving means of transportation.
References
[1] A. Zieliński, Samochody osobowe : dzieje rozwoju. Wydawnictwa Komunikacji i Łączności,
2009.
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International Automotive Conference (KONMOT2018) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 421 (2018) 042067 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/421/4/042067
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