by cidaut | Nov 7, 2017 | Sin categoría
ReFreeDrive is our most recently approved H2020 project. With the title “Rare earth free e-Drives featuring low cost manufacturing”, ReFreeDrive is focused on developing rare earth‐free traction technologies beyond their current state-of‐art, with a strong focus on industrial feasibility for mass production, targeting lower costs with higher specific torque and power density. The project was kicked off last 17th and 18th of October.
ReFreeDrive joins 13 partners, 9 of them industrial partners, from 6 different European Countries. Coordinated by CIDAUT, the Consortium includes an OEM (Jaguar Land Rover), an applied research center focused on materials research (CSM), a Tier1 system integrator (Privé), motor designers for both the electric machines and the power electronics (Motor Design Limited, Univesity of L’Aquila, IFP Energies Nouvelles), manufacturers (Breuckmann, Aurubis, Tecnomatic, Mavel Powertrain, R13 Technology) and an association (European Copper Institute).
The project will study and develop simultaneously two solutions for the power traction system of electrical vehicles. Both solutions are brushless AC electrical machines: induction machine with fabricated and copper die-cast rotor (IM) and synchronous reluctance (SynRel) machine. Through their configurations these machines not only are rare-earth magnet free, but also share common features that can be exploited during the design step, as well in the manufacturing process. These common features lead to a complex synergy between the two technologies, which justify the development of different topologies of electric machines in just one project.
The design of the ReFreeDrive motors will take as a premise the reduction of use of materials, as more than half of the final price is formed by raw materials cost. Also, a minimization of manufacturing costs will be ensured by an early involvement of manufacturers, from the design stage. ReFreeDrive motor topologies have good room for cost reduction by off-setting permanent magnet use.
Beyond the motor design, ReFreeDrive also consider an integrated design of the power train that allows the optimization of the electric connections, the cooling systems and the housing.
Power electronics development will be mainly focused on the introduction of innovative Wide Bandgap power switch to allow high frequency operation and reduce cost associated with passive components. That advance allow achieving a 50% increase in the power density of motor power electronics and a 50% reduction in losses
ReFreeDrive proposes a scalable design that will be tested for two power range applications (75kW and 200kW). In this case, the market that this project addresses covers all the possible option of fully electric vehicles and hybrids.
by cidaut | Sep 12, 2017 | Sin categoría
Madrid, 6th July 2017. The digital newspaper El Español, together with Hyundai and Bosch, organized a round table to discuss the multiple challenges of the automotive sector. Under the title “The future of the automotive sector” the meeting gathered more than ten experts that went into deep analysis of aspects related to the innovation, connectivity and disruptive technologies in the sector. The working day was divided in two main topics: Electromobility and Connectivity and Autonomous Driving.
From left to right: Ricardo Olalla (Bosch); Carlos de la Cruz (CDTI); Javier Arboleda (Hyundai); Felipe Jiménez (INSIA); Roberto Álvarez (University of Nebrija); Susana Gómez (DGT); Zaira Unzue (IBIL); Javier Romo (CIDAUT); Cecilia Medina, (SERNAUTO) and Miguel Ángel Uriondo (EL ESPAÑOL).
CIDAUT participated in the Connectivity and Autonomous Driving round table where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the automated driving were analyzed from different points of view. CIDAUT’s representative highlighted the opportunities to enhance the driving safety and the inclusion of elder population and disabled people to be included in the mobility of the future. The importance of the autonomous vehicles to reduce the time-out and to improve the exploitation of the urban space was also explained. It was indicated that the development of the autonomous vehicle has to run in parallel and in a balanced way with the development of the connectivity, but not only the long range communication based on mobile application but also the short time communication based on emerging technologies. The seamless connectivity is a must to advance in the different levels of automation defined by SAE J3016.
Also CIDAUT`s representative highlighted the importance of the infrastructure for the transition phase to the automated mobility. Vehicles of different automation levels are going to share the roads for several decades and the infrastructure is the main responsible actor to homogenize this traffic. Another aspect to be taken into account is the acceptance by the users of the different Advanced Driving Assistance Systems, they should be friendly and in some cases transparent to the users.
by cidaut | Feb 10, 2017 | Sin categoría
On December 1st, El Norte de Castilla organized a conference to bring the electric vehicle closer to the public.
Electromobility experts from the three companies exposed their point of view on the difficulties, opportunities and challenges for the electric vehicles promotion. The vehicle manufacturers presented their new innovations in the market and focused on the need of a continued support from the administration. The public needs a better understanding of the electromobility advantages and also a stable scenario of economic support to effectively promote the sale of this kind of vehicles. The strategy followed by different European countries was discussed, paying special attention to Norway and China. The first country has established many positive discrimination measures to promote the electric vehicle purchase and use and some provinces of China are working to facilitate the manufacturing and use of lightweight electric vehicles.
Regarding the development of electric vehicles, Cidaut presented some of the developments and innovations achieved in the last projects. Improvements on efficiency, the importance of energy harvesting to reduce the carbon footprint, the main technologies for weight optimization and the need to ensure the passive of electric vehicles were some of the targets presented.
Special attention was paid to the difficult compromise between lightweight and crashworthiness for small urban electric vehicles. The European Commission and also the users are asking for reduced size mobility solutions propelled by electricity but without renouncing to the passive safety. Cidaut is really concerned about this issue and showed the last crash simulations and real tests carried out in its facilities.
by cidaut | Feb 10, 2017 | Sin categoría
Both European projects have run parallel for three years to balance the vehicle and infrastructure development.
Both projects are aimed to take advantage of the solar energy for electromobility. They work on the same vehicle, but Free-Moby is focused on the infrastructure while Plus-Moby’s target is the vehicle itself, which is an L7 type vehicle.
The vehicle has the possibility to be charged trough a connector but also by battery swapping. Then the batteries can be charged both in the vehicle and at home. Free-Moby has developed an innovative charging system based on photovoltaic energy. The photovoltaic installation is connected to a battery rack where there are several modules equal to the ones installed in the vehicle. The battery rack has been developed to allow the control of the energy flux attending to the user’s needs.
The battery rack is connected to the grid and the home in such a way that allows the energy flux between photovoltaic panels, vehicle, home grid and stationary batteries. The efforts made to develop the communication of the whole system allow making the best decision on the energy flux taking into account the state of charge of the batteries, the energy necessity at home and the energy pricing or the foreseen consumption. Cidaut has developed its own rack based on a 6kW photovoltaic parking that has installed at its facilities.
Plus-Moby project has been focused on the development of the vehicle and in order to harvest solar energy, it has several panels in the roof of the vehicle and an additional panel covers the wind screen when the vehicle is closed. Other particularity of the vehicle is the two independent motors for each of the axles. In the last phase of Plus-Moby, Cidaut’s efforts have been focused on ensuring the crashworthiness of the vehicle. After the optimization of the vehicle through a iterative simulation process, three frontal crash tests and one lateral crash have been performed demonstrating that the safety level of this light vehicle is equivalent to conventional M category ones. The crashes have demonstrated the great stability of the vehicle structure, and the high protection of the passengers. After all the crashes it was possible to open the doors and the evaluation of the damage in the occupants has been positive.
by cidaut | Nov 17, 2016 | Sin categoría
On the 20th and 21st of September, the first Light Electric Vehicle Summit was held in Barcelona. The event was successful; more than 150 participants from 25 different countries had the opportunity to attend the 70 presentations shown during the congress. Cidaut was there as a part of the Scientific Committee and also presenting the results of the European project Plus-Moby.
During the congress it was demonstrated that the integration of the light electric vehicles in the urban scenario is a fact and a growing tendency in the near future. Cidaut is aware of this situation and strongly believes in the need to ensure the safety grade of this kind of vehicles to increase their acceptance by the users, because being greener doesn’t mean that you are going to accept a lower safety level in your vehicle.
With this concern in mind, Cidaut’s presentation was focused on the crash behavior of the vehicle comparing the results achieved by simulation with the final results obtained experimentally. The structure of the vehicle developed during Plus Moby project is based in the use of ultra high strength steel. This solution has demonstrated to have a very good ratio between stiffness and weight. After several optimization cycles the final structure was defined. The manufacturing of four prototypes was under the responsibility of IFEVS, also present in Barcelona’s event, and the crash tests were performed at Cidaut’s facilities. The tests consisted on three frontal impacts attending to Euro Ncap configuration and one lateral impact in accordance with the R95 Regulation.
Two important conclusions can be obtained from the results achieved; the first one is that it is possible to obtain high safety levels in light weight reduced size electric vehicles. The second conclusion is that the correlation level between the simulation and the experimental results is very high.
During the project it has been learnt that the light electric vehicles crashworthiness presents several particularities, but most of the difficulties can be overcome to reach a safe design.
