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Electric Mobility for Low Cost Transportation and Industrial Alternatives
BluWāv has developed a series of implementations based upon a standard Light Electric Vehicle wheel motor technology that has been applied to
several vehicles in low cost countries. Shown below are samples of the implementations:
Battery Electric 4 In-wheel Motor Drive System for Industrial Applications
A lower power version of the in-wheel system was created for a battery electric unmanned ground vehicle application. The system is directly
applicable to industrial equipment where mobility is a priority. A system sketch is shown below:
The commercial vehicle market is broken into weight classes. Vehicles in class 4 and 5 make up a majority of the market for urban delivery and
shuttle vehicles and represent approximately a 1.1 million unit volume worldwide. There is a very high correlation between the operational mode of
these vehicles with condensed stop and go delivery schedules that can take full advantage of hybrid technology.
The vehicles in these classes weigh between 10,000 and 19,500 lbs when fully loaded. Practically, however, the vehicles are run at lighter loads
but are run with the load box full of many small but light packages.
As a result of the desire for lower operating costs hybrid technologies are being incorporated into the purchase of mid to large size commercial
vehicle fleets. Further, there is a desire to increase the physical volume that is incorporated into the vehicle to allow delivery runs to be
lengthened with no impact on the laden mass of the vehicle.
Countless hybrid implementations have been built from a prototype standpoint to achieve similar fuel economy improvements compared to BluWāv's
Low Load Floor hybrid system. The system, shown below is a typical embodiment of a series hybrid whereby a single drive motor is used with a
transmission, gearbox, differential, and/or standard drive axle:
Few low load floor commercial delivery and transit vehicles have been built, most notably by Dallas Smith Corporation with the cooperation of Ford
Motor Company. Many large urban buses have been redesigned for low load floor configurations, but using standard drivetrain technology. Most
simply incorporate air suspensions to actively lower the vehicle at a stop to allow easy ingress/egress. The buses must lift prior to driving due
to potential wheel to body and drivetrain to frame interface issues. Some issued patents suggest alternative means of providing a low load floor
for smaller commercial vehicles as shown below (from WO 03/106247):
The market pull is coming from the fleet buyer. BluWāv proposes to work within the standard sales chain as shown below:
While the overall market of vehicles is 1.1million units, typical fleet buys can range from 1 - 1000 units.
As adoption rates increase, it is anticipated that series hybrid configurations will move up the tier chain to the OE level. BluWāv's
relationships with tier one driveline companies should help to solidify this business when the OE push arrives.
Commercial E-Axle and High Power Industrial Drives
BluWāv has committed resources to develop technologies that apply to on-road commercial vehicles as well as off-road applications. The systems
are flexible in that they can be applied to highway speeds or, with a change in the gearing of the system, applied to high torque low speed systems
that are applicable to industrial projects for off-road duty. While the description, below, focuses on the on-road commercial market, the same
logic applies to off-road industrial applications.
Due to the stop-and-go nature of the commercial delivery industry, this market presents an ideal business prospect for hybrid-electric propulsion.
There are three primary groups currently integrating hybrid drivelines in their vehicles:
- Utility/specialty trucks
- Parcel delivery trucks
- Shuttle vehicles (airports, etc.)
BluWāv has envisioned a large market for a commercial vehicle series hybrid system that delivers hybrid fuel economy and the benefit of
increased cargo volume. The vehicle is a planned embodiment based on customer engagements. The system envisioned is two hardened wheel motors propelling the
vehicle with a generator powered by a reduced capacity internal combustion engine. While there are many variants of series hybrids running in
developmental and low volume test fleets, especially on large city busses, none are known to have the advantages of low load floor.
Specific advantages in addition to the benefits of hybridization include:
- Improved vehicle dynamic control - With individual wheel control and monitoring of wheel speed, the control system can provide
anti-lock braking as well as traction control functionality. Further, with the addition of certain sensors, the control system can provide limited
yaw correction in the event of an under or oversteer situation.
- The system configuration proposed improves the flexibility of a commercial vehicle to its driver's, passengers, loading personnel, and
point of service delivery people by allowing the vehicle to be designed with a very low load floor to improve ingress/egress by incorporating two high
power wheel motors, deleting the mechanical drive axle and drivetrain, and dropping the frame (and resulting load floor) as low as reasonable
possible.
- The system provides hybridization, a lower cost installation, and simplification compared to current non-hybrid system and low load floor
configurations such as those proposed by DBX (Dallas Smith Corporation). The current state of the art low load floor configurations are non-hybrid
solutions. The vehicles are converted, at significant expense, from rear wheel drive to front wheel drive incorporating a custom transfer case,
front axle, drive shaft, and rear frame section. The hybrid configuration proposed includes the same elements as other series hybrids, but deletes
the need of the additional transfer case, axle, and driveshaft, allowing the front of the vehicle to essentially remain the same from a suspension
and drivetrain standpoint. Pictures of purely mechanical solutions are shown below:
A second parallel hybrid system was modeled specifically for the refuse market. A detailed vehicle model was built along with a series of packaging
options. The result was a system design that, in one of the proposed solutions, included a two-stage energy storage system using Ultrcaps on top of
Lead-Acid batteries, an electric drive that served as the hybrid drive and, in one option, as the 4WD mechanism. A rendering of the one of the
concepts is shown below:
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