Fundamentals of Electric Vehicles: Technology and Economics

Professor. Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 34
Course Summary
Let me spend a few minutes looking at what all we did in this course. We started by saying
electric vehicle is going to happen, and going to happen faster than we think. Primary reason it is
four times more energy efficient, it is non-polluting, economic viability is a concern, but it, it is
the gap is being filled every day. We can use smart techniques like swapping to make things
move faster.

We talked about how do you need to really design the vehicle, which are energy efficient, so that
they consume less energy and if they consume less energy means battery size goes down and if
battery size goes down things become more economically viable. So, remember that you tend to
do energy efficient petrol cars for the operation cost of the vehicle to go down. But for electric
vehicles, you do energy efficient, so that the capital costs can come down.

Then, we came up with this interesting swapping technique by which you can convert the fixed
cost of battery into a variable cost and that would help. We got into a introduction of what kind
of things are possible for charging, charging infrastructure, swapping, what consists of batteries,
the materials for the battery and introduce a concept of recycling.

Introduce a concept at that time itself in chapter one, how do you really figure out cost of usage
of something which is high upfront cost and some low continuous cost, the depreciation interest
rate, we get into what is called life of the battery and number of cycles etc, we introduced all of
that. After doing a large introduction, we took a step back and sort of say let us go to the
fundamentals of a vehicle movement it is after all mechanical movement.

What is the velocity at which it is moving? What is acceleration that it is taking? What is the
weight of the vehicle? What kind of road do we have? Based on that, can we calculate the first
the torque requirement the motor has to give the torque at different speed vehicle may move at
different speed all the way from 10-15 kilometer per hour 100 kilometer per hour, 150 kilometer
per hour, what is the torque and speed and what is the power requirement?
Peak power requirement, peak torque requirement and then we computed what is called the
energy required. Energy required basically tell how much fuel I need to have or how much
battery do I need to have. So, we talked about all these things and we gave examples of what
does it take for two wheeler, three wheeler, four wheeler, trucks, we actually went through this
completely in detail, something that is now I think, taught in automotive course or a mechanical
engineering course. But I think for electric vehicle all of us get need to know.

So, that is what we did in chapter two. Then, we saw said okay, we have decided to make electric
vehicles. In chapter three we discussed what are the subsystems? Which are common to electric
vehicles and petrol vehicles and what is our new subsystems? What goes out? What stays? What
comes in? We went to the details of each of the subsystem.

Specifically, we said the most important thing that required is a battery, which is energy
container instead of fuel tank, we said that the motor and controller, which is your engine of a
vehicle equivalent to engine of a vehicle, we said that VCU may be required voltage control unit,
which will manage all this, we said that will require several DC-DC converters, because not
everything is runs on the same voltage.

We talk about various peripherals what happens to the peripherals, air conditioner will remain as
the air conditioner except that it is now going to be electrically driven in through hydraulic
driven. Power steering and brakes again instead of a hydraulic driven, we said it will become
electrically driven. We defined all this, we defined that there will be a software will be required
and then we also saw say the very important thing that required is a charger.

Because without the charger, batteries cannot be charge and we talked about the charger will be
important component there, we introduced the term of on-board charger and off-board charger
there. After defining all the subsystems, we start sort of saying let us look at the main subsystems
in detail and we went into the first thing that we take (())(06:22) into battery cells. Because the
cells which has to be put together to make a battery, we started trying to understand what are the
characteristics of cell.

Each cell is a container can be a container of electricity, it can be charged, discharged and we
found it can be charged discharged just as only finite number of times that is his life, lifecycle.
We then found out that this charging discharging for each cell will depend on the temperature
used for charging and temperature used for discharge and the temperature dependence we started
looking into it.

We then found that the life cycle of this cell is also depend on the rate of charging and rate of
discharge, the C rate, we defined the concept of C rate and we went into the dependence and
finally we sort of set the battery life will depend on the depth of discharge, how much you never
fully charged, never fully empty, you leave part of the energy always there that is leave that
much at the bottom.

Do not fully charged, leave it little empty, so that you can run it more efficiently. It is like even
in a fuel tank, you do not take out the last bit of petrol and you do not try to fill it over brim
because then it can spell. In this case there is no spilling but basically it impacts the life of the
battery. Having done that, we then went into, these are the cells that we have, we went into two
parts, how do you build from the cell through the complete battery pack?

What is involved? What is the configuration? How do you go about doing it? What are the
different types of cells available? We went into what are the cell chemistry that is available
today? What are the cell chemistry that will come tomorrow? How does each of this impact the
different patterns parameter charge discharge cycle, the voltage and the current the temperature
dependence the duty dependence, charger the rate of charging, discharging dependent and all the
time we are also talking about costs, cost, cost.

We talked about cylindrical cells, we talk about prismatic cells, we talked about the pouch cells,
all three types of cells and how we put them together. We also talked about the battery materials
that we do not have these battery materials and we have to import these battery materials and we
talked about how these battery materials can be recovered by using recycling. We then looked at
again the economics of the whole cells and battery. It is a fairly elaborate chapter went into
details.

And then Dr. Kaushal came in and started looking at once again cell to pack in great detail. He
first started saying well. You need to really understand how do you do mechanical packaging.
You need to understand vibrations. You need to understand, what are the materials that are used
to hold the cells together? Are they going to bend? Will there be stresses developing? And if they
do, what does it do to the pack?
Remember, if there are stresses, the joints between cell and the joints between what is called bus
bar and the cell will all become loose and that can create a huge disaster. So, the mechanical
aspect if the vehicle is vibrating, what happens to the cells and the pack after looking at it in
somewhat comprehensive manner, the mechanical aspect he went into the next most important
aspect, the thermal. Probably the most important aspects especially in India.

How much heat is generated? Where is that heat going? As it is used, as it is charged as it is
discharged? What happens to that heat? Is that heat going to just increase the temperature of all
the cells, if it increases the temperature, of the cells the life is going to go for a toss, what do you
do? How do you do thermal design? How do you see hotspots do not ever do not develop? He
went into detail how to compute this, how to simulate them and figure out how to carry your
thermal design if cooling has to be done, what kind of cooling is to be done.

For very small pack, you may just let the environmental cool it for a larger pack, you start
looking at both air cooling liquid cooling. Then he went into the electrical design how do you
design the pack electrically? How do you ensure that every electrical path from every cell to the
terminus is in such a manner that nowhere extra resistances are found? Why is it important
because currents can be 100 amperes and even a couple of milli ohms resistance will completely
change the characteristics of the battery.

Each cell the difference between 90 percent charge and 90 percent empty is only is less than a
volt 0.8, 0.9 volt. 100 ampere 0.2, 2 milli ohms is already 0.2 volt. If you make error of that kind,
you are already making like 25-30 percent of capacity, you think that you have lost we do not
know what has happened.

So, he went into electrical design and then we finally went into BMS the battery management
system. So crucial, so crucial for ensuring first, first, safety. Number two, ensuring the cells are
balanced, ensuring that cells have maximum life and he put together this whole battery pack,
most people make the biggest mistake of thinking that it is just assembling of cell and I think he
must have given you a flavor what all effort is require.

And the design becomes far more complicated in Indian condition, where the temperatures can
go up to 48 degrees centigrade. So, what do you what happens when you do design it properly,
not designed properly? With the same cells therefore meaning same cost, you can get up pack
whose life is 200 cycles, another pack which is close to 2000 cycles. That is the kind of
difference that you can make.

And if you have gone through my calculations on what does it mean in terms of interest and
depreciation, you can see how the whole thing gets immensely, immensely makes go or not go
for electric vehicles. After that came chapter six, which Kannan Professor of Practice at IIT
Madras took it up and he has got into detail starting from basic physics, starting from the fact
that you must understand flow, when you want to understand the motors and controllers.

And to me it was a great learning that whether you are talking about a simple water flow or any
liquid flow or any fluid flow or you are talking about electrical flow, electrical power, power
flow, currents or you are talking about magnetic flows, because motors come to electromagnetic
device or you are talking about heat flow, they are all flows and flow is a somewhat abstract
quantity, but they are governed by very similar equations.

The physical phenomena is different, but to understand the flow pretty much the same thing. For
example, if a voltage is created, current will flow, if a pressure is created, liquid will flow if
temperature gradient is created, temperature, heat will flow and if for magnetic, if you create the
magnetic field associated with the flow is a magnetic field when sources of magnets are put in
the very fact that there is wires which provoke when current flows magnetism comes in that is
one, a mechanical movement gives another movement of magnetism and that results into the
flow.

He integrated the four flow and he said that at least three of the four flows will be required in
motor design, all the time you have to worry about heat you have to worry about of course, the
electrical current and you have to worry about the magnetism and based on that, he started trying
to from fundamentals got into how his motor designed, what does it really get involved and went
all the way into in somewhat detail probably a little bit too much of detail into motor design.

He also got into controller design, briefly but got into controller design. Controller design
particularly for the modern efficient motors and I think he took example of PMSM, Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Motors, which is today dominating the electric vehicles essentially came
out of power electronics and power electronics, it came from the power electronics
understanding creating MOSFETs creating IGBT which can switch voltages and currents and
that becomes a crucial part.

How do you go about doing it, from given power supply power supply comes from a battery,
how do you really give the appropriate signals to the motor such that the motor does a desired
job. Leading to all these things to the performance of the motor, whether it says speed or the
torque produced power consumed, peak power, all these parameters were linked.

Then, in chapter seven, I came back and started talking about chargers. What kind of chargers
are required? Onboard charger, public chargers, bulk charger. When did you detail of that? What
are the standards evolving? Because that is where the standards become very important because
somebody else will put the charger, somebody else will make the vehicle the two must interface.

We talked about not only for currents movement, but also for communication, the importance of
communication in this chargers and we built went into what it does to set up charger
infrastructure, home chargers as well as public chargers and we went into economics of chargers
also. I think we were pretty much therefore covered, the chapter eight which will be done
subsequently.

One hour only is on the new area which is emerging. Can I monitor the vehicle electric, vehicle
and monitor it remotely? Today it is possible. You can monitor the battery. Every cell in the
battery can be monitored. A battery may consist of 400 cells and every cell you are monitoring
the pressure, the temperature, the voltage and current at every instant when it is being driven.

And figure out what is happening to these cells, because these cells are very problematic things.
If you do not they are not managed well. They can get into trouble. What does it tell us? It often
tells us well, these are not behaving that well, battery is not behaving, may be battery design has
to be tuned. Sometime tells us well in advance that this is what is likely to happen, if a correction
is possible, do that. Not just while just the vehicle is running, but also during charging.

Similarly, it can monitor the motors and the controllers, what is happening to the motor, is too
much heat getting generated. Is the torque too high? Is it consuming more energy than should
have? Is it giving you a smooth drive or not? Use all this data and the data from chargers. How is
the charger charging? What is the best you are charging? Remember that the way you charge will
impact the life of the battery?

So can you monitor all this? Learn from this data, do analytics and figure out how do you make
electric vehicles behave better for the consumer. That will be the last chapter. I hope you enjoy
the course there are lots and lots of assignments, we have tried to give you assignments. All that I
can say your exam is going to be very much like your assignments. If you have done all your
assignments well exam will not be a surprise.

But if you have not done all your assignment yourself every problem there well, then you have
not done it you are to get the take the consequence. Please go through the chapters again. One
good part of the NPTEL is that you can go through the lectures again, try to understand that. The
PPTs of this will also be provided to you and there will be a few corrections in PPT, and few
corrections in lectures, when we are you are review the lectures, we have seen once in a while we
made some small mistake while recording the lecture small mistake.

Sometime for example, a milli watt is said told us as a watt, I will put some slides together,
which should be corrections. It will be correct corrections can be in the slides, correction can be
in the lecture that I will put together and provide to you. Best wishes. Thank you.