Failsafe Drive Performance of FRID Electric Vehicles With the Structure Driven by the Front and Rear Wheels Independently

Failsafe performance is clarified for electric vehicles (EVs) with the drive structure driven by front and rear wheels independently, i.e., front and rear wheel independent drive type (FRID) EV. A simulator based on the four-wheel vehicle model, which can be applied to various types of drive systems like four in-wheel motor-drive-type EVs, is used for the clarification. Yaw rate and skid angle, which are related to drivability and steerability of vehicles and which further influence the safety of vehicles during runs, are analyzed under the condition that one of the motor drive systems fails while cornering on wet roads. In comparison with the four in-wheel motor-drive-type EVs, it is confirmed that the EVs with the structure focused in this paper have little change of the yaw rate and that hardly any dangerous phenomena appear, which would cause an increase in the skid angle of vehicles even if the front or rear wheel drive systems fail when running on wet roads with low friction coefficient. Moreover, the failsafe drive performance of the FRID EVs with the aforementioned structure is verified through experiments using a prototype EV.