Nonconventional three-wheel electric vehicle for urban mobility

This paper outlines the original solutions adopted for powering a nonconventional three-wheel electric vehicle. This is a lightweight vehicle for use in urban mobility with mission tasks such as 50 km/h cruising speed and 80 km range of autonomy. The propulsion system is based on a lead-acid battery-fed wheel direct drive. This is arranged with a 4.5 kW prototype of a slotless axial-flux permanent magnet machine, which has a total weight of 15 kg and is capable of 85 Nm continuous torque and 120 Nm peak torque over 2 min. The motor is totally enclosed in the single front wheel of the vehicle and fed through an IGBT bidirectional power converter, which allows the control of both motoring and regenerative braking operations. Design characteristics and experimental data taken from the prototype of wheel direct drive are given.