Parametric study of alternative EV1 powertrains

The General Motors (GM) EV1 is an electric vehicle originally powered by either a PbA or NiMh battery pack. This paper examines the possibility of alternative powertrain configurations. These alternatives include an ultracapacitor (UC) storage system, fuel cell system with UC storage, and a fuel cell system with a NiMh battery pack. The configurations were simulated using ADVISOR. Parametric tests were performed by varying the size of the energy storage systems. The study of these combinations is followed by an examination of the current art of the hybrid energy storage topologies used to combine battery and ultracapacitor storage. These topologies include passive parallel, active parallel, cascade parallel, and multi-input bidirectional converter.