DESIGN OF TRACTION MOTOR FOR MITIGATING ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF LIGHT ELECTRIC VEHICLE CONSIDERING MATERIAL PROPERTIES AND DRIVE CYCLES

Abstract

Light electric vehicles (LEVs) are usually used as neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) for the second vehicle or car-sharing service. For LEVs, it is important to reduce energy consumption to have greater mileage at the same battery capacity. One of the direct ways to decrease energy consumption is the efficiency improvement of the traction motor, which is the main propulsion system. Also, the weight reduction of the traction motor can be a solution to energy usage mitigation. This paper suggested the design process of a traction motor for LEV considering material properties to minimizing the energy consumption of the vehicle. During the design process, vehicle simulation was adopted to calculate energy consumption. In addition, traction motor and battery which are the key components of LEV were mathematically modeled and used in the simulation. Using them, energy consumption was estimated within the change of stack length of the traction motor for some drive cycles. Finally, from these simulations, optimum power density is determined which minimizes energy consumption.