1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

valid in Europe, where this trend is more significant, mainly due to more strict limits on carbon dioxide production. Penalties for vehicle manufacturers exceeding the set limit for CO 2 production are also related to this issue. One of the most important options for reducing fuel consumption and consequently CO 2 emissions is the wider application and use of alternative vehicle drives. These are mainly hybrid and electric vehicles. Hybrid drives usually use both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor to drive. The commonly used hybrid drives are full hybrids. Vehicles that can be recharged from the socket are referred to as PHEVs – Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles (Waraich, 2016). The advantage of these vehicles is, under certain conditions, the possibility of driving only on an electric motor, which greatly reduces the need of use an internal combustion engine and can achieve significantly lower emissions. The electric drive can only be used when the battery is sufficiently charged, and the performance and acceleration requirements are lower. Usually the maximum driving speed is limited due to the battery capacity, which is lower than for electric cars. Both hybrid and electric vehicles are equipped with the possibility of recharging the battery from an external source, which allows greater use of the electric motor, for example, for repeated shorter journeys at lower speeds. A great development can be observed in case of fully electric vehicles. Basically, two basic types of electric vehicles can be recognized, BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) and FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle). For battery vehicles, the main energy source is the battery. For fuel cell vehicles, the main source of electric energy is a fuel cell that uses hydrogen as a fuel, in solid or liquid form. In Europe, mainly battery electric vehicles are used. The most used type of battery is the Li-Ion battery, which has a good weight- to-capacity ratio and is characterized by a low level of self-discharge. Today’s electric vehicles enable to achieve higher driving range, on single battery charge, due to the higher battery capacity. With increasing battery capacity and the number of electric vehicles, there is an increasing demand to build charging stations. Especially those which, thanks to high performance, allow very fast charging of high-capacity batteries. Today’s modern high-performance charging stations allow the battery to charge in 15- 20 minutes to 80% capacity. This is a standard value because the last 20% charge is very lengthy and is related to the battery design. Another reason is battery lifetime, it is ideal to maintain the battery on 70-80% charge level. Full discharge or maximum charge is not optimal. Electric vehicles can also be charged from a regular home electric network. However, due to the low power, charging is very time-consuming and only available for users who have the corresponding free outdoor place. In large cities where most people live in flats and there is a lack of outdoor space and parking spaces in general, this possibility of charging is not realistic. For this reason, the availability of fast charging is based on building charging stations. However, the connectors for vehicle connections are not the same for all manufacturers, and the specific connector type corresponds to the concrete territory, as shows Figure 1. For example, Japanese manufacturers such as Nissan use the CHAdeMO connector. In Europe, the Mennekers connectors are used for AC charging. The CCS (Combined Charging System) connector is used for high-speed charging. Most manufacturers support this connector. Tesla uses its own

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