Series BEV with a Small Battery Pack and High-Efficiency ICE Onboard Electricity Production: B-Class, High-Roof Hatchback and Le Mans Hypercar Applications

Abstract

Data of battery electric vehicles (BEV) with and without a range extender internal combustion engines (ICE) are reviewed and integrated with weight and performance models. A BEV with an on-board, high efficiency, electricity generator based on positive ignition (PI) ICEs is proposed to improve the uptake of the BEV targeting city commuters while improving their economic and environmental impacts. The small ICE, that is working stationary, fixed load and speed, and the generator similarly optimized for a single point operation, permit an efficiency fuel chemical-to-electric of about 49%. This is much better than producing electricity centralized from combustion fuels (average efficiency with included distribution and recharging losses), and it does not require any electric recharging infrastructure. The range of cars can be extended to about the same values of today's car with traditional combustion engines. Simple but reliable extrapolations from production BEV, with or without range extender and with different battery capacity on the same platform, demonstrate this BEV may deliver miles-per-gallon (MPG) working gasoline 13% better than any plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicle (PHEV) currently available, and MPGe (MPG-equivalent) working electric 12% better than BEV with a larger battery pack and no range extender, or 27% better than the BEV with a larger battery pack and a traditional range extender. Thanks to the high energy density of gasoline fuel, the range can be increased dramatically at minimal costs for weight and packaging. The proposed architecture is not only promising for passenger cars. With minimal changes to the existing rules, a prototype hypercar for the novel World Endurance Championship of 2021 could be built by using most of the present LMP1-H hardware components.