Current focus on techniques to reduce the tailpipe CO₂ emissions
of road vehicles is increasing the interest in hybrid and electric
vehicle technologies. Pure electric vehicles require bulky, heavy,
and expensive battery packs to enable an acceptable drive-able
range to be achieved. Extended-range electric vehicles (E-REV)
partly overcome the limitations of current battery technology by
having a "range extender" unit, which consists of an
onboard fuel converter that converts a liquid fuel, such as
gasoline, into electrical energy whilst the vehicle is driving.
This enables the traction battery storage capacity to be reduced,
whilst still maintaining an acceptable vehicle driving range.
In a previous paper the power requirement of a range extender
for a typical C segment passenger car was investigated using
drive-cycle modeling over real-world cycles. This paper presents
the detailed design of the range extender engine. Key attributes
for the engine have been identified, these being minimum package
volume, low weight, low cost, and good NVH. The selection of the
appropriate engine technology to enable the final design to fulfill
these attributes is described. The resulting design is highlights
are presented and the final design is presented.