Results of the ETH-Hybrid III-Vehicle Project and Outlook

Electric vehicles today clearly represent the only solution fulfilling the zero emission vehicles (ZEV) standard. However, they are still not an equivalent alternative to gasoline driven cars due to the well known problems of today's batteries. The concept of a parallel hybrid drive line can be an optimal combination of both principles of propulsion in that the gasoline engine guarantees a wide range operation, while electric propulsion can be used within the restricted zero emission zones [20].

The parallel hybrid drive train described here has been realized at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland. For the first time a drive line consisting of a spark ignition engine, an electric asynchronous machine, a flywheel, and a wide range continuously variable transmission (CVT) is realized. An overall control system has been developed for the drive train. This drive line has been integrated in a multi purpose van for real road testing. This paper describes the experimental results from the testing of various individual components, from the power train on a dynamic test bench and from the test vehicle on a chassis dynamometer test bench. Fuel consumption is cut near by half in the European urban driving cycle (ECE-R15/04), based on fuel without the use of electricity.