Week 1 Challenge
Aim:-
Overall effeciency of electric vehicles and how it compares to IC engines.
Introduction:-
A common criticism of electric vehicles regarding emissions is that they simply transfer the CO2 emissions to the power plant.
The obvious argument is that the grid power is produced from a variety of means - like hydro, wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar, etc. that involve no CO2 emissions. But this time, how about getting our hands dirty.
We work out some calculations to show that electric vehicles, even if powered by electricity generated by coal powered plants, are much more efficient than oil based vehicles and as a result release less CO2 emissions.
Importance in practical application:-
Application of Electric car:-
The industrial Applications of Electric Drives are numerous. To arrive at a particular motor of suitable size for a given application:-
- The torque-speed curve of the industrial load is required. This fixes up the type of motor required to drive the load.
- The environmental conditions in the industry where the motor is located. This also decides the ambient temperature at which the motor operates.
Advantages of IC engine :-
An internal combustion engine is compact and lighter.
An internal combustion engine can be started immediately.
An internal combustion engine is quite safe to use.
An internal combustion engine has higher efficiency than external combustion engine.
Theory:-
Internal Combustion engines are ruling the vehicle industry for decades. But technology is ever-advancing, and with that comes new ground-breaking ideas that have the potential to be revolutionary.
Although electric cars have been here for more than a decade, it is only now through advancements in certain technologies that we are witnessing a surge in their production.
Internal Combustion engines are ruling the vehicle industry for decades.Tesla is a renowned car manufacturer that is heavily pushing electric cars.
Nothing in Tesla’s entire lineup smells of gasoline – it is strictly an electric car manufacturer. Several other car manufacturers including Mercedes, Audi, BMW, also produce electric vehicles among the overwhelming majority of their carbon-emitting variants.
Examples:-
Small petrol car vs Small electric car
Petrol has a calorific value of 34.3 MJ/liter. (34300000 Joules or 9528 Wh or 9.5 kWh)/liter
The fully considered well-to-wheel efficiency of a petrol powered car is equal to
- The energy content of petrol (34.3 MJ/liter) minus the refinement & transportation losses (about 33% in India), multiplied by the km per liter.
In other words, to travel a distance of 1 km, a small petrol car must expend 3.45 MJ or 955 Wh of energy.
Well-to-Wheel efficiency of a small Indian electric car
After observing data from users of the Mahindra e2o electric car, we find that on an average, an electric car in Indian road conditions consumes 90 Wh/km
We know that 1 Wh = 3600 J, so 90 Wh = 324,000 J. And the power plant efficiency, conversion and transmission losses in electricity in India are 70% or more.
We then multiply this by the "The full cycle charge and discharge efficiency of the electric car". Let us take this factor as 80% for the e2o.
Then the final efficiency is 0.93 x 80% = 0.74 km/MJ or 0.74 km/277 Wh
In other words, to travel a distance of 1 km, a small electric car must expend 1.35 MJ or 375 Wh of energy.
Result:-
Overall efficiency of electric car is better than IC engines.
References:-
In the file attached.