Predicting the energy use of a solar-electric commuter car, and some implications for sustainable transport.

Author(s)
Pudney, P. & Zito, R.
Year
Abstract

The University of South Australia is developing a low-mass, energy efficient, solar-electric commuter car that can be powered entirely by non-polluting renewable energy. To predict the energy that will be used by the solar-electric commuter car we need to know how the car is likely to be driven. Instantaneous power use will depend on speed, acceleration and gradient, and on the efficiency of the drive system. The energy required to recharge the car will also depend on the efficiency of the battery. The Transport Systems Centre at the University of South Australia has instrumented an electric car and collected GPS data during urban driving. This data can be used to model the performance of the car, and to predict the performance of the proposed solar-electric commuter car. The energy required to run the proposed commuter car will be about 1/5 of the energy required to run a conventional car. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E211825.

Request publication

8 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Publication

Library number
C 34193 (In: C 34141 CD-ROM) /15 /72 /91 / ITRD E211895
Source

In: ATRF 04: papers of the 27th Australasian Transport Research Forum, Volume 27, University of South Australia, Transport Systems Centre, 29 September-1 October 2004, 13 p., ref.

Our collection

This publication is one of our other publications, and part of our extensive collection of road safety literature, that also includes the SWOV publications.