Ennio Rossi

Abstract: © EVS-25 Shenzhen, China, Nov. 5-9, 2010 The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition A hybrid Car by ENEA for Urban Mobility Ennio Rossi, Carlo Villante ENEA - Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Environment Via Anguillarese km. 1.3 00123 ROME, Italy E-mail: carlo.villante@enea.it Abstract - Mobility in modern metropolitan cities is plagued by overcrowding producing congestion, low transit speed, fuel consumption, air pollution, parking problems. Hybrid drive trains may be particularly suited to address this problem: properly designed minimal thermal engines can fit for the application, giving an electrical driving option when required, and consuming and polluting very few. The prototype shown in this paper has been specifically conceived to be a city car with a so-called "series hybrid" traction architecture, being a living example of how, by combining appropriate and available technologies, modern components, and careful planning, it is possible to achieve results useful for the user and for the community. EVS25 Copyright Key words - Mobility, hybrid, vehicle, city, ultracapacitors. 1. Vehicle description The Urb-E prototype was realized by the Italian Energy and Environmental Agency (ENEA) whit the main aim of showing the applicability of hybrid-propulsion technologies within in a very limited vehicle chassis, leading to a low environmental impact vehicle, also having a purely electric driving mode. Our main design specification were the following: � footprint less than 3 m in length and weight 500 kg; � low fuel consumption, possibly close to the target of 2 litres per 100 km; � emissions comparable to Euro 4 passenger car directive; � possibility of driving in electric mode for about 1 km; � no gearbox and clutch; � acceptable driving performances: max speed 70 km/h, good acceleration, ability to overcome ramps of 12%; � ease of production and industrialization of the vehicle, also through the utilisation of commercial components; � exterior aspect that raises curiosity among the of nonprofessional public. Urb-e exposed at 2008 Motorshow 2. Main Conclusions The realization program of Urb-e, although susceptible to various onwards, has now reached a state of completion that it is possible to draw the first conclusions: First of all it was demonstrated, through a running vehicle in complete safety and reliability, the feasibility of the hybrid series traction even in the field of city cars. The field of application of this technology has in fact been so far restricted to large mass vehicles as bus or trains. In The only automotive applications that have so far found commercial consensus were only �parallel� hybrid cars. It has been demonstrated the possibility to use UC in place of batteries. These components, still not well known and little appreciated, can offer significant benefits for their reliability and longevity compared to batteries. It has been demonstrated that the hybrid series traction allows low fuel consumption (roughly speaking about the half of an equivalent traditional engine) even tough adopting an ICE coming from the motorcycle industry (focused on acceleration performance more than on fuel consumption). Urb-e would also be an example to encourage small producers to use hybrid architecture. This is suitable to employ commercial components and their assembly requires no cost-prohibitive manufacturing facilities. In fact, the production of a series hybrid city car is affordable even to small businesses little more than handicraftsman. It has been given an illustration of the control strategy. The series hybrid allows a wide possibility of design and software development. Acting on it is possible, with little expense, obtaining great savings on vehicle costs. Following these considerations, it can be considered that the proposed series hybrid configuration has proven to be an effective solution applicable to city cars; knowledge and dissemination of this technology can become an important tool in the hands of designers to improve the economic and productive system of the automobile industry.