Abstract
The main objective of the ELVA project was to explore the new broad possibilities that the use of electric powertrain provide to the designers, delivering new and innovative electric vehicle architectures that are not an adaptation from another vehicle while at the same time providing best practices and evidence based design guidelines. To achieve this, the researchers would consider the design to be presented in the year 2020, hence adding some technological developments that today might not yet be available.
The project was developed by following a series of sequential steps for design, which included customer surveys and technological overviews. The design of the three vehicles was obtained from an open contest, where designers were already able to exploit the new design freedoms. The next step was to bring these designs into the development phase, where several development loops were made in order to achieve the desired results according to all the restraints applied, were they from size, weight, availability of the technology or even brand requirements. This work was carried out interactively by the OEMs leading each concept and the support partners, experts in each of the three great subgroups created: Powertrain, Body and Chassis. All the work was documented and presented as guidelines for future designers.
The results of the project are three very interesting electric vehicle concepts that were designed from the ground up, but applying different design rules and constraints from those of regular vehicles. The new vehicles provide important inputs for design. All the experience obtained was documented and presented as a set of guidelines for future designers. The results were also used to create a Design Support Tool, which aims at guiding designers and engineers with the experience obtained.
The limitations for this project were basically time and budget. All the work had to be completed in less than 3 years, and the budget limited the number of design loops and the size of the prototypes that were made. Apart from that, the study would have only limits in the available or expected technologies for the year 2020. From this, the rest of the project was open to look for innovative and creative EV architectures.
The paper includes the design of three completely new electric vehicle architectures that were designed considering customer and market needs for 2020, technological advancements and different freedoms in design that are provided by the use of electric powertrain, while also delivering useful best practices and guidelines for consulting.
The project designs were able to show the benefits of designing electric vehicles without adapting from another vehicle, while at the same time uncovering issues that need to be addressed from the beginning of the project to avoid unnecessary work and expense.
KEYWORDS – Electric Vehicle Architectures, electric powertrain, battery packs, chassis, suspension