Objective
The European hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicle industry represents 1,600 SME manufacturers and suppliers. They commercialise small volumes of low-emission vehicles, including taxis, delivery vans, factory vehicles and domestic cars. However with current technologies their market is limited and their development has been split between low-cost mass market and expensive high-performance vehicles. These vehicles do not meet customer performance demands, at a price point which is competitive with IC engines. Large vehicle manufacturers overcome this gap and reduce their development costs by platform sharing component technologies. However due to the lack of collaboration within our industry, this platform technology is not available. This proposal addresses this technology gap though the development of an open platform power management system, with customisable performance and efficiency. The platform will be supported by a modular platform drive motor topology, based on a fully scalable axial flux design (100Nm to 1,200Nm cont. torque). The low cost technology will be sufficiently high torque to drive the wheels at a high speed, without requiring an intermediate gearbox. To further drive down cost we will use the housing of the liquid cooled drive motor, as a heat sink for a high current power convertor. This will be achieved by applying a circuit board directly onto the motor housing, using a thermal spraying technology. The project will benefit Europe through increased sales of low-emission vehicles and enable our members to reduce development time by 20% and component cost by 40%. The modular drive motor platform will enable our members to manufacturer desirable vehicles at a competitive price and reduce the total vehicle cost by up to 13%. In addition we will offset imports by EU manufacturing of new drive motors, increasing European revenues by €257 million and profits by €51 million.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-SME-2008-2
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
BSG-SME-AG - Research for SME associations/groupingsCoordinator
1000 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium