A sustainable process for conversion of petrol engine vehicle to battery electric vehicle: A case study

A clean environment and sustainable society can be achieved by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are measured by the amount of CO2 equivalents in the air. A major part of air pollution is attributed to the exhaust expelled by automobiles which can be reduced by converting existing vehicles to pure battery electric vehicles (BEV). This paper presents the process to convert a petrol-based vehicle (624 cc petrol engine vehicle) to a pure BEV suitable for the Indian automotive sector, aimed at minimizing the cost of conversion and operating cost of the vehicle. The main components used in the conversion of the vehicle are presented and their overall placement is also detailed in the paper. A three-phase brushless DC motor is used with a custom-made Li-ion battery pack along with a motor controller to realize the conversion. While carrying out the conversion process, the coupling of the motor to the gearbox was observed to be a complex task. Additionally, the development of a fool-proof circuit for effective control was observed to be a challenging task too. To tackle the circuitry issue, a novel circuitry was developed to make the connections between the motor, controller, and subsidiary parts for highly efficient vehicle operations. The prototype of the proposed conversion was also developed and tested for regular warehouse applications. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.