Are Personal Electric Vehicles Sustainable? A Hybrid E-Bike Case Study

As the title suggests, the sustainability of personal electric vehicles is in question. In terms of life span, range, comfort, and safety, electric vehicles, such as e-cars and e-buses, are much better than personal electric vehicles, such as e-bikes. However, electric vehicles present greater costs...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSustainability Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 32
Main Authors Machedon-Pisu, Mihai, Borza, Paul Nicolae
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2020
Subjects
Actuators
Automobiles
Autonomy
Batteries
Bicycles
Buses (vehicles)
Costs
Electric bicycles
Electric vehicles
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
Environmental impact
Fuel cells
Impact strength
Infrastructure
Life span
Optimal control
Pollution
Power flow
Power management
Route optimization
Storage batteries
Sustainability
Technology
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Summary:As the title suggests, the sustainability of personal electric vehicles is in question. In terms of life span, range, comfort, and safety, electric vehicles, such as e-cars and e-buses, are much better than personal electric vehicles, such as e-bikes. However, electric vehicles present greater costs and increased energy consumption. Also, the impact on environment, health, and fitness is more negative than that of personal electric vehicles. Since transportation vehicles can benefit from hybrid electric storage solutions, we address the following question: Is it possible to reach a compromise between sustainability and technology constraints by implementing a low-cost hybrid personal electric vehicle with improved life span and range that is also green? Our methodology consists of life cycle assessment and performance analyses tackling the facets of the sustainability challenges (economy, society, and environment) and limitations of the electric storage solutions (dependent on technology and application) presented herein. The hybrid electric storage system of the proposed hybrid e-bike is made of batteries, supercapacitors, and corresponding power electronics, allowing the optimal control of power flows between the system’s components and application’s actuators. Our hybrid e-bike costs less than a normal e-bike (half or less), does not depend on battery operation for short periods of time (a few seconds), has better autonomy than most personal electric vehicles (more than 60 km), has a greater life span (a few years more than a normal e-bike), has better energy efficiency (more than 90%), and is much cleaner due to the reduced number of batteries replaced per life time (one instead of two or three).
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su12010032