Experimental data comparison of an electric minibus equipped with different energy storage systems

As electric mobility becomes more important every day, scientific research brings us new solutions that increase performance, reduce financial and economic impacts and increase the market share of electric vehicles. Therefore, there is a necessity to compare technical and economic aspects of different technologies for each transport application. This article presents a comparison of three bus prototypes in terms of dynamic performance. The analysis is based on the collection of real data (acceleration, maximum speed and energy consumption) under different settings. Each developed prototype uses the same bus chassis but relies on different energy storage systems. Results show that the dynamic bus performance is independent on the three energy storage technologies, whereas technologies affect the management costs, charging time and available range. An extensive experimental analysis reveals that the bus equipped with a hybrid storage (lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors) had the most favorable net present value, in comparison with storage composed of only lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries. This result is due to the greater life of lithium-ion batteries and to the capability of supercapacitors, which reduce both batteries depth of discharge and discharge rate.