In a world where environment protection and energy conservation are growing concerns, the development of electric and hybrid vehicles (EV/HEV) has taken on an accelerated pace. The dream of having commercially viable electric/hybrid vehicles is becoming a reality. EVs and HEVs are gradually available in the market. This article reviews the present status of electric and hybrid vehicles worldwide and their state of the art, with emphasis on the engineering philosophy and key technologies. The importance of the integration of technologies of automobile, electric motor drive, electronics, energy storage and controls, and the importance of the integration of society strength from government, industry, research institutions, electric power utilities and transportation authorities are addressed. The challenge of EV commercialization is discussed.

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Beijing general research institute for nonferrous metals (GRINM) has focused on developing nickel metal hydride (Ni/MH) batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and related key materials since 1990. Some kinds of batteries has already used in electric vehicles and finished a good demonstration driving to and fro between Beijing and Tianjing city in china 1999. And more, in order to meet to the requirement of a fuel cell hybrid electric bus, a 100Ah/384V Ni/MH high power batteries and its battery management system (BMS) has been developed in 2002, the specific power of the 100Ah battery has reach 300 W/kg and specific energy reach 60Wh/kg, 1/3C to 3C bench tests of the 100Ah/384V battery system show excellent power performance. At the same time in order to meet the requirement of a oil-electricity hybrid electric car, a D-size 8Ah/336V Ni/MH high power battery and its BMS also has been developed in 2002, the 8Ah batteries can discharge with 10C to 30C rate, shows its specific power 800W/kg and specific energy 50Wh/kg. It appeared that those two batteries system all has excellent performance for Evs application.

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In this paper, optimization of the Ni/MH power batteries used in fuel cell city bus was studied and analyzed. And the charging/discharging performance of these batteries was studied. Using power battery simulated testing system, it totaled 320 power batteries of 100Ah capacity selected. Then battery pack with voltage of 384V was assembled by serial and was tested in simulation by ARBIN equipment. The results showed that the charging/discharging efficiency reached 96 per cent at 1C and the environment temperature is 28 degree centigrade. The experiment indicated that the selected batteries showed excellent high-rate capability, good conformability and reliability.

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A computer simulation software named EVSIML has been developed and is being brought to perfection all along. It has combined the MATLAB and Visual C++ programming languages and the Object-Oriented programming technology. The software of EVSIML (Electric Vehicle SIMuLator) is developed by MATALB and Visual C++ (VC) programming languages with Object-Oriented technology on the basis of the drivetrain model of the EV. It makes features of programming of MATALB and Visual C++ with Object-Oriented technology. EVSIML is mainly used to simulate the power performances and fuel economics of EV originally and now its functions have been expanded in order to deal with much computation and analysis about engineering including system match and control analysis. At the same time, as a complicated simulation software, excellent Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), high efficiency, quickly execute speed, good reusability, good maintainability and good expandability are also absolutely necessary. The paper will present the latest improvement on EVSIML and the new features of it in detail. In order to maintain the energy security of China, improve the air quality and enhance the competition of automobile industry of China in the world, the national science ministry of China has especially founded the special important EV project in the national "tenth-five" and "863" program, plan to emphasize particularly on the industrialization of the EV, exert to gain a significant breakthrough in the key cell technology, the system integration technology and the whole vehicle technology of the EV. The EV is a complex system that integrates a number of subsystems such as the vehicle body, electric propulsion, and energy source and energy management. The technologies involved are diversified and multidisciplinary, including electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical and automotive engineering, and chemical engineering. Because of these multidisciplinary and fast-changing EV technologies, the design process of the EV should be flexible, prompt and economical. Computer simulation not only facilitates this design process, but also enhances the system optimisation of the EV.

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The hybrid electric vehicle has been paid more and more attention by Chinese government since the small batch production of PRIUS and its sale in both Japan and North America, especially after the small batch demonstration info of H-bus projects in New York, Seattle and Long Beach of California was released. Chinese government has launched the 10-th Five Plan and will continue support the R&D EV. Although the planning economy covers less and less sector of Chinese economy, the Policy of Chinese Auto Industry plays an important role in the future trends of Chinese auto industry. The R&D and industrialization of HEV has been listed as a major part that Chinese government will fund. The paper presents the R&D of a parallel hybrid electric transit bus (PHET-bus) with complete Chinese IPR. The background of the PHET-bus, the configuration and drive mode analysis and primary test results will be included in the paper.

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Since 1996, we have been working various activators for lead-acid batteries. Originally the organic polymer activators with or without carbon black were developed to regenerate or recover the deteriorated lead-acid batteries from its sulfation. Recently we discovered that the organic activators can be used to improve the performance of the new top class Japanese batteries, and regular and new batteries made in China, Korea etc. This paper summarised our 8 year test results for ITE activators for various new and used lead-acid batteries.

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Usable remnant energy of a rechargeable battery is proportional to its state of charge, but the values of these two parameters are not exactly the same. A circuit based on neural network is developed for available capacity estimation of lithium-ion battery. To ensure the network consisting of optimal numbers of hidden layers and neurons, intensive experiments have been performed and various training algorithms have been evaluated. The experimental results reveal that the circuit is able to estimate the available capacity of a battery with arbitrary discharging profiles as well as continuous constant current discharging profiles. This paper presents the roadmap for the design and the practical constraints for hardware implementation of a neural network based lithium-ion battery capacity indicator.

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As LRT is introduced into the city planning of many Western cities, improvements in the public transport service of an automobile-centered society are in desperate need of review in Japan also. In this research the policy of an introduction to LRT was presented to the public through a multi-staged questionnaire and the automobile / motorbike user's perception of a conversion to LRT trend was analyzed. As a single-plane introduction of LRT solely is inadequate, an overall traffic reform of public transport will become necessary. In the face of traffic problems, such an introduction of LRT as a public transport system is one of the most effective policies for the vitalization of environment and community.

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This paper proposes a linear power generator, which can convert any mechanical vibration energy of a vehicle to electric energy. A mover of the proposed linear power generator, which includes permanent magnets, is linearly driven through a stator, by vibrations. Nd Fe-B magnets in the mover are placed so that the same magnetic poles face each other, in order to make the large change in magnetic flux in the coils of the stator. The coils are placed in the stator with the same interval of magnets. Alternate coils connected in a series were wound in opposite directions to the next coil. The stator was covered with a magnetic material case that has pole pieces between the coils. Therefore, the magnetic flux is extended through the case and reduces cancellation of the flux in the coils of the stator. At first, a button type magnet was substituted with equivalent electric current in accordance with measurements from simulations. The distribution of the magnetic field and electromotive force were calculated by numerical simulations in order to determine the ideal size of the linear power generator. The linear power generator and an experimental apparatus were then produced on the basis of this simulation. The performance of the linear power generator was tested by experiments and showed that the power generation ability was 4 times greater in comparison with the magnetic metal case without the pole pieces. The proposed linear power generator is considered to be useful for the conversion of mechanical vibration energy to electric energy.

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In the department of Intelligent Mechanical Systems Engineering, Kochi University of Technology, the synthesis lecture has been being carried out in 3rd and 4th year grades of the undergraduate program. One project of the synthesis lecture in our laboratory is design and manufacture of a hand-made electric motorcycle. In this report, the student activity of design and manufacture for a hand-made electric motorcycle is described. In the past, the electric motorcycles by other educational organizations had been produced by replacement of gasoline-engine to electric motor and batteries as the other parts are those of purchased motorcycle. In our project, the design and manufacture for a whole motorcycle was conducted by a student himself. As well as the design, the analysis and manufacturing aspect is considered to be of great importance for mechanical engineers. As a capstone learning course in the 4th year, the student in our laboratory tried to design and manufacture of a hand -made electric motorcycle. These designing and manufacturing results are reported.

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