Evaluation of a multi-power system for an electric vehicle

An electric vehicle can be powered by a single source or a combination of multiple sources, e.g. lead-acid batteries, solar cells, and fuel cells. Thus, coordination of different power sources for an electric vehicle has been recently becoming an important issue. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a multi-power system for an electric vehicle powered by lead-acid batteries and solar cells. A prototype was built and tested. Experimental results show that the system can effectively reduce the instantaneous battery current to prevent the batteries from deep discharge and hence to prolong the longevity of the batteries.