IEE Colloquium on Electric Vehicles - A Technology Roadmap for the Future (Digest No.1998/262)

Zero-emission electric vehicle (EV) technology has the potential to dramatically reduce pollution levels in metropolitan areas of high road traffic density. However, in spite of its obvious ecological advantages, the EV has made little impact to date. This colloquium assessed the status of EV technology and highlighted the scope for new developments and opportunities in this exciting area as it evolves over the next five years. Mass market high-technology products, such as, for example, the personal computer or the cellular telephone, depend not on any one single breakthrough but rather on sustained developments across a whole range of interrelated subsystem technologies. Arguably, if this evolutionary process is to apply to the EV, then it is soon to come of age since the past few years have seen major technological and cost/performance ratio advances across the full range of EV subsystem technologies. Experts in EV technology from the UK, Europe and the presented papers describing developments in electrical machines for EVs, power electronic propulsion systems, rapid battery chargers, and high energy batteries. The colloquium addressed important issues of the impact of wide-scale EV battery charging on the load characteristics and power generation requirements of the utility