Electric and Hybrid Vehicles: Technologies, Modeling and Control - A Mechatronic Approach

3Body and Chassis Technologies and Design

3.1 Introduction

At a first glance, discussing the body, chassis, and its associated systems may not seem relevant to electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) because the primary differences between these vehicles and conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV's) relate to their powertrain systems. However, there are numerous challenges associated with the body, chassis, and chassis systems of electric and hybrid electric vehicles that should be noted separately.

One of the main challenges is optimizing energy consumption for EVs and HEVs, which have limited on-board energy. As such, constructing lightweight body, chassis, and chassis systems should be a primary focus of the design process. Likewise, accommodating a heavy and oversized battery pack into the chassis and body design is another challenge. For these reasons, it is important to study the design and technology behind the body, chassis, and chassis systems.

This chapter has two main objectives:

1. to provide general knowledge about the body, chassis and chassis systems of automobiles;
2. to highlight this information in relation to EVs and HEVs.

In order to achieve these objectives, this chapter addresses body chassis and chassis systems in the following sections discussing both general and specific information regarding EVs and HEVs.

3.2 General Configuration of Automobiles

As illustrated in Figure 3.1, a car can be divided into two main parts: ...