How do electric vehicles work?

 An EV or electric vehicle is a vehicle that uses one electric motor or more than one for the purpose of propulsion. Electric vehicles look similar to fossil fuel cars. Besides a gas tank and tailpipe in its structure, an electric vehicle is same in its looks to any other fossil fuel vehicle. There is an electric motor with its controller instead of a giant engine under the bonnet. Electric vehicles use hybrid engine or electric engine for their propulsion. Electric vehicles use the electricity for propulsion that is stored in their battery, which is powered to an electric motor. As you have known what electric vehicles are, now let us talk about what are the parts of electric vehicles that made them drive.

 There are three main components of an EV or electric vehicle. The main components of electric vehicles are the controller, electric engine, and the battery. All the electric vehicles get power from batteries that are rechargeable. These batteries are installed inside the vehicles. The batteries are used for powering the vehicles for propulsion and also for the functioning of the lights and wipers that are installed in the vehicles. The packs of the batteries are in the trunk and sometimes under the vehicle. These batteries are somehow like the batteries, which are used in starting up the gasoline engine. The difference occurs that electric vehicles use more these batteries in order to store the energy to power the vehicle. There is a regulator fitted on these batteries, which ensures how much energy is being produced and how much constant amount of energy a vehicle should consume. This feature ensures that the battery would not burns out.

Parts of the Electric Motor

 Now take a look at the features of an electric motor. There are two parts of an electric motor: the stator and the rotator. The stator itself is made up of three further parts. These parts include a conducting wire, frame, and stator core. The stator core is made up of steel rings group. These rings are insulated and laminated. These steel rings have inside slots that conducting wire wrap it around in order to make the stator coils. There are three different types of wire within the three-phase induction motor. These are known as phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3. On the opposite sides of the stator cores’ inside, each type of the wire gets wrapped around the slots. The core is placed in the frame, as the conducting wire gets a place in the stator core.

Rotator

 Just like the stator, the rotor is also made of 3 parts. Conducting rods, two end rings, and rotor core. The rotor core is in a cylindrical shape, which is made up of laminations of steel alloy which is of high grade. This cylindrically shaped rotor core having steel lamination looks like a rod running through the center. There are slots outside the rotor core. These run parallel to the rod-like bar, which is in the rotor core center that is slightly twisted in order to make a diagonal slot. If any stator core has a diagonal slot outside the core, then it is called a squirrel cage rotor. Mostly three phase and four poles inductor motor use the squirrel cage rotors. To make motor winding, conducting rods are put along the diagonal lines in the rotor core. End rings are placed on either side of the rotor core in order to short-circuit all of conducting rods.

 As the stator and rotor get assembled, rotor slides within the stator and two of the end balls are placed upon both sides. These balls are used to protect the motor from both sides, and these are made up of the similar material that the stator frame is made up of.

How the energy is supplied and how the system works inside the vehicle?

 The battery is connected to the motor. Electrical energy is supplied to the stator of the motor through the battery. The coils that are in the stator are arranged on the opposite sides upon the core of the stators. These coils act like magnets. So, when the electrical energy is supplied to the vehicle’s motor, rotating magnetic fields are created by the coils which pull up conducting rods along outside the rotor which is behind it. This spinning rotor creates mechanical energy that is needed to turn the car’s gear. When the car’s gear would turn, the tire will get rotate.

 To move forward on electric cars information, when you switch the vehicle on, the battery passes the current. Controller gets the power from the battery of the vehicle and then passes it to the motor of the vehicle. The controller converts 300DC into approximately 240 volts of AC, which is around 2 phase power, and it is appropriate for any motor. This all happens before the current get passes to the motor.  The motor of the electric vehicle then converts the electrical energy into mechanical energy. This converted mechanical energy then moves the vehicle in the forward direction. Controllers act like the power’s buyer from the battery and give the power to the motor accordingly. Between the controller and the accelerator, variable potentiometers get connected. These variable potentiometers are the one who tells the controller how much of power should it delivers. When accelerator gets released, 0V is delivered, and when it is fully pressed, it delivers the maximum output.

How the Battery of the electric vehicle gets recharge?

 In a typical vehicle, there is an electric car motor with an alternator. Electric engines work with getting power from the battery then turn the gear and the wheels. The alternator recharges the car’s battery, but there is not an alternator in case of an electric vehicle. Now the question is how does this battery would get recharge then? The answer is that there is definitely no need of a separate alternator for the battery to get recharge because the motor itself acts as an alternator in the electric vehicle. This is the reason that electric vehicles are known as unique automobiles. As talked above, battery turns up the motor that supplies power to the gear that in turn rotates the wheel. When your feet are upon the accelerator, above-mentioned process happens.

What happens if you let your feet off from the accelerator?

 Now comes the question, what happens if you let your feet off from the accelerator? The answer is when your feet get off from the accelerator, rotating magnetic field gets stop. The rotor spins quickly and faster when magnetic field rotation gets stop. When the rotation of magnetic field becomes slower, and the rotor spins faster, the battery gets recharged by this action. This whole process acts like an alternator.

 Let us simplify the process further. Imagine yourself pedaling upon the bike on a hill. If you want to get at the hill’s top you will require to pedal hard, or at some moment you would need to stand up on the pedal in order to extend the energy more to rotate bike’s tires. This is how you would reach the hill’s peak. The process is quite similar to the process of gas press down. Magnetic field rotation pull behind the rotor which creates torque or resistance that is required to move up the electric vehicles and its tires. Here, you can relax and recharge once you are at the hill’s peak, but in case of an electric vehicle, the wheels of the vehicle move at the peak of their speed to take down your vehicle from the hill. The same thing happens inside the electric vehicle and if you will let your feet off from the accelerator, the rotor will move faster and will feed the electrical energy right back, and the battery would get a recharge.

 Some of the vehicles are plug-in rechargeable. To recharge the batteries, the car is plugged into a charging station. When people buy an electric car, most of them install such charging station at their homes. Electric vehicles get power by electricity. Electricity is a clean and cheap source of energy than any other oil and petroleum. If the electricity comes from even one of the dirtiest grid, still it produces least global warming and air pollution than the tailpipe emissions and conventional counterparts produce. As there are so many advantages of using an electric vehicle, this is the reason the whole world is shifting its focus toward more electric automobiles.

 The workability aspect of the electric vehicle is of great interest. Besides the engine, almost every other things are the same as in other fossil powered cars. For example, the brakes, system of electric car transmission work in that way and climate control, and airbags all are same. However, the major difference that occurs between the electric vehicle and other fossil fuel vehicles is the electric motor. Three types of electric motor that are available in the market: Ac induction with good acceleration, DC brushless with good speed, and the magnet motor that is permanent.

 To learn more about electric cars, you can click here and learn about the advantages of elecrtic vehicles.