Comparison of AC drives for electric vehicles-a report on experts'opinion survey

It is recognized that wide applications of electric vehicles (EVs) will bring tremendous social, economical and ecological benefits. With the growing interests in electric vehicles, much effort is demanded for the development of efficient, reliable and economical AC drives' for EV propulsion purpose. Both induction motor (IM) drives and permanent magnet brushless DC motor (IM) drives have been applied to EVs. Switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives have been proposed as an alternative for EV propulsion. In order to assess the suitability of IM, BDCM and SRM drives for EV applications and to provide a technical support for the development and selection of future EV propulsion systems, the existing EV AC propulsion drives were compared, and a survey of experts' opinions was conducted. Comparison of the three AC drives was made on a relative and a quantitative basis using the survey questionnaires. According to the majority of the experts, induction motor drives are best suited for EV propulsion purpose, due to their low cost, high reliability, high speed, established converter and manufacturing technology, low torque ripple/noise and absence of position sensors. BDCM drives feature compactness, low weight and high efficiency and therefore provide an alternative for EV propulsion. The experts regard insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as the most suited power semiconductor devices for AC drive converters at the present stage