Design of an efficient, low weight battery electric vehicle based on a VW Lupo 3L

A battery electric vehicle is being developed at the Eindhoven University of Technology, which will beused in future research projects regarding electric mobility. Energy storage in batteries is still at least 25 times heavier and has 10 times the volume in comparison to fossil fuel. This leads to an increase of the vehicle weight, especially when trying to maximise the range. A set of specifications is derived, taking into consideration the mobility requirements of people living in the Netherlands and the capabilities of electric vehicles. The VW Lupo 3L 1.2 TDI has been selected as the vehicle to be converted into a battery electric vehicle, since it has many favourable characteristics such as a very lowmass and good aerodynamics. The design choices considering the power train and component selection are discussed in detail. Finally the battery electric Lupo is compared to the original Lupo 3L considering energy usage, costs per km and CO2 emissions. With respect to these aspects the advantages of electric propulsion are relatively small, as the donorvehicle is already very fuel efficient