Overview
CO2 emissions, noise emissions and other negative impacts caused by present urban delivery concepts and specifically by the delivery vehicles are unsustainable in present and future European urban life. Fully electric light delivery vehicles ("LDV") offers close to zero local CO2 emissions and close-to-zero noise emissions.
The change in propulsion technology from ICE to electric power trains will lead to the integration of new components and systems, while others undergo changes or become obsolete. The possibility to integrate the electric motor into the wheel further increases the design freedom, especially if also suspension and regenerative braking can be integrated into it. This opens up new freedom in design and clears the way for new urban delivery vehicle concepts.
DELIVER is to produce and physically showcase design research results on LDVs that allow for full exploitation of the new freedom of integrating the electric motor, while responding to changing future market demands.
To achieve this key objective, the project generates, investigates and analyses innovative design concepts for electric LDV's with motorized wheels. It delivers a range of advanced architectures which enable at least the same high level of intrinsic safety as known from current best in class conventional vehicles at minimal weight, maximised energy efficiency (40% better than best-in-class ICE benchmark), optimized ergonomics loading space at affordable costs as well as acceptable levels of comfort and driving performance.
The program will culminate in a driving concept validation vehicle which will embody the optimum integration of systems as researched during the design and development stage. The purpose of the vehicle is to validate the research results with the highest degree of reality possible within the budget. Some specific targets will be verified by simulation such as crash.
DELIVER can achieve substantial impact due to the strong involvement of leading industrial partners.
Funding
Results
Silent, zero-emission delivery for Europe
Fully-electric light commercial vehicles (LCVs) are scheduled for launch within the EU in 2020. In preparation, technology is hitting the road in a demonstrator showcasing the best design concepts.
With minimal to no carbon dioxide and noise emissions, all-electric LCVs are poised for major impact on consumer and environmental health. EU-funded scientists working on the project 'Design of electric light vans for environment-impact reduction' (http://www.deliver-project.org (DELIVER)) are investigating the most promising design concepts for urban delivery trucks intended for mass production.
Work has lead via virtual development and assessment to a full-scale hardware demonstrator vehicle. Participation of industrial partners should speed up later commercialisation. Following pre-selection of three design concepts based on 2020 technologies and beyond, the team evaluated key performance indicators to choose one concept for further development.
All vehicle dimensions were specified and used to determine geometries and sizes of components and systems. Researchers have come up with an innovative door concept and created the vehicle using computer-aided design before the prototype was built. It features a dedicated architecture of the drivetrain with electric motors that are integrated with the wheels. The battery pack is purpose built for the application. The required energy capacity was determined based on the use case and vehicle specification. The battery management system (BMS) is specifically designed and ideally manages the battery cells The demonstrator vehicle was assembled in part at different locations in Europe, and finalised in May 2014. In addition, the vehicle is shown at different occasions all over Europe, actively promoting the ideas and results generated within the project. DELIVER innovations may thus soon be responsible for the silent non-polluting deliveries from your favourite store.