Electric van leads drive for savings

23 October, 2013

Electric van leads drive for savings

Mechanical engineering students, from left, Tom-John Nelis, Richard Xie, Mark Shimanski and Nathan Dibley in the van they converted to run on electricity.

A University of Waikato van will be silently making its way around campus after four fourth year mechanical engineering students removed its internal combustion engine and replaced it with an electric motor.

The van was originally powered by a 1.3 litre petrol engine but as part of a year-long Honours project, Nathan Dibley, Mark Shimanski, Richard Xie and Tom-John Nelis repowered it with an electric motor which is capable of a top speed of about 106km/h and a distance of 120 km on one charge.

The van will be used around the university campus and fleet manager John Ireland says it will be interesting to see what sort of savings are achieved.

“We’ll get it painted up and looking good so we can promote what they’ve done,” he says.

What the students have done is replace the engine with a 70kW continuous DC brushless electric motor, controller and batteries. Apart from removing the engine, petrol tank and exhaust, they have designed a system for coupling the electric motor to the gearbox, installed a Hamilton-built motor controller and designed a battery enclosure that meets New Zealand’s electric vehicle requirements

When complete, it will have 95 cells producing about 300 volts.

Dibley says there are lots of benefits for electric vehicles, particularly in city driving.

“We think it’s an untapped market for utility vehicles, courier vehicles things like that,” he says.

The students have worked out it will take 4-5 years of use for the cost of converting it to electricity to pay off, but the further it drives the faster the payback.

Their supervisor, Dr Mike Duke, says the students have done an excellent job getting the electric van operational in one year.

“There is a lot of interest in the commercial viability of electric van conversions and we plan to research its performance to determine the economic benefits.”

ENDS

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