ECE 4012 Senior Design

Electric Commuter Car - Solaire Rider

Sponsored by General Motors

At this point, it is common knowledge that the world is running out of gasoline to fuel our cars. Not only that, but the cars themselves are getting bigger and heavier each year. There is no reason one person should be commuting to work every day in a vehicle that is nearly twenty times their mass and powered with non-renewable resources. The vehicle market is showing a shift towards electric vehicles but the ones currently on the market have the issue of still being as large as a typical car. Vehicles of this size are not necessary for the average commuter and waste power to move all of that unneeded additional mass. A solution to this problem is to design a smaller, two-person, electric vehicle that can be used for the public's daily commute. This project was designed to take a pre-existing gas-powered two-person 'go-kart' and replace it with an electric drivetrain powered by a brushed DC motor and Tesla Model S battery module. The design consisted of choosing a proper motor, motor controller, battery, battery charger and battery management system that are all compatible and fit within the budget of the project while meeting the speed and range goals the group decided on. The Go-Kart's goals were to reach a top speed of 25 MPH while having a range of at least 1 kilometer (0.621 miles). The prototype had to be simulated due to the COVID-19 crisis, leaving us with some idealized results of reaching a max speed of 23.056 MPH and an electrical only calculated range of 49.16 kilometers (30.547 miles). The range however has to be taken with a grain of salt as it only accounts for the battery electrically powering the motor, not including any mechanical losses like friction and drag.