# Building an electric delivery truck



## agazdziak (Sep 24, 2012)

Hello,

I am planning to create an electric delivery truck for use around town and am looking for some tips and advice. There is a TON of great material on this website, however it will take me quite some time to read through it all. 

This vehicle will be used to transport up to 3,000lbs of food from a local farm to various places around town. The range only needs to be ~30 mi, however if we could get 40 that would be great.

Timeframe: We hope to have this operating by April 2013.

*Vehicle*
Undetermined, a panel van would be ideal but we cannot find any recent ones with a manual transmission. Something like This would be perfect, but I don't know of any vehicles like that in the US.
We will probably go with something like a F150 or another similar sized pickup truck with some sort of cargo system on the back.
I'm guessing that the curb weight of our vehicle will be somewhere around 4,000lbs

*Skills*
This is part of university project. We have 3 EE's who are focusing in power systems and power electronics, with some other engineering disciplines. We do not have a lot of experience with fabrication however there is a large network of people we have access to who would be able to help us.

*Performance*
Ideal range: 40mi
Top speed: 50mph (Might not even need to be this fast, this will mostly be used around town).
Weight: 7000lbs (3000 cargo, 4000 for car, batteries, driver, etc)

*Budget*
We are trying to figure this out now. We have or will be applying for money from a few different sources, however the more we can reduce costs the better. We are guessing it will be somewhere around $50k for vehicle, parts, and expansion to the current solar charging station.

*Current Parts*
Nothing has been purchased yet, but these are things that I've come across that I think would work. If I am wrong or if there is something better, please let me know,

Motor/inverter: 3ph AC motor, something in the 60kW range. I was looking at the Azure Dynamics AC55 / DMOC445 controller, however I just read something about them being bankrupt, so I am definitely looking at other options.

Batteries: 100 Sinopoly LiFePO4 3.2V 100Ah batteries (~32 kWh system)

BMS: Elithion Lithiumate Lite.

Some questions:
1)How will I actually control the speed of the car? Will the inverter have an input for a tps or something, or will I need another motor controller?
2)Charging - will the BMS tell the charger when to stop, or will I need the charger to control that?
3)Brakes - I know this is more vehicle specific, but what will have to be done to get the brakes working?
4)Is this even feasible?

Thanks!


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

Looks good although I'm not sure you'll hit your range requirements with that size pack with the weight your pulling.


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

Yes, this is a feasible project, with some alterations.

Yes, the controller requires a TPS (we call it a Pot) signal to control the motor.

The brakes are easy. They are a stand alone system requiring only a small electric vacuum pump to be installed to operate the booster.

The charger its self is really a computer that charges batteries. It has a programmed-in charge curve that begins with constant current and ends in constant voltage to finish charging and shuts off by its self. The BMS is in contact with the charger to monitor and intervene if the charge is not correct and usually will shut the charger off to save the cells from overcharge damage. The BMS will usually monitor the SOC (state of charge) of each cell and will warn or stop you before there is any harmful over discharge also.

I am currently helping several universities with their projects. If you have any other questions you can Email me: mizlplix @gmail.com

miz


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

agazdziak said:


> Some questions:
> 1)How will I actually control the speed of the car? Will the inverter have an input for a tps or something, or will I need another motor controller?
> 2)Charging - will the BMS tell the charger when to stop, or will I need the charger to control that?
> 3)Brakes - I know this is more vehicle specific, but what will have to be done to get the brakes working?
> 4)Is this even feasible?


4-Absolutely!
3-Add an electric vacuum pump.
2-Both can work.
1-By motor controller who receive throttle signal... and brakes, of course!


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## TEV (Nov 25, 2011)

I have the Manzanita Micro PFC40 charger and the Elithion BMS in my conversion and the charger have a port where you connect ( using a signal relay) the BMS to control the charger ON/OFF.


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## Ivansgarage (Sep 3, 2011)

To power a full size pickup plus weight you should check out this
ac conversion. I had a ride in this truck, runs great. They drive it
around all day for a service truck.

http://topekaelectricmotor.com/electric-vehicles/ac-project


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## agazdziak (Sep 24, 2012)

Awesome, thanks for the links! That last one looks really interesting.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a motor size / a specific motor? From the browsing I've done it seems like prices for a motor + inverter vary widely.


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## matthieu149 (May 9, 2011)

Have you checked the HPEVS AC50?
http://hpevs.com/catalog-ac-50.htm

I'm not sure if it could sustain 60mph for a long time with your vehicle though. It's continuous rated power is around 15kW I think.

If you plan to stick to city driving it might be the motor of choice as motor and controller combo sells for under 5000$.

You might also take a look at DC motors such as Warp 9 or 11 or the Kostov equivalent. They can be mated to various controllers, Evnetics Soliton, Zilla, Curtis, kelly, go-ev... Take a look at the "not so much updated" EV wiki motor and controller pages!


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## drgrieve (Apr 14, 2011)

If you're on a budget then a DC motor / controller package will be cheaper. Unless you are in a really hilly or mountainous area there isn't any drawbacks especially for short range driving.

Consider a warp 11 (not the high voltage one) and a Solition 1. Package this with the grey Calb 180ah cells. 

If you do 700 wh per mile fully loaded and want a 40 mile range @ 80% DOD you will need:

700 * 40 / .8 = 35000 wh pack. 

This would be 60 180ah cells costing ~ $13500. 

With the Solition 1 - ~$3000 and the warp 11 ~$3000 I'd see the EV side of things being around $25K depending on your in house fabrication skills.

Easy!


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

I run an AC50/curtis 1238R controller. It is not up to your task. Trust me.

I agree with DR in post above.

Keep the transmission and clutch.

Warp 11 DC power for sure

Soliton 1 or Jr either one. 

to get that weight 40 dependable miles, the batteries will cost! 

They will be your biggest money hole.

Miz


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## Elithion (Oct 6, 2009)

agazdziak said:


> 2)Charging - will the BMS tell the charger when to stop, or will I need the charger to control that?


The BMS will take care of it, automatically. Specifically, if the charger has a low voltage control input, you will connect the "Charge OK" output to that control input.



















Else. you'll use a relay to control the AC input of the charger:










The above are taken from the Lithiumate Lite manual.

At the end of charge of a top balanced pack, if the charger voltage is selected correctly, the current will naturally decay asymptotically towards 0 (video).


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

I don’t think you want the AC50 for a 7000 lb vehicle. My car has an AC50 and weighs 2260 lb. It does 0 to 60 mph in 16 seconds. Acceleration, a = F/m, so assuming the motor delivers the same tractive effort, F, at the wheels of your vehicle it would do 0 to 60 in about 3x the time or 48 seconds. I have the 550A peak controller. The 650A would give you about 18% more torque and F. You will require considerably more torque and power than that I think. 

The Topeka motor has about 50% higher torque than the AC50, and can deliver higher continuous power, but is limited in peak power by the Curtis controller. It also has lower base speed than the AC50 so you will only have peak torque out to around 2000 – 2500 rpm. The max controller input voltage is 130V, and typical pack used with it is 36 cells at nominal 115V, about 124V when fully charged and left sitting for a while. It's max current is 650A, so max power output with voltage sag at that peak current is around 65kW or 87 H.P. at least 10% of which will be lost in the motor and controller, leaving less than 80 H.P. motor shaft power. It might work ok if you are happy with slow acceleration and motoring around at lower speeds, like < 45 mph. 

Higher power AC motors and controllers are available, for example the Rinehart controller shown here: http://vaxosystems.com/store/category/54-inverters.aspx, but as you can see they are pricey. There are also the MC-AC-L series AC motors shown here: http://www.electro-vehicles.eu/default.asp?content=1,67,56,0,0,Electric_Motors,00.html (scroll down). 

As drgrieve said you can get much more power and torque for your money using a series DC motor such as a Netgain Warp11 or Kostov 11” (look up and compare their torque to the AC motors above) and an Evnetics soliton1 or solitonjr controller (also look up and compare the power of these controllers with the AC ones), depending on how fast you want to accelerate. Might also consider a 13" motor. But, if you have sufficient project funding for the higher cost AC options you could use that too.


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