IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 50, NO.

4, JULY 2001 1085

Nonconventional Three-Wheel Electric Vehicle for

Urban Mobility
Luca Solero, Member, IEEE, Onorato Honorati, Member, IEEE, Federico Caricchi, Member, IEEE, and
Fabio Crescimbini, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper outlines the original solutions adopted for

powering a nonconventional three-wheel electric vehicle. This is a
lightweight vehicle for use in urban mobility with mission tasks
such as 50-km/h cruising speed and 80-km range of autonomy.
The propulsion system is based on a lead-acid battery-fed wheel
direct drive. This is arranged with a 4.5-kW prototype of a slotless
axial-flux permanent magnet machine, which has a total weight of
15 kg and is capable of 85-Nm continuous torque and 120 -Nm peak
torque over 2 min. The motor is totally enclosed in the single front
wheel of the vehicle and fed through an IGBT bidirectional power
converter, which allows the control of both motoring and regener-
ative braking operations. Design characteristics and experimental
data taken from the prototype of wheel direct drive are given.
Index Terms—Axial-flux permanent-magnet (PM) motor, regen-
erative braking, urban mobility, wheel direct-drive motor.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1. Prototype of three-wheel EV driven by the mayor of Rome at the

official presentation to the press held on June 28, 1997.

B OTH environmental pollution and inadequate parking fa-

cilities are concerns that affect urban mobility in large
cities worldwide. Therefore, interest in the use of lightweight,
Axial-flux PM machines (AFPMs) with a single toroidal
stator placed between two PM rotor discs prove to be the best
compact electric vehicles (EVs) is rapidly growing, as such a
candidate for such a low-speed high-torque drive application,
novel type of zero-emission vehicle is expected to alleviate the
as they can be designed to achieve the required high torque
problems posed by the chaotic traffic conditions being experi-
density without loss of efficiency. In addition, their disc shape
enced in urban environments.
is very well suited to housing the motor in a wheel rim, as the
Newly conceived EVs that are being purposely designed for
double PM rotors could be mounted on the wheel side walls
urban mobility should meet a number of requirements, which
and the stator could be mounted centrally on the wheel axle.
include high-efficiency performance for reduced on-board en-
Recently, AFPM topologies with either slotless or airgap
ergy storage and low manufacturing cost for market competition
winding have been under investigation for wheel direct-drive
with conventional thermal-engine vehicles. In consideration of
motor application, and wheel direct drives based on AFPMs
the high efficiency and compactness required, the propulsion
have been developed for a number of EV prototypes, including
system is best arranged with direct drive wheel motors for more
an electric scooter [1] and a dual-power city car [2].
efficient powertrain and reduced overall weight of the vehicle.
As part of the activities on novel EV drives that have been
The advent of permanent-magnet (PM) materials with rema-
under development at the University of Rome since 1989, in the
nence in excess of 1.2 T and coercivity approaching 1 kA/mm
last few years a research project was carried out under contract
has opened up new opportunities for the use of electrical ma-
with a private company to design and construct the prototype of
chine topologies with substantially improved performance, typi-
the three-wheel EV shown in Fig. 1. This is a lightweight vehicle
cally in terms of increased efficiency or higher torque-to-weight
intended for urban mobility with mission tasks such as 50-km/h
ratio. Materials such Nd–Fe–B, for example, enable adequate
cruising speed and 80- km range of autonomy. The propulsion
flux densities to be produced, even with quite large air gaps, thus
system is arranged with a 4.5-kW prototype of slotless AFPM
improving the prospects for designs of newly conceived electric
totally enclosed in the single front wheel of the vehicle and fed
motors devoted to low-speed high-torque operations.
from a lead-acid battery through an insulated gate bipolar tran-
sistor (IGBT) bidirectional power converter.
Manuscript received July 2, 2000; revised September 29, 2000. The wheel direct-drive motor has a total weight of 15 kg and
L. Solero and F. Crescimbini are with the Department of Mechanical and
Industrial Engineering, University “ROMA TRE,” Rome 00146, Italy (e-mail: is capable of 85-Nm continuous torque and 120-Nm peak torque
solero@dma.uniroma3.it). over 2 min. This paper outlines the solutions adopted for the de-
O. Honorati and F. Caricchi are with the Department of Electrical En- velopment of the EV prototype shown in Fig. 1, including design
gineering, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome 00184, Italy (e-mail:
fred@elettrica.ing.uniroma1.it). characteristics and experimental data taken from the 4.5-kW
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9545(01)06049-2. prototype of wheel direct drive.
0018–9545/01$10.00 © 2001 IEEE
1086 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 50, NO. 4, JULY 2001

II. AXIAL-FLUX PM MOTOR DRIVES FOR EVs

A. Axial-Field Machines
Electric machines based on the so-called axial-field topology
(i.e., machines having stator and rotor parts both with a disc-type
arrangement and linkage flux in the air gaps between stator and
rotor discs with direction parallel to the machine shaft) are not
new. In the past, they have been investigated to develop ma-
chines with various electrical configurations [3]–[5] and for spe-
cific applications related to a wide range of power rating, in-
cluding low inertia servo motors [6], [7], electric vehicle ac
drives [8], and multihundred HP brushless dc motors [9].
In principle, an axial-field machine (AFM) can have one of
the following arrangements:
a) single rotor and single stator;
b) single rotor sandwiched between two stators;
c) single stator sandwiched between two rotors;
d) multiple rotors intercalated with multiple stators to
achieve a multistage machine arrangement.
To a great extent, the investigations carried out in the last few
decades on AFMs were mainly devoted to machine configura-
tions a) and b), but it seems this mostly arose from various spe-
cific design concerns such as either the requirement for a low
rotor inertia [7], the desire for much simpler manufacturing of
Fig. 2. Cross-sectional view of a slotless AFPM being used as wheel
a slotted stator core [4], [5], or the need for enhancing the re- direct-drive motor.
moval of the heat produced in a slotted armature by the core
and winding power losses [9]. Disregarding the servo motor ap-
plication, which actually has benefits in terms of lower rotor in- The machine stator, being mounted centrally on the wheel axle,
ertia from a machine arrangement with single rotor, it is found consists of a toroidally wound strip-iron core that carries coils
that AFM configurations a) and b) are the most disadvanta- arranged to form a three-phase winding wound in a toroidal
geous ones, as they are inherently based on the use of winding fashion. To improve mechanical strength and heat dispersal, the
coils having end-windings of significant length compared to the stator is encapsulated with fiber-reinforced epoxy resin. The
active part of the coil conductors. This clearly results in poor rotor comprises two mild-steel discs, one on each side of the
machine performance, being a significant part of the machine stator, that are mounted on the wheel side walls and carry axi-
copper (i.e., more than 50% of the total in most machine de- ally polarized magnets.
signs) used to produce heating but no torque. The electromagnetic structure of AFPMs effectively com-
On the other hand, both c) and d) allow the use of winding prises two independent halves, which lie on either side of the
coils that have very short end-windings. Prompted by the recog- radial centerline. The active conductor lengths are the radial
nition of such a distinct advantage, in the last few years there portions facing the magnets. The magnets drive flux across the
has been substantial international research activity devoted to an two resulting annular air gaps into the stator core. The flux
AFM topology herewith referred to as AFPM [10]–[12], which travels circumferentially along the core, back across the two air
has a single slotless stator being sandwiched between two PM gaps, and through the rotors iron. The current commanded in
rotor discs. In consideration of original features such as very the winding coils interacts with the magnet flux, producing a
high torque density and efficiency, recently AFPMs have been tangential force. All forces, acting on the two working surfaces
selected for a number of applications, including wheel-direct- of the toroidal core, contribute to produce the machine torque,
drive motors. which is basically related to the value of the outer radius of the
stator core. The peak phase emf and the torque of AFPM
machines can be expressed as follows:
B. Basic Characteristic of AFPM Motors
Even though AFPMs are not a novelty and substantial tech- (1)
nical information concerning machine design and modes of op- (2)
eration is found in the literature, the basic characteristics of
AFPM drives for the EV application are summarized in the fol- where
lowing. core outer radius;
AFPMs differ from conventional machines in the direction of ratio between the core outer and inner radii;
the airgap flux, which is in this case along the mechanical axis average flux density at the airgaps;
of the machine. Fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional view of a slot- number of phase winding turns;
less AFPM being arranged for use as wheel direct-drive motor. the rotor speed.
SOLERO et al.: NONCONVENTIONAL THREE-WHEEL ELECTRIC VEHICLE
The machine design factor is pertinent to the reduction of
the linkage flux due to the boundary effects at the magnet edges
and is to be obtained through a finite-element study of airgap
flux-density distribution or through design experience. For most
AFPM designs, a value for is generally found in the range
0.80–0.88. On the other hand, both factors and are to be
determined from the actual shape of the emf and current wave-
forms. However, for first tentative designs, values of and
can be calculated by assuming idealized waveforms [10], [13].
The effective mean electric loading at the stator inner radius is
defined as
(3)
where and are, respectively, the machine number of phases
and the rms value of the current waveform commanded. From
(2), it clearly appears that the outer radius of the stator core
is the important dimension that primarily determines the ma-
chine torque. The power loss in the machine includes and
eddy-current losses in the winding, iron loss in the stator core,
friction, and windage. However, due to the relatively low speed
at which a wheel direct-drive motor operates, the loss is the
predominant component of the machine power loss.
As the disc rotors and magnets act naturally as fans, good
ventilation and cooling of the winding are achieved even at low
speed. Hence, the machine can operate with high electric load-
ings and has the overload capability required for operation as
wheel direct-drive motor.
C. Motor Drive Configuration
For motoring operation, AFPMs require the variable-fre-
quency supply available from conventional current-regulated
PWM inverters. Three-phase currents are forced in the machine
phases, given that such currents timed appropriately with the
machine emf. Speed variation is accomplished at open loop
by the adjustment of the commanded torque. This is divided
by the machine torque constant to yield the peak value of
the current that should flow in the machine phases. Then, the
commanded current is used together with information on rotor
position to generate the reference current waveforms that, from
the comparison with the actual current waveforms, determine
the PWM signals driving the inverter switches.
AFPMs retain all the advantages inherent to conventional
brushless PM motors, and in addition they allow significant
improvements in terms of reduced iron and losses, neg-
ligible cogging torque, efficient heat removal from the stator
winding, and very simple manufacturing. On the other hand,
AFPMs do not lend themselves to constant-power operation be-
cause of the particularly low value of inductance, which requires
a large amount of current to offset the magnet flux with stator
reaction flux. Thus, variable-speed operation beyond the speed
at which the line-to-line emf gets near the inverter dc voltage
are not allowed, as the maximum current that the inverter can
deliver is fixed.
One additional problem related to the low value of the ma-
chine inductance is that in AFPM drives, the current waveform
may be affected by significant ripple, which produces additional
losses in the winding. The current ripple magnitude de-
1087
Fig. 3. Motor drive configuration for an AFPM being used as wheel
direct-drive motor.
pends on the inverter switching frequency, but on an instanta-
neous basis it is also determined by the difference between the
inverter input voltage and the motor emf. Hence, substantial re-
duction of the current ripple is achieved by adjusting continu-
ously the inverter input dc voltage with respect to the machine
emf. To this end, a boost dc-to-dc converter is likely to be used
in the dc link [14], [15], as shown in Fig. 3.
To allow the recovery of the vehicle kinetic energy in the
battery through regenerative braking operation, the power elec-
tronic interface shown in Fig. 3 has a bidirectional arrange-
ment. As maximum extraction of the vehicle kinetic energy is
achieved with the current being in phase with the motor emf,
during braking operation only the flywheel diodes of the PWM
inverter are used, and the amplitude of the braking current is
regulated in the dc link by the switching operation of the boost
converter. It is worth noting that the power converter interface
shown in Fig. 3 includes the all electronic components needed
for operation as on-board battery charger if grid supply is pro-
vided.
III. PROTOTYPE OF WHEEL DIRECT DRIVE
The prototype of three-wheel EV shown in Fig. 1 has a newly
conceived lightweight, monocoque body, which was purposely
designed for this EV application. The overall weight of the ve-
hicle is about 250 kg, including battery storage and payload of
one person plus luggage. The steering radius is 1.5 m to give en-
hanced maneuverability during vehicle operation in city traffic.
As to the forward and reverse speeds, the driver is allowed to
select either a “power” mode of operation for rushed driving
performance but reduced range of operation, or an “economy”
mode of operation for the rated range of autonomy with quiet
driving operation.
The motor is totally enclosed in the single front wheel of the
vehicle and fed through an IGBT power converter. This con-
verter is placed in the space available under the vehicle body
just above the front wheel. The supply of the wheel motor drive
is accomplished through a lead-acid battery being housed under
the driver seat.
The prototype of the wheel direct drive was tested extensively
in laboratory in order to set up proper control operations and
evaluate significant motor drive performance. After that, the ve-
hicle prototype was tested on road to achieve data concerning
1088 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 50, NO. 4, JULY 2001

TABLE I
EV DRIVE DESIGN SPECIFICATION

the actual range of autonomy when the vehicle is operated in

the city traffic.
Table I gives the leading specification used for the design of
the vehicle propulsion system. Design characteristics and exper-
imental data taken from the prototype of wheel direct drive are
given in the following.

A. Wheel Direct-Drive Motor

The design of a wheel direct-drive motor is constrained by
the inner diameter of the wheel rim. In the EV prototype under
discussion, a motor with 340 mm overall diameter was found
Fig. 4. Motorized front wheel (14-in diameter) of the three-wheel EV
suitable to fit the 14-in rim diameter of the front wheel. As the prototype.
total mass of the front wheel should be minimized, optimiza-
tion of the motor design was based on the desire for continuous TABLE II
torque per unit active mass of at least 5 Nm/kg. On the other MOTOR LEADING DIMENSIONS
hand, it was also required to meet the target of low manufac-
turing cost (i.e., an envisaged per-unit cost below $600 for mass
production), and to this aim machine designs with total mass of
magnets as reduced as possible were sought. The use of an iron-
less winding [2] was considered for high torque per unit active
mass but rejected because of the higher magnet mass required.
As a consequence of both the high torque density and low man-
ufacturing cost required, design value of 90% efficiency at the
rated motoring condition was found acceptable.
As vehicle motion at 50 km/h on a flat road is achieved with
motor operation at nominal speed and relatively low power, it is
important to have low no-load loss for improving the part-load
efficiency. The request for low manufacturing cost called for the
use of standard materials, such us iron strip with 0.3 mm thick-
ness for the toroidal core and round wire conductors with 1.5
mm diameter for the winding coils. With such design assump-
tions, acceptably low no-load loss is achieved with a 16-pole
machine design.
Fig. 4 shows the motorized front wheel of the three-wheel EV
prototype, and Table II summarizes the leading dimensions of
the 16-pole wheel direct-drive motor prototype.
Tests were conducted to determine the motor resistance, in-
ductance, emf waveform, torque constant, no-load loss, load
loss, efficiency, and winding temperature rise. The measured
values of motor resistance and inductance are given in Table II.
In open-circuit tests, the observed waveshape of the machine
phase voltage is very close to sinusoidal, as expected. The three-
phase emf waveform is shown in Fig. 5. At the nominal speed
of 500 rev/min, the peak value is about 77.5 V. This measured
value is about 2% higher than the design figure of 76 V. This
improvement is attributed to valuable addition to linkage flux
from the fringe at the magnet edges. At the nominal speed the The supply for load tests was accomplished by an IGBT cur-
no-load total loss is close to 100 W, including bearing loss. rent regulated pulse-width modulation (CRPWM) inverter with
SOLERO et al.: NONCONVENTIONAL THREE-WHEEL ELECTRIC VEHICLE 1089

Fig. 5. Motor phase emf waveforms measured at 125 rev/min.

dc input voltage of 180 V. The motor inductance of 246 H (i.e.,

about 0.05 p.u.) was found to be high enough to limit the current
ripple due to the inverter switching operation.
From several load torque tests, it was determined that the
motor has torque constant of 3.14 Nm/A, and therefore the rated
torque of 85 Nm is achieved with 27-A rms current. Input elec-
trical power and shaft mechanical power were measured to de-
termine power loss and efficiency at various load torques and
speeds. Fig. 6 gives efficiency values determined from the load
tests.
At the rated condition of 85 Nm, 500 rev/min, the total loss
is 524 W, and thereby the motor has efficiency of 89.5%. This
efficiency value is found to be satisfactory compared to the 90%
design figure. At nominal speed and intermediate power, the
motor efficiency is well above 90%, with maximum efficiency
of 92% achieved with about half the rated torque.
Winding temperature rise of 46 C was measured with the
motor being operated with rated torque at the nominal speed. Fig. 6. Efficiency at various torques and speeds.
Long-term overload torque conditions were also tested up to
120 Nm, and in all these tests the winding temperature rise was
found well below 100 C, even with low rotational speed. speed. The inverter control system acts as a logic interface be-
tween the driver and the propulsion system to provide a number
B. Bidirectional Power Converter of features. These include motor torque control through the ac-
As shown in Fig. 3, battery supply of the wheel direct-drive celerator lever, regenerative braking at releasing of the accel-
motor is accomplished through a power converter interface, erator lever, selection of either forward or reverse speed, and
which compounds a three-phase CRPWM inverter and a selection of either “power” or “economy” mode of operation.
bidirectional boost dc-to-dc converter. The CRPWM inverter Due to the proof-of-concept nature of the three-wheel EV
is arranged with an IGBT six-pack intelligent power module prototype, it was decided to test motor drive operation with var-
(IPM) rated 600 V, 75 A. The boost dc-to-dc converter is ious battery supply arrangements, such as either:
arranged with a ferrite-core inductor and an IGBT dual-pack 1) a battery with 168-V rated voltage and 14-Ah capacity for
power module rated 600 V, 100 A. Both of the power converters supply of the inverter input without intermediate stepup
are operated at 20 kHz switching frequency. converter;
During motoring operations, the dc-to-dc converter is used to 2) a battery with 84-V rated voltage and 35-Ah capacity
step up the battery voltage according to the actual motor speed. for supply of the inverter input through an intermediate
Inverter input voltage of 180 V is achieved at the nominal motor stepup converter.
1090
Fig. 7. Measured efficiency of power converter at various load conditions.
Fig. 8. Inverter output phase current (CH3, 20 A/div) and dc link current (CH4,
20 A/div) at 110-Nm load torque, 210 rev/min.
As expected from an earlier work [14], it was found that ad-
justing the inverter input voltage through an intermediate stepup
converter allows an improvement of the motor drive efficiency.
This is due to a significant reduction of the inverter commutation
losses at low motor speeds. Fig. 7 gives the measured efficiency
of the power converter interface at various loads, whereas Fig. 8
shows waveforms of both the inverter output phase current and
the dc link current taken during experimental tests at 110-Nm
load torque and 210-rev/min motor speed.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper has described the solutions adopted for the wheel
direct drive of an original three-wheel EV prototype devoted to
urban mobility. An in-wheel AFPM motor is used to produce
continuous power of 4.5 kW at 500 rev/min, with 15 kg of total
mass at efficiency of about 90%.
Even though the EV prototype discussed above is a proof-of-
concept vehicle, motor drive design is concerned with manufac-
turing costs, and to this aim only products available in the market
at reasonable cost were used for the construction of the motor
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 50, NO. 4, JULY 2001
drive components. In consideration of that, it is envisaged that
the manufacturing costs for mass production of the proposed EV
drive arrangement would compare favorably with those of con-
ventional thermal engines having same rating, which opens op-
portunities for novel, cost-effective, lightweight EVs intended
as commercial products.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge V. Guzzini, F. Lenci,
and A. Ciarla for partnership and valuable work provided in the
development of the three-wheel EV prototype.
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Luca Solero (M’98) received the electrical engi-
neering degree from the University of Rome “La
Sapienza,” Rome, Italy, in 1994.
Since 1996, he has been with the Department of
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of
“ROMA TRE,” where he currently is an Assistant
Professor. His research interests include permanent
magnet motor drive, power converter topologies, and
control systems design for unconventional applica-
tions such as electric and hybrid vehicle and renew-
able energy systems.
Dr. Solero is a member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, IEEE Industry
Applications Society, IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society, and IEEE
Vehicular Technology Society.
SOLERO et al.: NONCONVENTIONAL THREE-WHEEL ELECTRIC VEHICLE 1091

Onorato Honorati (M’73) received the degree in Fabio Crescimbini (M’91) received the degree in
electrotechnical engineering (cum laude) from the electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree from the
University of Turin, Turin, Italy, in 1964. University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy, in
From 1971 to 1974, he was an Associate Professor 1982 and 1987, respectively.
at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. From 1974 From 1989 to 1998, he was with the Department
to 1980, he was an Associate Professor at the of Electrical Engineering, University of Rome “La
University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy, Sapienza,” as Director of the Electrical Drives Labo-
where, since 1980, he has been a Full Professor of ratory. In 1998, he joined the Department of Mechan-
electrical machines in the Department of Electrical ical and Industrial Engineering, University “ROMA
Engineering. His current research interests are the TRE” as an Associate Professor. His research inter-
analysis and design of electrical machines and ests includes newly conceived permanent magnet ma-
renewable energy generating systems. chines and power converter topologies for unconven-
Prof. Honorati is a member of the Italian Association of Electric and Elec- tional applications such as electric vehicle drives and renewable energy gener-
tronic Engineers (AEI) and the IEEE Power Engineering and IEEE Industry ating systems.
Applications Societies. Prof. Crescimbini is an active member of the IEEE Industry Applications
Society, serving in both the Electrical Machine Committee and Industrial Drives
Committee.
Federico Caricchi (M’90) received the electrical en-
gineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy, in 1988 and 1994,
respectively.
Since 1991, he has been with the Department
of Electrical Engineering, University of Rome
“La Sapienza,” where he currently is an Associate
Professor. His research interests include analysis and
design of unconventional electric machines, power
electronic equipment, and permanent magnet motor
drives.
Prof. Caricchi is a member of the Italian Associa-
tion of Electric and Electronic Engineers (AEI), the Italian Association for Naval
Techniques (ATENA), and the IEEE Industry Applications Society.