Customer Reviews

Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric, and Fuel Cell Vehicles: Fundamentals, Theory, and Design (Power Electronics and Applications Series)

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There is a dearth of books on hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, so this book is welcome. However, the equations are not detailed enough for actual component design. There are no Simulink block diagrams, for instance, so a reader will be unable to do his own simulations directly from this book. The book is useful, though, for deriving the large scale parameters for a hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle or fuel cell-electric vehicle (power plant size, peak power source size, etc.) The worst chapter is Chapter 6, Electric Propulsion Systems. The authors throw numerous equations at the reader (for the various type of electric motor-generators), but with the symbols defined after the equations, and without any real derivation. Actual block diagrams (with real values) are not provided--so how is an automotive engineer supposed to use this material?

I've got other complaints. Chapter 3, Internal Combustion Engines, doesn't even discuss the Atkinson cycle--the one most commonly used in hybrid vehicles. (And of course the Satz engine, the most efficient engine ever designed, is not mentioned.) I was also expecting detailed descriptions of the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner Hybrid drivetrains--no such luck, although this book is copyrighed 2005. The CVT discussion is minimal (there is on p. 135 a simple block diagram for the Prius drive train)--there should have been a detailed analysis and synthesis of eCVT, etc.

And another thing: the English in the book is substandard. I realize that for the foreign authors English is a second language, but still the CRC editors should have caught the many mistakes. For the next edition, please clean up the English and provide detailed Simulink diagrams, then I'll recommend it.

a great book while learning about vehicle and engine characteristics, to then further expand on hybrid and electric vehicle applications

It is a good textbook for studying electric vehicle and correspondence. It has paid much attention to explain the designing issues of an electric vehicle and tried to figure out what problems they are.
Good understanding for an electric vehicle.