The Development of an Ultra Compact Range Extender for Electric Vehicles

“里程焦虑是电动汽车广泛普及及其环境效益的最大障碍。44%的英国司机认为排放和环境友好是购买汽车的重要因素，但只有5%的人会考虑购买电动汽车，因为里程问题。汽车制造商试图通过安装增程器来解决这个问题。然而，目前的增程器解决方案倾向于使用活塞式内燃机。然而，也有许多缺点，包括：往复部件（活塞）引起的显著振动，成本和复杂性，相对较低的功率重量比，沉重，占地面积大，体积庞大。因此，旋转发动机作为活塞发动机的替代品受到青睐，因为它们具有固有的优势，如高功率重量比，紧凑的尺寸，低振动（无往复部件），简单和低成本。然而，旋转发动机也嘈杂，效率低下，在变速和可变负载，并有高排放。因此，这些因素对旋转发动机作为增程器的适用性提出了限制。AIE正在开发的这项技术旨在通过开发一种全新的旋转发动机系统来解决这一问题，该系统可用于电动汽车的超紧凑型增程器。这对旋转发动机的影响是深远的，并将导致混合动力汽车的普及，显著减少二氧化碳排放。”

"Range anxiety is the single greatest obstacle to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and the environmental benefits they offer. Forty four percent of UK drivers consider emissions & environmental friendliness as important factors when buying a car yet only 5% would consider buying an electric car due to range concerns. Vehicle manufacturers have sought to address this issue through the installation of range extenders. However, current range extender solutions tend to use piston based internal combustion engines. However, there are numerous disadvantages including: significant vibrations resulting from reciprocating parts (pistons), cost & complexity, relatively low power to weight ratio, heavy, large footprint and bulky size. As a result, rotary engines are finding favour as an alternative to piston engines because they have inherent advantages such as high power to weight ratio, compact size, low vibration (no reciprocating parts), simplicity & low cost. However, rotary engines are also noisy, inefficient at variable speeds & variable loads, and have high emissions. These factors therefore present a limitation to the suitability of rotary engines for use as range extenders.This technology under development by AIE aims to address this issue by developing a completely novel rotary engine system for use as an ultra compact range extender for electric vehicles. The implications are profound for the rotary engine and would lead to increased uptake of hybrid electric vehicles, significantly reducing CO2 emissions."