Solving environmental and energy issues in megalopolises through the use of electric vehicles

Introduction (problem statement and relevance). The paper deals with the area of electric drive application in vehicles in the Russian Federation and analyzes their development trends in the advanced countries witnessing the greatest progress in this area. It provides energy efficiency characteristics of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, as well as their sales trends in the advanced European countries. The paper also considers environmental and energy issues of electric vehicle use in Moscow. The purpose of the study is to justify efficiency of use of electric vehicles in Moscow as well as to analyze the electric vehicle development in the advanced European countries. Methodology and research methods. Analysis of information about application of the electric drive in vehicles and comparative computational and experimental evaluation of efficiency of use of electric vehicles relative to traditional vehicles within the UN urban driving cycle. Results . Energy efficiency characteristics of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids as well as electric vehicle sales trends taking into account the cost of power in different countries were analyzed. The energy efficiency calculation for the use of electric vehicles in Russia showed that in summer the consumed power ratio between the traditional vehicle with a gasoline internal combustion engine and the electric vehicle amounts to 5.2. In winter, this ratio amounts to 2.5. Experimental evaluation of power consumption for operation of the electric vehicle HVAC system was performed. The analysis of electric vehicle development in the advanced European countries has shown that the electric vehicle sales depend on the power cost. Practical significance. The analysis and computational and experimental research performed by the authors have shown that the solution to the issue of strong atmospheric air pollution with hazardous emissions in Moscow will largely depend on the use of electric vehicles with environmentally friendly and energy-efficient powertrains.