Development and Testing of a Zero Emission Drive Unit for Battery Electric Vehicles

Particulate matter emissions impair people’s health. So far there have only been studies on specific emissions from brakes and tires of vehicles with combustion engine, which are mainly determined on test benches. Environmental influences or effects in real drive operation of battery electric vehicles are not yet fully known. This paper describes the development of a zero-emission electric vehicle in which the brake particle emissions and the tire particle emissions are collected and removed from the environment. The first part describes the problem of non-exhaust vehicle emissions. These are negative health impacts through fine dust and environmental pollution by microplastic. In the second part the development process of a vehicle with the so called Zero Emission Drive Unit (ZEDU) is described. It shows the development of a demonstrator vehicle with highly reduced particle emissions due to a newly developed brake unit and a newly developed integrated tire emission extraction unit. The vehicle demonstrator was tested on a chassis dynamometer as well as on a test track. First results indicate that the tires emit the highest particle concentrations during the accelerating process. The brake emissions in the presented demonstrator are reduced to zero. The particle measurements show that the extracted tire emissions are reduced by over 90 % due to the used filter system.