Associate Professor Federico Ibanez from the Energy Center presented a collaborative project at the Institute’s stand at the Young Scientists Congress in Sirius. The project itself suggested the use of supercapacitors in electric vehicles for assisting and improving the efficiency of electric vehicles. For demonstrating the novel supercapacitor module, the team has presented it in an electric vehicle platform for testing modern algorithms and technologies based on the 1967 ZAZ-965 car, developed by the Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems of the ICS RAS, and partners. Now the star of the Soviet automobile industry functions as a modern electric car based on a hybrid system assisted by supercapacitors.

With the trend for electric vehicles, the product can be used in various vehicles that require additional peak power for starting, or, if necessary, maintain battery charge at a certain maximum power. Potential applications are vehicles with frequently stop and re-start — electro buses and garbage trucks, but also in vehicles with extreme power requirements such as all-terrain motorcycles, trucks, and sport scooters.

“Originally developed for Enduro electric motorcycles, a bidirectional converter with supercapacitors provides short-term power pulses necessary to overcome difficult sections of the route, for example, steep ascents. However, its application goes far beyond sports competitions. In electric transport in general, the system improves the battery life, smoothing its peak loads, and increases the efficiency of regenerative braking by absorbing high currents during deceleration, which the battery is not always able to accept,” said Federico Ibanez, an associate professor at the Energy Center.

Learn more about the project from video interviews with Federico on Rossiya 24 (starting 00:52) and REN TV (starting 03:39). The interviews are available only in Russian.