Evaluation of Electric Vehicle Retrofitting Challenges Through a Design, Operation, and Charging Infrastructure Assessment Framework

Electric vehicle (EV) is a resurging technology with a promising future. However, range anxiety and lack of charging infrastructure remain challenges for the mass-scale adoption of EVs. Nevertheless, with technological advancements and rapid development of charging infrastructure, EV adoption has increased massively. On the one hand, the adoption of modern EVs has dramatically increased. On the other hand, retrofitting of conventional vehicles to EVs has significantly gained attention, especially in developing countries. One of the alarming concerns related to retrofitting is less awareness related to the retrofitting challenges that may raise safety issues along with the range anxiety. This research project identifies the challenges of retrofitting conventional gasoline engines to EVs while assessing battery bank capacity, drive train motor performance, and charging impact. A three-wheel gasoline vehicle is converted into an EV to identify design, operational, and mass-scale charging impacts. A three-wheeled petrol-engine vehicle was selected for the conversion. The geographic location of Karachi Pakistan was selected for testing the retrofitted vehicle. In the first phase, a simulation study is conducted using drive train simulation software for the selection of the electric motor and the sizing of the battery bank. In the second phase, the converted vehicle is tested on the road to analyze operational characteristics, that is, battery drain time, speed, and performance of the traction motor. In the third phase, mass-scale charging power requirements are quantified. The results revealed that conventional car transformation into an EV can pose challenges in all three phases, that is, design, operation, and mass-scale charging. It was analyzed that a low space constraint for the battery reduces the battery bank, eventually restricting the vehicle operation to only 15–32 min with a speed of 10 and 20 km/h. On the other hand, with the higher mass vehicles charging, the total power required is 125 kW with a 0.7 demand factor, whereas 117 kW of charging is required in the nighttime during peak hours, which can put a load on the grid with the increasing number of vehicles and less travel time.