Maintenance and Exploitation of Electric, Hybrid, and Internal Combustion Vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the costs, failure rate, vulnerability, and safety of electric, hybrid, and internal combustion vehicles (EV, HEV, and ICEV), including a review of literature sources, calculations, and investigations. Many literature sources do not provide information on maintenance costs (including repairs and servicing) and limit themselves to energy costs only. However, this cost is not the total cost of the maintenance of a vehicle. There is a lack of analysis of the difference between the maintenance and operating costs of vehicles. Similarly, vulnerability is difficult to determine in vehicles that are used for a short time in the market. The article presents an analysis of literature sources and industry reports on electromobility on maintenance costs, determines the failure rate, calculates vulnerability indices based on a survey, and carries out an expert risk assessment using the FMEA method. In the surveyed companies, the largest percentage of repairs are maintenance and service, mechanical, electrical and electronic, bodywork, and other repairs for each vehicle. Some of the most common faults in electric and hybrid vehicles are battery failures. The only hazard with a tolerable impact is the lack of sufficient data in the maintenance analysis. This risk can be mitigated in subsequent stages of product readiness once more data have been analysed.

Keywords

• electromobility
• transport
• safety
• vulnerability
• failure rate
• maintenance