A team of students of the VIT University here has developed a hybrid autorickshaw which can run on battery as well as on petrol.
The project was completed in the Technology Information Forecasting Assessment Council-Centre of Relevance and Excellence (TIFAC-CORE) in the Automotive Infotronics Centre, under the leadership of K. Ganesan, Director of the Centre. The final-year M. Tech. students of Automotive Electronics were guided by C.K. Subramaniam, Professor, School of Advanced Science, VIT.
The team worked towards reducing the fuel cost of the autorickshaw by Re. 1 a km. Givith, one of the team members, says the reduction is huge given the 25 lakhs of autorickshaws running in the country.
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A 25 per cent reduction in emission is an added feature of the vehicle since it will be running on the battery in the first, second and third gears and runs on petrol mode in the fourth gear, says Nithin P.V., another team member.
Jayapal, also part of the team, says the addition of electric motor powered by batteries and supporting circuitries is the overall modification required to convert a normal autorickshaw into a hybrid one. This conversion cost the team Rs. 45,000. Large-scale production of such vehicles will bring the cost further down, the students say. According to Jerin, another member of the team, the electric motor runs on a 60-V battery pack, which is coupled to the gearbox of the auto. The auto runs on motor initially and the driver can shift to the petrol mode when the vehicle reaches 15 kmph.
G. Viswanathan, VIT Chancellor; Sekar Viswanathan and G.V. Selvam, vice-presidents; V. Raju, vice-chancellor; and S. Narayanan, pro-vice-chancellor, congratulated the students on their invention.
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