Electric compressors have begun to be used in automobiles. The most common ones are hybrid electric vehicles and new energy vehicles. eCompressors are also installed in the parking air conditioners of some trucks.
The working principle of electric compressor is using an electric motor to drive vehicle air conditioner compressor. And nowadays’ innovative design integrates the motor and compressor together, called as “Integrated Design eCompressor” or “Integrated Electric Compressor”. The installation position becomes more flexible & convenient, as shown in the picture:
The above is the electric compressor used to retrofit
truck parking air conditioner, the same principle with ecompressors of other automotive vehicles. It can be seen that it is with compact size, occupying small space. When there is no internal-combustion engine or the combustion engine cannot work at full time, the advantages of electric compressors are clear!
The use of ecompressors on new energy vehicles and hybrid vehicles is a last resort. Traditional compressor needs to be driven by an engine. Pure electric vehicles don’t have an engine. The engine of hybrid vehicles cannot run all the time. The reason is because if the engine keeps running for the air conditioning to work, the fuel consumption benefit of the hybrid vehicle would be gone. Therefore, an electric compressor is the best choice.
Then why are conventional diesel and gasoline vehicles not equipped with electric compressors?
Not Necessary.
The electricity energy of a car is obtained by consuming fuel. It consumes fuel when the engine drives generator to generate electricity, and there will be a certain energy loss after on conversion. When the electric energy drives the electric motor, the energy is converted again, and there is still a loss. There will be a huge energy lost after two conversions. Therefore, in convention diesel vehicles, the fuel economy of the use of
electric air-conditioning compressor is worse than the installation of conventional compressor.
However, under special circumstances, the use of electric compressors will reduce fuel consumption. We all know that diesel vehicles waste much energy and are inefficient. For example, when braking, all kinetic energy is converted into heat and is emitted. When a car is running at a low speed, the surplus energy of the engine is also converted into heat and emitted. If these two types of energy are recycled, the fuel efficiency can be improved.
How to use it?
That is to use a separate generator to recover. When the brake is stepped on, the generator intervenes and relies on the resistance of the generator to achieve the brake, and the potential energy drives the generator to generate electricity. The generator absorbs surplus energy to generate electricity under low-speed conditions, and stores it in the battery after generating it. At this time, the battery can supply power to the electric compressor, and there is no need to consume fuel. The engine will only start charging when the power is insufficient.
In fact, this is the current gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, which is based on the addition of energy recovery devices, high-voltage motors, batteries and other original components on the basis of fuel vehicles.
