Abstract
The purpose of this research is to develop an energy management strategy for a hybrid tricycle. The hybrid tricycle has two wheels at the front and one wheel at the rear. The front wheels are driven by in-wheel motors and the rear wheel is driven by an engine power train. The transmission of the engine power train is a Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT) and a final gear. The engine power train is that on the KYMCO Downtown scooter. By doing this, motorcycle manufactures can upgrade their motorcycles to hybrid tricycles easily. From the engine fuel consumption map, one can learn that engine usually has worse performance in low power zone than that in high power zone. Thus, the idea for the energy management strategy design is to activate the motor when the driver required power is low and to activate the engine when the driver required power is high. Simulations show that the fuel consumption rate of the hybrid tricycle is 26.28 km/L and the fuel consumption rate of an engine tricycle is 20.2 km/L. This shows that about 30% of the fuel can be saved with the developed hybrid tricycle.