Electric cars: Technology

Course Syllabus

Table of contents
Introduction 2
Learning objectives 3
Course overview 3
Learning activities 6
Assessment 7
Expectations 8
Resources & Tools 9
Certificates & License 10

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Electric cars: Technology
Course Syllabus

Introduction
Welcome to this self paced course Electric Cars: Technology! This document is
the course syllabus and provides you with all the important information about
this MOOC. Be sure to read it carefully, as it contains information about the
contents, learning objectives, the grading structure and the types of assignments.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are the future of transportation. Electric mobility has become
an essential part of the energy transition, and will imply significant changes for vehicle
manufacturers, governments, companies and individuals.

This course is the second in a series of four and provides you with an in-depth
understanding on electric cars (e-cars) from a technology perspective. Key experts
from the domain of technology of EVs will be the instructors in the course videos. The
workload is about 4 hours per week. For this course, previous knowledge about the
concepts taught in the MOOC Electric Cars: Introduction is required.

The course includes video lectures, presentations and other learning activities,
which are reinforced with real-world case studies from projects that were
implemented in the Netherlands.

The experts of TU Delft, together with the Dutch Innovation Centre for Electric
Road Transport (D-INCERT) and other knowledge institutes and companies in the
Netherlands, will prepare you for upcoming developments amid the transition to
electric vehicles.

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Course Syllabus

Learning objectives
By following this course, you will learn to:
• Identify the types of motors and drivetrains used in electric cars and their
advantages and disadvantages.
• Understand the basics of power electric converters used in electric cars and the
operation of DC/DC converters.
• Describe the principles of battery operation and the key performance parameters.
• Understand the charging methods of EVs covering: AC charging, DC charging,
smart charging, vehicle-to-grid technology, ICT for charging.
• Understand the concepts of future technologies for electric cars, namely: wireless
charging, battery swap, autonomous driving, solar EVs and charging of EVs from
renewables.

Course overview
The MOOC consists of a 'Getting Started' module to introduce you to the platform,
four modules of learning, and a final wrap-up week. This section goes through the
planning and contents of each of the modules allowing you to better integrate these
modules within your own schedule.

Module 0: Getting Started

The start of the course is May 8th with the Getting Started week, which will introduce
you to the edX learning environment and your fellow students. You will get to know
the moderators of the course and have the opportunity to complete your edX profile.

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Course Syllabus

Module 1: How Does an EV Work?

The first module will start with explaining the difference between electric vehicles
and gasoline cars. It will then be followed by the concepts of electric car drivetrains
and electric motors. The last part of the module will deal with the basics of power
electronic converters that are found in an electric car.

Module 2: Battery Technology for EVs

The second module starts with explaining different storage technologies and the
now relevant Li-ion batteries. The next parts will be dealing with battery working
principles, various battery losses, battery packs and battery management systems.
This will be followed with the concepts of DC-DC converters for battery charging.

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Module 3: Charging of EVs

The third module will begin with a discussion on EV charging methods. Various types
of AC charging such as Type 1,2,3 and DC charging and Chademo, Tesla and CCS
will be discussed in detail. The next part of the module will explain fast charging
and its limitations. We will review the concept of smart charging and its applications
and Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology. Lastly, we will look at the necessary ICT and
communication protocols required to implement EV charging and smart charging.

Module 4: Future Electric Mobility

The fourth module opens with the concept of wireless and on-road charging of EVs.
This will be followed with course material on battery swap technology. The final part
will discuss microgrids for EV charging, using renewable energy sources.

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Course Syllabus

Learning activities
This course consists of the following learning activities:
• Video lectures discussing the different topics
• Assignments to test your knowledge on the topic
• Self reviewing your essay written for the final assignment
• Case studies
• Panel discussions
• Additional learning material to support the video lectures and assignments
• Discussion topics in the forum

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Assessment
The scheme below shows the global grading of the course. You can obtain a total of
80% by successfully completing all graded activities in each of the modules.
Modules 0 and 5 do not contain any graded activities. You can earn the
remaining 20% by successfully completing the final assignment, a self
assessment essay. The passing grade for this course is 60%.

Module 1
How Does an
EV Work?
20% 20%
20%
Module 2
Battery Technology
Final assignment pass: for EVs
Essay + Self 60%
assessment
20% 20%
80%

Module 3
20% Charging of EVs

Module 4
Graded activities Future Electric
Mobility
Self assessment

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Course Syllabus

Expectations
What you can expect from the course team:
• The lecturers will provide state of the art content every module.
• This is not an instructor-guided course, but the course team will be available to
check the forums and deal with any technical questions or issues. However, we
will not be monitoring the forums as often as in a guided course.
• Therefore, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the discussions in the
forums of this course, as it will make learning more interactive, increase your
knowledge on the subject and allow you to be helped or to help others.
• By assisting each other in solving commonly-experienced course issues we create
a sense of community, which is part of the experience of online learning.

What we expect from you:

• As an online student we expect you to be an active participant in this course,
contributing to a positive atmosphere by engaging in meaningful discussions
where knowledge is exchanged. Please attend to the rules below to make this
course a pleasant experience for everyone! Also have a look at the Collaboration
Guidelines and Discussion Forum Guidelines in the Course handouts section.
• Be constructive in your feedback and whenever possible provide
suggestions for improvement. Learning in an online community is about
interaction.
• When commenting on work of others be constructive

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• Be sensitive to your peers’ background and culture. This is a global forum with
participants with very diverse nationalities. Please keep this in mind when
discussing your own work or results of others.
• Post appropriate content. Content that violates the edX Terms of Service is not
permitted.
• Be respectful to your peers. We encourage debate and discussion but only when
this is done in a polite and respectful manner. We do not tolerate rude behavior,
condescending or abusive words. Instances will be reported and removed.

Resources
On top of the online web-based learning environment of edX for which you need a
browser, this course will provide you with Portable Document Files (PDF). You will
only need to open and read these PDF documents, which you can do using e.g. the
Adobe Acrobat Reader on Windows and OSX, or the integrated Document Reader
in Ubuntu (Linux).

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Course Syllabus

Certificates and License

Certificate & License
If you're interested in a certificate you can upgrade to a Verified Certificate. These
certificates will indicate that you have successfully completed the course, but will not
include a specific grade. Certificates will be issued by edX under the name of DelftX,
designating the institution from which the course originated.

Generating an ID verified certificate.

Verified certificates will be issued a few days after the end of the course, to all verified
participants who have achieved at least 60% of the total grade. Certificates can be
downloaded from your Student Dashboard (look for the Download button next to the
name of our course). Remember that in order to qualify for a certificate, you must
achieve a total grade of 60% or higher. You can check your grade at any time under
the course’s Progress page. An ID verified Certificate of Achievement is available for
$50. You can Upgrade on your edX Dashboard to Verified during the course. Once
produced, a certificate cannot be reissued, hence it is very important that you verify
the way in which your name appears. Check that, in your edx.org account, your name
is correctly spelled, since it will appear on the final certificate. Please note that no
Honor Code certificates will be given out by edX for this course.

License
Unless otherwise specified the course materials of this course are Copyright Delft
University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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