Abstract
The highway vehicle is concerned with transporting persons or freight over substantial distances, usually at as high an average speed as the conditions will permit. The high-performance private car and the door-to-door delivery vehicle represent opposite ends of the scale of the duty cycle. In the latter case, the very cycle itself—stop-start characteristics, the high percentage of standing time resulting in relatively small mileage, and the small penalty of limited maximum speed—represents cumulative factors in respect of which the basic economics of the battery-operated electric vehicle dominates other considerations.
Thus, in order to arrive at design specifications it is essential to consider the duty cycle which, in the case of all types of industrial vehicle, is characterized by the need to execute a high proportion of forward/reverse manoeuvres, long periods of low-speed operation, and the provision of an increasing complexity of powered auxiliary equipment.
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