Electric cars: Technology

Course Syllabus

Table of contents
Introduction 2

Learning objectives 3

Course overview 3

Learning activities 6

Assessment 7

Deadlines 8

Expectations 9

Resources & Tools 10

Certificates & license 11

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Electric cars: Technology
Course Syllabus

Introduction
Welcome to this 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 and learning
objectives, as well as the structure of the grading 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 to the topic of 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 (May 8th - May 14th)

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? (May 15th - May 21st)

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 (May 22nd - May 28th)

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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Course Syllabus

Module 3: Charging of EVs (May 29th - June 4th)

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 (Jun 5th - Jun 11th)

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

Module 5: Wrap-up (Jun 12th - Jun 19th)

This final module provides no new content and primarily allows you to finish all
assignments you weren't able to do during the content modules. After this module, the
certificates for the course will be made, so be sure that you complete your remaining
assignments during this module. Please note that this MOOC will be followed by two
successive MOOCs: Electric Cars: Business and Electric Cars: Policy.

Learning activities
This course consists of the following learning activities:
• Video lectures discussing the different topics
• Assignments to test your knowledge on the topic
• Peer reviewing the work of your fellow students
• 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
60% 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 40% by
successfully completing the final assignment, a peer reviewed essay. The passing
grade for this course is 60%.

Module 1
How Does an EV
Work?

15%

Module 2
40% Battery Technology
Final assignment 40% pass: 15% for EVs
Essay + Peer review
60%
60%

15%
Module 3
15% Charging of EVs

Module 4
Future Electric
Graded activities Mobility

Peer review

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Course Syllabus

Deadlines
To help you fit this course in your schedule, there are two kinds of deadlines for
the assignments: recommended deadlines and a hard deadline. The recommended
deadline is the moment we suggest completing an assignment to stay on track with
the schedule of the course. The hard deadline is the final deadline for handing in your
assignment for grading. Assignments will not be accepted after the hard deadline has
passed. The hand-in date of the final assignment will be a few days before the hard
deadline. This is done to give you time to review the essays of your peers. The hard
deadline will ensure everyone completes their peer reviews. This way everyone can
complete the assignment.

Module Opening date Recommended deadline Hard deadline

0 08/05/2018 12:00 UTC No graded assignments

1 15/05/2018 12:00 UTC 22/05/2018 12:00 UTC 19/06/2018 12:00 UTC

2 22/05/2018 12:00 UTC 29/05/2018 12:00 UTC 19/06/2018 12:00 UTC

3 29/05/2018 12:00 UTC 05/06/2018 12:00 UTC 19/06/2018 12:00 UTC

4 05/06/2018 12:00 UTC 12/06/2018 12:00 UTC 19/06/2018 12:00 UTC

5 12/06/2018 12:00 UTC 16/06/2018 12:00 UTC 16/06/2018 12:00 UTC

Note: The hard deadline for submission of your peer review-assignment is: 16 June 2018, 12:00

UTC and the hard deadline for review of others’ assignment: 19 June 2018, 12:00 UTC.

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Course Syllabus

Expectations
What you can expect from the course team:
• The lecturers will provide the most recent insights and findings in every module.
• We will provide general and collective feedback regarding the performance of the
group after each module. We will also promote engagement in discussions.
• Timely guidance and support by the moderators on a regular basis. The
moderators will check the forum every 24 hours. It is not always possible for
the moderators to react instantly due to time zone differences. In that case,
try to solve matters with your fellow students by contributing to the discussion
forum. 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. Learning in an online community is about
interaction.
• When commenting on work of others be constructive and whenever possible
provide suggestions for improvement.

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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.
• Keep on track with deadlines. This course is meant to be a place where you learn
with and from others. In this sense, we’d like you to experience collaboration and
peer- feedback, so please make sure you follow with other participants in order
to enrich the overall learning experience.

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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