Viking 23-zero emissions in the city, range and performance on the freeway

The design team for Viking 23 decided that a solar electric, parallel hybrid vehicle would be a realistic replacement for today's car. A range of up to 100 Km at an average urban speed of 50 kph in zero emission mode was set as a goal. An attempt will be made to do this with no power drawn from the existing electric power grid by utilizing solar cells to charge the battery. For inter-city use a target range of 500 km at an average speed of 100 kph was set. The parallel configuration was chosen because mechanical drive-line efficiency is greater than that possible for a series hybrid. One disadvantage of a parallel hybrid is that a larger more powerful internal combustion (IC) engine is required for hill climbing and maximum performance than would be needed for the series configuration. On the other hand, no large generator is needed to collect the IC engine power to charge the battery and run the electric motors.