A research s tudy (12 credits} s ubmitte d in partial fulfillment of' the requirements f or the degree of' Master of Engineering.

A feasibility study of solar/heat-engine hybrid electric vehicles was made by con structing a mathe matical mo del with FORTRAN77 programming language. Th e program inclu ded fo u r separate models for determining vehicle performance, solar p hotovoltaic panel output, battery performance, and road p ower requirement. The results show t hat most h y b r id vehicles weighing less than 2,000 kg can reach a maximum speed of about 50 mph (80 km/h) on zero slope. Th e vehicles can be accelerated from 0 to 40 mph (64 km/h) in 10 seconds and can travel 60 k m (about 40 miles ) on the average. Driving on a maximum s lope of 30 {u2022} will be p ossible in the hy bri d system. The hybrid syste m is mor e economical on fuel than the conventional system. At constant speed, t he hybrid vehicle saves about 10% of the fuel used in a conventio na l vehic le. In t he SAE J227a test, the fuel saving is about 30%. The ins talled solar p hotovoltaic panel supplies an average energy of 6.2 MJ/day to the battery if the panel collects solar radiation and charges t h e battery the whole day. The stored solar energy in the battery can support the vehicle alone for about 10 km. From the economic point of view, all the solar assisted vehicular systems are still expensive, mainly because of t h e high cost of solar cells and batteries. It is expected that t heir costs and hence the price of solar assisted vehicular systems will be s ignifican tly reduced by the year 2000. Two of the most important a dvantages of sola r /heat-en gine hybrid vehicular systems ar e significant abatement of environmental pollution caused by conventional vehicular systems and fuel economy.