This paper presents a review on the recent research and technical progress of electric motor systems and electric powertrains for new energy vehicles. Through the analysis and comparison of direct current motor, induction motor, and synchronous motor, it is found that permanent magnet synchronous motor has better overall performance; by comparison with converters with Si-based IGBTs, it is found converters with SiC MOSFETs show significantly higher efficiency and increase driving mileage per charge. In addition, the pros and cons of different control strategies and algorithms are demonstrated. Next, by comparing series, parallel, and power split hybrid powertrains, the series–parallel compound hybrid powertrains are found to provide better fuel economy. Different electric powertrains, hybrid powertrains, and range-extended electric systems are also detailed, and their advantages and disadvantages are described. Finally, the technology roadmap over the next 15 years is proposed regarding traction motor, power electronic converter and electric powertrain as well as the key materials and components at each time frame.

This article proposes a sensorless speed control approach of Induction motor (IM) applying full-order terminal sliding-mode (FOTSM) control theory. The speed control system consists of three feedback control loops, i.e., the speed-, flux-, and current-loops. The related controllers in these three feedback loops are designed using FOTSM to enhance the robustness and dynamic performance, eliminate the singularity, and attenuate the chattering. The virtual control technique is utilized in the outer-loop speed controller to compensate unmatched uncertainties in the system, such as load disturbance and some parameter variations. The integral-type continuous control law with gain adaptation algorithm guarantees that the current references are smooth. In the inner-loop controllers, the actual voltage control signals can force the tracking errors of the currents to converge to its equilibrium point within finite time. Meanwhile, the FOTSM observer is designed for estimating the flux and speed of the motor simultaneously. Finally, the experiment results have demonstrated the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed sliding-mode controllers and observers for the sensorless speed control of IM.

This paper investigates the speed regulation issue of the tubular permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (TPMLSM) control system based on sliding-mode control (SMC) and disturbance compensation technology. By introducing the terminal attractor on the basis of exponential reaching law, an improved adaptive terminal sliding-mode reaching law (IATSMRL) is proposed to ensure the state variables of the control system to reach their equilibrium points quickly and suppress the chattering effectively. Based on the IATSMRL, the sliding-mode speed controller is designed to improve the dynamic performance of the TPMLSM control system. To further compensate the lumped disturbance in the TPMLSM control system, the paper utilizes an extended sliding-mode disturbance observer (ESMDO) to obtain the estimated lumped disturbance. Then an anti-disturbance sliding-mode speed controller is designed to strengthen the disturbance rejection capability of the TPMLSM control system and further improve the dynamic performance. The stability of the controller is proved by the Lyapunov stability theory. Comprehensive simulation and experimental results have been carried out to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.