ESPRIT project: an innovative electric car sharing solution

ESPRIT project is an important research project financed by Europe for 8.9 M€ in the framework of the program H2020 and coordinated by CEA (Commissariat a l'energie atomique et aux energies alternatives). The goal of ESPRIT project is to decrease the usage of individual cars in urban area and to complete the usage of public transport. It is ESPRIT deals with the development of some small electric cars which can be mechanically coupled to create road trains. This vehicles can be used within a carsharing system in city center and peri-urban area. These vehicles will allow for user to complete a trip done with public transport and perform the first or the last kilometer with a non-pollutant system. The aptitude to be coupled in road train allows the redistribution to secure the availability of vehicles in stations. That permits to propose a high reliability system with a limited investment cost. This paper shows the work done during the 3 years of the project. In 2016 a first paper [6] about this project was presented in PCIM: "Comparison between standard and innovative solutions to exchange energy between high energy storage systems". This first paper was dedicated to a subsystem inside the vehicle. In this second paper we are more focusing on the final results of the project.