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Given the ever-increasing concern about environmental issues, the automotive industry is focusing on the development of innovative technologies that allow reduction of gas emissions and fuel consumption. Over the last few years, Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) and Fuel Cell Vehicles have been developed as the most promising alternative solutions for many car manufacturers. Although fuel cells are considered as the best technology to have zero emission, the impact on infrastructure for a large-scale deployment is not yet solved. For this reason, HEV represent a valid shorter-term alternative that guarantees drastic emissions reduction and reduced fuel consumption with a much lower infrastructural impact. This paper reports the results obtained by the optimization of the emissions and fuel performances of a hybrid electric city vehicle for urban transportation named XAM (eXtreme Automotive Mobility). In order to optimize these performances, a 1D model of the vehicle has been created.

Given the growing concern for environmental issues, the automotive industry is working more deeply on the development of innovative technologies that reduce gas emissions and fuel consumption. Many car manufacturers have identified hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and fuel cell vehicles as the most promising solutions alternatives. IDRApegasus is a fuel cell hydrogen vehicle developed at the Politecnico of Turin. It participated at the Shell Eco-marathon Europe in Rotterdam (Netherlands) from 17-19 May 2012, a competition for low energy consumption vehicles and also an educational project that joins the value of sustainable development with a vehicle that will use the smallest amount of fuel and produce the lowest emissions possible.

Developing of innovative technologies and materials to meet the requirements of environmental legislation on vehicle emissions has paramount importance for researchers and industries. Therefore, improvement of engine efficiency and fuel saving of modern internal combustion engines (ICEs) is one of the key factors, together with the weight reduction. Thermoplastic composite materials might be one of the alternative materials to be employed to produce engine components to achieve these goals as their properties can be engineered to meet application requirements. Unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced PolyEtherImide (CF/PEI) thermoplastic composite is used to design engine connecting rod and wrist pin, applying commercial engine data and geometries. The current study is focused on some elements of the crank mechanism as the weight reduction of these elements affects not only the curb weight of the engine but the overall structure.