Title: Conceptual design of battery electric vehicle powertrains

Authors: Bartosch Czapnik; Ismail Levent Sarioglu; Hendrik Schröder; Ferit Küçükay

Addresses: Group Research Powertrain, Volkswagen AG, Letterbox 011/17780, 38436 Wolfsburg, Germany ' Group Research Powertrain, Volkswagen AG, Letterbox 011/17780, 38436 Wolfsburg, Germany ' Group Research Powertrain, Volkswagen AG, Letterbox 011/17780, 38436 Wolfsburg, Germany ' Institute of Automotive Engineering, Hans-Sommer-Straße 4, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany

Abstract: Alternative vehicle powertrain systems are currently the most promising solutions to meet the energetic and ecological challenges in the individual mobility. To accomplish the keen competition, considering the decreasing lead time and costs for a vehicle design and the aim to develop the optimal powertrain design, methods that ensure a quick evaluation of various configurations of a powertrain system are required. Although utilising powertrain simulation models is a common approach in powertrain design, there is a need for quick generalised analytical models. In this paper, an analytical model is developed using the example of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) with the aim of a quick exploration of powertrain design solutions. Moreover, a comparison between the analytical method and a numerical simulative method with respect to their accuracies and complexities is shown. Finally, a Pareto frontier analysis of energy consumption, driving performance, range and cost for BEVs is accomplished.

Keywords: conceptual design; powertrain design; BEV range; BEV costs; battery electric vehicles; simulation; analytical modelling; Pareto frontier analysis; driving performance; energy consumption; component scaling; optimum; search space; electric vehicle powertrains; vehicle design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2015.068141

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2015 Vol.67 No.2, pp.137 - 156

Received: 18 Oct 2013
Accepted: 23 May 2014
Published online: 20 Mar 2015 *

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