Study on Range Improvement Controls and Method for Electric Vehicles

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Electric Vehicles are rapidly growing in the market yet various doubts on success of its adaptation were noted all along the globe. On the question part range is one of the major attribute; however, range anxiety has greatly inspired manufacturers to explore new practices to improve. One of the most important components of an electric vehicles (EV) is the battery, which converts chemical energy to electrical energy thereby liberating heat energy as the loss. When this heat energy loss is high, the energy available in the battery for propulsion is reduced significantly. Additionally, with a higher heat loss in the battery, system is prone to failure or reduced mileage. Therefore, controlling/maintaining system temperature under safe usable limits even during harsh conditions is critical. Simple reduction in energy consumption of electrical cooling/heating devices used with regenerative energy techniques can greatly help in range improvement.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The intention of this paper is to explore ‘program friendly’ methods to improve electric vehicle range in different ambient conditions. Few of the key benefactors here are regenerative braking, a solar roof and defogging method (used along a course of WLTP cycle followed with a highway drive till the end of state of charge). A generic HVAC system is considered with a climate control function. Although, an enhanced strategy is already implemented for Powertrain, Fan and Pump controls which has been done prior to the suggested methods in this paper. Furthermore, the effect of controls on the system are monitored to diversify and optimize the power requirement. Real World scenarios are replicated in 1-D simulation tool for making a comparison between a normal driving mode and enhanced range gain mode. The observations here depict the study on range improvement controls and methods for analyzing vehicle performance in cold and hot climate specific to an electric passenger car.</div></div>