Sensitivity Analysis of Electric Energy Consumption in Battery Electric Vehicles with Different Electric Motors

Abstract

In the last decade, a number of research works in electrified vehicles have been devoted to the analysis of the electric consumption of battery electric vehicles and the evaluation of the main influencing factors. The literature analysis reveals that the electric motor size, efficiency, and driving condition substantially affect the electric energy stored in the vehicle battery. This paper studies the degree of sensitivity of energy consumption to electric motor size and to its efficiency map characteristics. In order to accomplish this task, three electric motors whose parameters are re-scaled to fit the maximum power torque and speed with different efficiency maps are simulated by installing them on two commercially available battery electric vehicles. This allows for isolating the influence of the efficiency map on electricity consumption. The original characteristics of the motors are then used to evaluate the influence on the electricity consumption of both the size and the efficiency characteristics. The results of the simulation revealed that the influences of the efficiency map and the electric motor size can be around 8–10% and 2–11%, respectively. When both factors are taken into account, the overall difference in electricity consumption can be around 10–21%.