Effect of Low Temperature on Electric Vehicle Range

Abstract

A significant disadvantage of battery electric vehicles compared to vehicles with internal combustion engines is their sharply decreased driving range at low temperatures. Two factors are primarily responsible for this decreased range. On the one hand, the energy demand of cabin heating needs to be supplied by the vehicle’s battery since less waste heat is available from the powertrain, which could be used to cover heating demands. On the other hand, a limited capability to recuperate at low temperatures serves to protect the battery from accelerated aging, which ultimately leads to less energy regeneration. This paper analyzes the impact of both factors separately on a battery electric vehicle’s driving range. Additionally, this paper provides technical requirements for the implementation of an electrothermal recuperation system. Such a system has the potential to reduce the impact of both abovementioned factors on driving range by enabling the direct usage of regeneratable energy for heating when battery charging is limited under cold conditions. The presented analysis is based on BMW i3 and Tesla Model 3 datasets, which combined cover more than 125 trips in and around Munich at different ambient conditions. The results show that the range can decrease by up to 31.9% due to heating and by up to 21.7% due to limited recuperation, which gives a combined maximum range decrease of approximately 50% under cold conditions. Additionally, it was found that a heater with a short reaction time in the lower millisecond range and a power capability of 20 kW would be sufficient for an electrothermal recuperation system to enable the utilization of unused regenerative braking potentials directly for heating.