Reliability Study of BEV Powertrain System and Its Components—A Case Study

Abstract

The powertrain system is critical to the reliability of a battery electric vehicle (BEV). However, the BEV powertrain is a complex system; it includes the motor, motor controller, power distribution unit, battery system, etc. The failure of any of these components may result in the failure of the entire powertrain system and eventually cause serious traffic accidents on the road. However, how much does each component affect the reliability of the entire system, and which components are the most vulnerable in the entire system? These questions are still unanswered today. To develop a reliability design for a BEV powertrain system, it is essential to conduct detailed research by investigating the most vulnerable component parts of the entire powertrain. In the present study, a fault-tree model of the entire powertrain and its subsystems was developed. Based on this model, the failure rates of all components were calculated first. Then, trends in the reliability indices for the entire powertrain and its components were estimated against BEV service life. From the estimation results, we learned that with increased service time, the reliability of the entire powertrain system is indeed much lower than that of its individual subsystems. Moreover, through comparative research, we found that the battery module is the most unreliable component not only of the battery system, but the entire powertrain system. Additionally, it was interesting to find that the reliability of the motor components was higher than that of other subsystem components, but that the reliability indices for the entire motor were not the highest among all the powertrain subsystems studied in this paper. We believe the findings of the present study will be of great significance to an improved understanding of the reliability design and maintenance of BEVs.