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Lithium ion batteries are the most promising candidates for electric and hybrid electric vehicles, owe to their ability to store higher electrical energy. As a matter of fact, in automotive applications, these batteries undergo frequent and fast charge and discharge processes, which are associated to internal heat generation, which in turns causes temperature increase. Thermal management is therefore crucial to keep temperature in an appropriate level for safe operation and battery wear prevention. In a recent work authors have already demonstrated the capabilities of a coupled lattice Boltzmann-Finite Volume Method to deal with thermal transient of a three-dimensional air-cooled Li-ion battery at different discharging rates and Reynolds numbers. Here, in order to improve discharge thermal capabilities and reduce temperature levels of the battery itself, a layer of porous medium is placed in contact with the battery so to replace a continuum solid aluminum layer.

Nowadays, fuel economy and pollutant emissions are keenly felt topics and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) represent the best opportunity to respond to this problem in the short term. Hybrid electric vehicles meet the high-efficiency of electric motors, with the high reliability of the internal combustion engines, granting optimal results both in terms of emissions and fuel economy. The vehicle and path features highly affect the architecture choice. A parallel architecture, having a more flexible layout and providing a higher drive power, is more suitable for long paths and higher speeds, while the series one better adapts to urban cycles, as can be switched to a pure electric mode. At the same time, a parallel-series architecture is in general a good choice.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are worldwide recognized as one of the best and most immediate opportunities to solve the problems of fuel consumption, pollutant emissions and fossil fuels depletion, thanks to the high reliability of engines and the high efficiencies of motors. Moreover, as transport policy is becoming day by day stricter all over the world, moving people or goods efficiently and cheaply is the goal that all the main automobile manufacturers are trying to reach. In this context, the municipalities are performing their own action plans for public transport and the efforts in realizing high efficiency hybrid electric buses, could be supported by the local policies. For these reasons, the authors intend to propose an efficient control strategy for a hybrid electric bus, with a series architecture for the power-train.