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Gasoline engine downsizing is already established as a proven technology to reduce automotive fleet CO2 emissions by as much as 25 %. Further benefits are possible through more aggressive downsizing, however, the trade-off between the CO2 reduction achieved and vehicle drive-ability limits the level of engine downsizing currently adopted. This paper presents results showing the benefits of adding an eSupercharger to a very heavily downsized engine. Measurements are presented from a 1.2 litre, 3-cylinder, engine fitted with an eSupercharger in addition to a conventional turbocharger. The original MAHLE downsizing engine has been re-configured to enable a specific power output that exceeds 160 kW/litre. Of key importance is a cost effective, efficient and flexible boosting system.

Present automobile development is keenly focused on measures to reduce the CO2 output of vehicles. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) enable grid electricity, which is clean in tail-pipe emissions terms, to be utilised whilst the on-board electrical storage has sufficient charge. MAHLE Powertrain and Protean have jointly developed a plug-in hybrid demonstrator vehicle based on a C-segment passenger car. The vehicle features Protean’s compact direct drive in-wheel motors with integrated inverters on the rear axle and retains the standard gasoline engine, and manual transmission, on the front axle. To support this one-off prototype, a flexible vehicle control unit has been developed, which is easily re-configurable and adaptable to any hybrid vehicle architecture.

MAHLE Powertrain have developed a plug-in hybrid demonstrator vehicle. To support this one-off prototype, a flexible control unit has been developed, which is easily re-configurable and adaptable to any vehicle architecture. The unit operates using software developed in-house to achieve a fully configurable vehicle control unit (VCU), intended to provide a rapid and cost effective platform for the development of demonstrator and small validation prototype vehicle fleets. The executable code is auto-generated from graphical Simulink / TargetLink models, which greatly reduces development time and risk of errors. The graphical source code also provides comprehensive documentation for users of the system. This paper describes the resulting vehicle control unit and gives details of the application of the unit within the plug-in hybrid demonstrator vehicle.