Technical Paper
Impact of Thermal Architecture on Electric Vehicle Energy Consumption/Range: A Study with Full Vehicle Simulation
2021-04-06
2021-01-0207
Electric vehicles suffer from dramatic energy loss in cold and hot climate, resulting in range reduction up to 50% at -20 °C ambient and 30% at 40 °C ambient. Energy consumption by thermal management systems is responsible for most of the range loss. To study the impact of thermal architectural choices on energy consumption at vehicle level, full vehicle level simulations were carried out with an in-house simulation platform, which was built as a system-engineering tool to study the interaction among hierarchies of vehicle systems, subsystems and components. The top-level simulation system consists of a driver model, an environment model, a control system model and a vehicle plant model. The plant model consists of models for a complete thermal management system (e.g., coolant, refrigerant, cabin HVAC and underhood air systems), an integrated drive unit (e.g., motor, inverter and gearbox), a battery pack, chassis, aerodynamics, etc.