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Reduction of CO2 emission is a mandatory objective for every actor in the field of automotive transport, and electric vehicles (EV's) are increasingly becoming an effective option for both OEMs and customers. However, components development and vehicle integration for EV's present new challenges that must be faced and new issues which need to be solved. In particular electric motor control systems are developed to achieve the same comfort conditions as in conventional vehicles. IDIADA developed a prototype electric commercial vehicle in which both the motor and driveline were integrated. The electric motor output shaft delivers the torque to the transmission under a certain level of load variation and with torque irregularities that must be smoothed out in the transmission components. This paper studies the results of the testing of the prototype vehicle carried out to improve the overall NVH behavior of the powertrain.

When approaching new mobility solutions such as car-sharing, it soon becomes apparent that it may be necessary to develop specific vehicles for this application. In this paper, Applus IDIADA explains its experience in the development of the iShare, an electric vehicle conceived as a demonstrator of our complete vehicle development capabilities following the principle of “development led by functionalities”, with the consideration that it would be used in open car-sharing fleets running according to the MIT's (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) “mobility-on-demand” concept.

The ELVA project (Advanced Electric Vehicle Architectures) was aimed at developing specific vehicle concepts and architectures for electric vehicles where no adaptations of existing internal combustion vehicles were made, taking advantage of the new freedoms in design that electric powertrains provide. The project, characterized by an intensive interaction among the partners, was co-funded under the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme and included in the consortium ika (coordinator), Volkswagen, Renault, CRF, Continental, SAFER and Applus+ IDIADA. The paper deals with the development of a web design support tool devoted to designers for the definition of the powertrain components that fulfil the main vehicle targets (range, acceleration and maximum speed) complying with the current regulations and market practices. The main advantage of the tool is that it focuses on the design putting together calculations that typically belong to different fields.

The brake disc or rotor design is one of the main concerns in the development of the vehicle brake system. One of the key factors of its drawing and manufacture is related with the thermo-mechanical deformation that can transmit further vibrations to the complete vehicle. This phenomenon, called brake judder or roughness, can appear in both cold and hot brake conditions, the latter being especially affected by the thermal factor. The evolution of the disc shape fluctuation and Disc Thickness Variation (DTV) is usually illustrated before and after a test, reflecting typically the same output. However, the real transient disc behavior during these phases is rarely measured and is difficult to determine. The reality is that most of the time, some unexpected deformations may appear, these being the final root cause of the excitation of judder vibration.