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The accelerated global progress in the research and development of automobile products, and the use of new technologies, such as the Internet, cloud computing and big data, to coordinate development platforms in different regions and fields, can reduce the duration and cost of development and testing. Specifically, in the context of the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which has caused great obstacles to normal logistics and transportation, personnel exchanges and information communication, platforms that can support global operation are significant for product testing and validation, because they eliminate the need for the transportation of personnel and equipment. Therefore, the establishment of a distributed test and validation platform for automotive powertrain systems, which can integrate software and hardware testing, is important in terms of both scientific research and industrialization.

On account of environmental friendliness, high energy conversion efficiency and high power density, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been used for automotive application for years. However, its durability in powertrain system is one of technical challenges, which restricts the large-scale commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). In addition to the complex aging mechanism of PEMFC, the durability and energy relationship of key components in powertrain system, including battery and DC/DC converter, have a crucial impact on the vehicle performance, which have not been thoroughly analyzed. Nowadays, most researchers have explored the causes of components degradation from models or experiments and tried to carry out the life expectancy. Nevertheless, it is in need of system-level researches on durability against the actual automotive application.

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) vehicle is one kind of new energy vehicle with fuel cell as power source, which has environmental friendliness, high power density and quick refueling. However, the productlization testing in powertrain system, especially for subsystems and key parts, is one of the critical technical challenges, which restricts the industry development and large-scale commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In this paper, comprehensive testing requirement and latest testing technologies were reviewed, the development status and directions of testing technologies in FCEV powertrain system were presented. Based on comprehensive analysis, X-in-the-Loop (XiL) testing technology was proposed, and it is quite helpful to improve Real-time testing performance and functions for FCEV powertrain system. Furthermore, real-time and reliability as the two key factors for the XiL application was deeply analyzed and discussed.