Powertrain modelling of ICE and electric vehicles
Quasi-static Simulink models of combustion and battery electric powertrains, from gear ratios to battery pack sizing.
Outcome
Optimised gear ratios and lowest-cost battery pack
Key outcomes
- 01ICE and BEV models of a Volvo V40-class car
- 02Gear ratios optimised for lowest fuel use over NEDC
- 03Battery pack sized for lowest cost within voltage, current and SoC limits
The problem
How should the powertrain of a mid-size car be sized, and how do combustion and electric powertrains compare across different kinds of driving?
What I did
I worked mainly in Simulink, building and tuning the models so they ran stably over full drive cycles while keeping fuel consumption low. The ICE model crashed on WLTC below 110 kW, so we found the power it needed to complete the cycle.
We sized the powertrain from performance targets (0–100 km/h in 9.5 s, 200 km/h top speed, 6% grade at 120 km/h), optimised the gear ratios for minimum fuel use over NEDC, and searched series and parallel cell configurations for the cheapest battery pack within voltage, current and state-of-charge limits.
The result
Across our drive cycles the ICE model used 6.9–7.4 L/100 km and the BEV 7.7–18.4 kWh/100 km, with the BEV most efficient in urban driving thanks to regenerative braking. Adding 4 kW of auxiliary battery cooling increased the number of valid pack configurations from 42 to 50 and lowered the cheapest pack's cost from 1,484 to 1,414 USD.
Next project
Excavator CAD model
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