Vehicle Cabin Energy Management Considerations in Electric Vehicles

Vehicle range and cabin comfort are closely related in electric vehicles (EVs) because the energy required to heat and cool the cabin come directly from the battery pack. New and innovative solutions for managing cabin comfort in EVs are required to satisfy range requirements while meeting customer comfort expectations. In this presentation, the challenges in designing EVs for range, efficiency, and durability will be discussed, as well as what ideas exist to address these new challenges. The design considerations for each one will be discussed, such as heat pumps, radiative panel heating, heated/cooled seats, heated steering wheel, solar reflective glass, etc. In the present study, an optimizer was used in conjunction with a cabin comfort model to evaluate the effectiveness of new comfort management strategies on the energy consumed by the cabin heating and cooling system. Power distribution between HVAC, seat heater, overhead radiative panel, feet radiative panel, and heated steering wheel was varied to achieve the lowest overall energy consumption for the same driver comfort levels. The HVAC only case required 3334 W of power while the HVAC and heated panels case required only 942 W of power.