Analysis of Connected and Automated Hybrid Electric Vehicle Energy Consumption and Drive Quality

Reducing energy consumption in transportation is not only a globally responsible goal for impacting climate change but also a growing consumer demand. For the emerging mobility as a service market, energy consumption is important for both the fleet owner and the customer of a carsharing service. However, designing an appropriate powertrain architecture that meets the technical specifications needed to appeal to both stakeholders is challenging. The emergence of viable Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) technology in recent years holds great promise in enhancing vehicle capabilities in terms of energy consumption and drive quality that would appeal to this market, particularly in a hybrid vehicle. This article presents two P4 parallel hybrid charge sustaining powertrain architectures proposed for the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge (EcoCAR) competition and the effects of implementing CAV technology in these architectures. Focus is placed on the models used to simulate the vehicle dynamics, and how the modeling affects the energy consumption in simulation for a given drive cycle with the chosen Energy Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS). The simulated models are validated by the use of real-vehicle data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [1]. Energy consumption results show a promising fuel economy of 28.9 and 29.7 miles per gallon (mpg) for the two proposed architectures for the hybridized vehicle. The performance of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)-defined drive quality metrics is evaluated for future robust hybrid vehicle and CAVs control strategy development. The CAV control strategy is presented with a discussion of its impact on drive quality and energy consumption with the use of vehicle-to-infrastructure technology for the chosen hybrid control strategy. This article details the implementation of CAV technology alongside a hybrid control strategy to decrease the fuel consumption of a Chevrolet Blazer with integrated hybrid components.