Powertrain Integration and Controls Development Process for a Parallel Through the Road Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle

The University of Washington Advanced Vehicle Works team has spent the last two years designing and integrating a Parallel Through The Road (PTTR) PHEV drive system into a stock Chevy Malibu as part of the EcoCAR 2 Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition. This paper presents the integration efforts performed throughout year 2 in an effort to produce a 65% “buyoff ready” prototype vehicle.

EcoCAR2 challenges 16 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu without compromising consumer acceptability. The architecture chosen by the team to address these goals is a PTTR PHEV which provides all-electric operation to displace petroleum usage, four wheel drive mode to improve utility performance for consumers, and an efficient charge-sustaining mode using 20% biodiesel (B20). The PTTR architecture is the lowest cost architecture to provide all of these benefits, and it does so without compromising the safety or performance of the platform.