A Generic SFUDS Battery Test Cycle for Electric Road Vehicle Batteries

Worldwide, there is no agreed upon standard for testing and characterizing traction batteries for electric road vehicle applications. The Simplified Federal Urban Driving Schedule (SFUDS) developed by the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored Battery Test Working Task Force has has been generally accepted by industry, however, several shortcomings of this cycle are noted. These deficiencies are addressed and corrected by a proposed generic test cycle using the SFUDS as a basis for the new cycle. The proposed test cycle, called the GSFUDS, is not dependent upon specific vehicle characteristics. The simplicity of this cycle combined with its applicability to any electric road vehicle make it an attractive candidate for adoption as a standard. The alterations to the SFUDS test cycle which result in the GSFUDS test cycle are described in this paper. The applicability of the GSFUDS to a wide spectrum of electric road vehicles is validated by the results of computer simulation and actual vehicle tests. Examples of the usefulness of the GSFUDS test cycle are also presented.