Climate change and global warming are one of the major challenges faced by the world today. A significant number of Indian cities rank among the most polluted globally, with vehicular emissions being the primary contributor. To address this issue, the Government of India is actively advocating for the adoption of zero-emission vehicles such as electric vehicles through policies and initiatives like FAME II [1], PMP and the National Mission for Transformative Mobility and Storage.
The acceptance of electric vehicles is growing in the Indian market seeing more than 200% increase in sales in the year 2022 compared to 2021 with a large share of 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers and compact cars getting electrified. Further adoption of electrification on a much larger scale currently faces the major challenge of high overall vehicle cost compared to conventional vehicles, with the major contribution coming from the HV battery which is the costliest system on the electric vehicles.
An electric vehicle with high energy efficiency can meet its driving range requirements with a relatively smaller battery size thereby leading to lower vehicle costs. Electric vehicle energy efficiency improvement can be achieved not only by reducing the losses at main powertrain components like electric motor, HV battery, transmission etc. or improved vehicle rolling resistance, aerodynamics but also by an energy optimized thermal management system.
The presented study focuses on reducing the energy demand of the thermal management system of an electric vehicle. As a basis for the case study, one of the most sold electric vehicles in the Indian market was selected and assessed for its energy consumption. As a next step, the introduction of advanced technologies like optimized and innovative control strategies such as predictive thermal management control (e.g., intelligent pre-conditioning, cabin air circulation control and smart ventilation) for cooling, heat pump integration along with the heat harvesting strategies for heating were done to detail the potential reduction in energy consumption of the vehicle.
In addition, integrative measures were also assessed to reduce the energy required for cabin air conditioning. Local climatization measures were also investigated for an efficient thermal management system. With the applied improvement solutions, the vehicle energy efficiency and driving range increased. All the simulations were performed on well validated GT SUITE simulation models from FEV.