Climate change due to global warming calls for more fuel-efficient technologies. Parallel Full hybrids are one of the promising technologies to curb the climate change by reducing CO2 emissions significantly. Different parallel hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) architectures such as P0, P1, P2, P3 and P4 are adopted based on different parameters like fuel economy, drivability, performance, packaging, comfort and total cost of ownership of the vehicle. It is a great challenge to select right hybrid architecture for different vehicle segments.
This paper compares P2 and P3 HEV with AMT transmission to evaluate most optimized architecture based on vehicle segment. Vehicles selected for study are from popular vehicle segments in India with AMT transmission i.e. Entry segment hatch and Compact SUV. HEV P2 and P3 architectures are simulated and studied with different vehicle segments for fuel economy, performance, drivability and TCO. The analyzed simulation results reveal similar fuel economy benefits for P2 and P3 HEV architectures. P3 hybrid offers better performance compared to P2 hybrid due to torque fill during gearshift and less power loss from motor to wheel. In addition, additional benefits in P3 like torque fill during gearshift enhances drivability of the vehicle. P2 hybrid has advantage of low cost over P3 hybrid. P3 hybrid requires mandatory extra P0 machine for engine auto start that makes it costly compared to P2 hybrid. In addition, P3 hybrid motor size is bigger compared to P2 hybrid motor due to lack of gear advantage that makes P3 hybrid more costly.
Finally, after analyzing the simulation results and considering the cost impact of HEV architectures, the paper concludes that P2 hybrids are most suitable for entry segment hatch due to low cost benefits and P3 hybrids are preferred for compact SUV segment where customer demands performance and drivability.