Development and Validation of the Ford Focus Battery Electric Vehicle Model

This paper presents the vehicle model development and validation process for the Ford Focus battery electric vehicles (BEVs) using Autonomie and test results from Advanced Powertrain Research Facility in Argonne National Laboratory. The parameters or characteristic values for the important components such as the electric machine and battery pack system are estimated through analyzing the test data of the multi cycle test (MCT) procedure under the standard ambient condition. A novel process was used to import vehicle test data into Autonomie. Through this process, a complete vehicle model of the Ford Focus BEV is developed and validated under ambient temperature for different drive cycles (UDDS, HWFET, US06 and Steady-State). The simulation results of the developed vehicle model show coincident results with the test data within 0.5% ∼ 4% discrepancies for electrical consumption. A mathematical calculation function for validation is also applied to quantify the correlation between the simulation and test data, and most of the key signals show good comparison between simulation and test data.

Using the developed BEV model, it is possible to quickly and accurately predict or evaluate the energy consumption and dynamic performance under various driving conditions.