The automotive industry has been expediting progress toward electrification since climate change driven by global warming represents a significant environmental challenge with far-reaching implications. While electric vehicles offer considerable potential for mitigating CO₂ emissions, their elevated upfront costs pose a notable challenge to large-scale market penetration. Hybrid electric vehicles can serve as an effective intermediary solution, bridging the gap between conventional internal combustion engine vehicles and fully electric vehicles, owing to their comparatively lower initial costs. Hybrid electric vehicle component selection is a complex process that must fulfill multiple requirements: fuel economy, performance, drivability, packaging, total cost of ownership and comfort. Additionally, the selection of hybrid configuration also plays a vital role in determining the cost of the hybrid electric vehicle. Hence, it is a great challenge to select the right powertrain configuration, including architecture selection (P1, P2, P3 and P4), motor and overall gear ratio to achieve better overall performance compared to conventional vehicle constraints and targets.
The present study investigates the principles guiding the selection of an electric drive system for hybrid electric vehicles in the heavy commercial vehicle segment. The analysis encompasses motor sizing, transmission configuration, and overall gear ratio optimization to meet defined vehicle-level performance targets. The automotive market in India is analyzed and the Heavy commercial vehicle segment selected to specify hybrid powertrain configuration. The principle is based on vehicle performance, design, cost and efficiency requirements. The simulation is done to estimate motor torque/power requirements & overall gear ratio meeting the vehicle target and constraints.
Based on the analysis, a comparative matrix consisting of various parameters for heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) application is established. The analyzed results and comparative assessment indicate that