Refining Global Powertrain Roadmap through System Simulation

Defining a global powertrain roadmap is a challenging yet crucial step towards meeting sustainability goals. OEMs usually start from independent market research, competition, market requirements and regulations to build this roadmap. However, how do they make sure that the preliminary powertrain choices they make will meet the defined requirements? How big are the assumptions they take at this early stage of powertrain development? In this paper a holistic system simulation method is proposed to assess, compare, and rank different powertrain choices for different markets under different regulations, from the tailpipe CO2 emissions point of view. This method relies on simplified powertrain and vehicles graphical models that are compared together for different mission profiles, corresponding to different markets. It includes battery electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, fuel cell electric and conventional vehicles. Fuel consumption, tailpipe CO2 emissions and vehicle longitudinal performances are the compared criteria. The outcome of this study is a fictive powertrain roadmap that has been refined using relatively simple and fast simulations. The next step is to extend this roadmap study to a complete fleet analysis as well as a full life cycle assessment.