In-Use Life Digital Twin and Swappable Use Case for Battery Durability By: Patricia Laskowsky, Josue Albarran, Justin Bunnell, and Andrew Zettel
Abstract
The UN GTR 22 is required as part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s legislative rulemaking for multi-pollutants emission standards for model years 2027 and later light-duty and medium duty vehicles. The EPA claims it has the right to govern requirements on ZEVs and BEVs. ZEVs, in their viewpoint, are “emission related” because it enables the vehicle to produce zero emissions. With the adoption by the EPA under its Tier 4 regulations of the UN GTR 22, comes several new tracking DIDs, Data Identifiers. These DIDs are tied battery durability and energy tracking They track conditions and usages of electric vehicles that may accelerate the loss of electric range and/or loss of efficiency of the propulsion energy storage and delivery.
More specifically, tying these trackers to EPA emission related discussion, the loss of electric range could lead to a loss of utility, meaning electric vehicles are driven less which could lead to an increase of emissions from conventional vehicles. Moreover, the loss of utility could also dampen consumer sentiment and curb market growth necessary for electric sales to deliver on fleet emission reductions. Similarly, on PHEVs, the loss of usable battery energy on a given vehicle will increase the quantity of engine operation a given driving cycle, worsening its utility factor (and therefore increasing the greenhouse gases released (measured by EPA as CREE). Degradation of the battery so far as it creates a loss in power performance can cause an increase in criteria pollutants if the electrified propulsion system is unable to support the engine during its cold start emissions reduction strategy at the beginning of every engine cycle.
With the adoption of these trackers, which can either follow the life of the vehicle or the life of a battery, a new in-use repair and service strategy needs to be determined. These are also legislated DIDs are therefore, even though not required by the regulations now, will require tamper proofing. However, other regulations for the European Market, Euro 7, will require minimal tamper proofing of Battery Durability DIDs. The following paper will outline which DIDs follow the vehicle versus the battery life. Moreover, it will outline the different use cases an OEM can expect to account for the life of the vehicle. Finally, it will recommend a digital twin architecture or redundant storage for securing the DIDs to avoid any bad actors from attempting to mislead/tamper with the information reported and from inaccessible memory.