The constant effort to improve the automotive heating,
ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems specially for
improving the energy efficiency for electric vehicles (EVs), has
been a long-term challenge to the automotive industry. The EVs
comprise of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), fuel cell electric
vehicles (FCEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) needs to have
better energy efficiency & optimized power consumption with
proper heating & cooling management. Introduction of heat pump
technology in HVAC systems in electric vehicles is one of the
methods to optimize the overall performance of the vehicle.
Considering the Indian climatic requirements, there is a need of
evaluating the various heating & cooling technologies available
for EVs. The current paper assess & evaluates various heating
strategies for electric vehicles for Indian climatic conditions.
There are various heating technologies, which are being used in EVs
such as heat pump, PTC (Positive Temperature Co-efficient) Heaters,
Coolant Heaters, Liquid cooled condensers, thermoelectric plates,
condensed air bleed etc. These technologies have been thoroughly
evaluated at various parameters suitable for EVs at various Indian
climatic conditions such as maximum speed, maximum torque, idle
condition, high ambient, low ambient etc. The research shows that
the combination of heat pump with PTC heating technologies &
liquid cooled system with PTC heaters are the prominent options
used over and above all others. This study is purely a review of
various heating technologies options available for EVs, which
extends up to the overall assessment & feasibility study.