Chevrolet Bolt Electric Vehicle Model Validated with On-The-Road Data and Applied to Estimating the Benefits of a Multi-Speed Gearbox
2022-01-0802
03/29/2022
- Content
- This paper presents a model for predicting the energy consumption of a 2017 Chevy Bolt electric vehicle. The model is validated using more than 100 measured drive cycles covering in excess of 6,000 miles of driving and temperatures from 15 to 90 ⁰F. The mechanical road load acting on the vehicle is calculated via ABC parameters from the publicly available US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Annual Certification Data database. The vehicle model includes wheel diameter, gear ratio, rated electric machine torque and power, 12V accessory load based off measurements, measured electric machine efficiency obtained from a publication from General Motors, modelled inverter efficiency, assumed gearbox efficiency, and a battery model. To ensure accuracy under real-world conditions, road grade, temperature effects, and heating and cooling energy are included as well. The model predicts a 0 to 60mph acceleration of the vehicle of 6.6 seconds, just 0.1 seconds greater than the rated value. The EPA range is predicted within a few percent of the 238-mile rating, and error is typically around +/-10% for the experimental drive cycles used for validation. The presented modelling format can be applied to any production vehicle and used to predict the benefits of utilizing multi-speed gearboxes, wideband gap semiconductor inverters, different electric traction machine designs, and other vehicle design changes. The paper includes an extensive comparison of modelled versus measured results, as well as an analysis of the benefits of a multi-speed gearbox for the vehicle, showing an increase of range of up to 13%.
- Citation
- Machado, F., Kollmeyer, P., and Emadi, A., "Chevrolet Bolt Electric Vehicle Model Validated with On-The-Road Data and Applied to Estimating the Benefits of a Multi-Speed Gearbox," SAE Technical Paper 2022-01-0802, 2022, .