Impact of Technology on Electric Drive Fuel Consumption and Cost

In support of the U.S Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Program, numerous vehicle technology combinations have been simulated using Autonomie. Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) designed and wrote the Autonomie modeling software to serve as a single tool that could be used to meet the requirements of automotive engineering throughout the development process, from modeling to control, offering the ability to quickly compare the performance and fuel efficiency of numerous powertrain configurations. For this study, a multitude of vehicle technology combinations were simulated for many different vehicles classes and configurations, which included conventional, power split hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), power split plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), extendedrange EV (E-REV)-capability PHEV, series fuel cell, and battery electric vehicle. In this paper, the results are examined to compare the extent to which each of these technologies reduces fuel consumption and which combination of technologies produces the best trade-off between cost and fuel consumption. The main questions are whether it is cost effective to use advanced technologies, such as PHEVs, and how far we should or could electrify vehicles to obtain fuel consumption improvements at reasonable costs. Several timeframes are considered—2010, 2015, 2020, 2030, and 2045—to track electric drive evolution through time.