Design of battery electric vehicles in accordance with legal standards and manufacturers’ and customers’ requirements

The process, methods and tool to design conventional vehicles has been developed, tested and optimized over more than 100 years. For battery electric vehicles (BEV), there is no such experience. In powertrain and energy storage systems (battery vs. fuel tank), but also in chassis and electronics, there are significant differences. Due to this, new design rules for construction need to be developed because developing electric vehicles according to the requirements for driving performance of conventional vehicles is not beneficial for the electric car concept. For example maximum traction power highly depends on temperature, manoeuver duration and State-of-Charge (SoC) of the battery. To design an electric vehicle considering user acceptance, efficiency and economic viability, the layout criteria need to be adapted to the characteristics of, amongst others, powertrain and energy storage.