Advanced Modular Drive Train Concepts for Electric Vehicles

The paper gives a detailed overview on modular drive train concepts and how significant benefits can be obtained with different levels of modularity. The advantages are assessed with respect to the additional effort. Modularity offers an inherent scalability of power and driving range, which enables car concepts to be composed with building blocks. This lifts the boundaries between different car types, as all consist of the same blocks. Obviously, a high level of modularity comes along with standardization of components as well as interfaces and offers a substantially high impact on cost reduction due to the economy of scale. Other important aspects are component integration, increased reliability due to redundancy and impacts of the system voltage levels on the safety effort.