AWD for Electric Vehicles - A revolution for Efficiency?

Conventional vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines usually suffer from lower efficiency when they are equipped with an all-wheel-drive (AWD) system. In contrast to that, AWD electric vehicles (EV) usually have more than one motor installed and therefore offer an additional degree of freedom which can be used for optimizing operation points of the motors. Together with brake energy recovery this enables a huge potential to improve overall vehicle efficiency. This contribution investigates the potential of AWD EV for various powertrain configurations compared to single axle driven (2WD) EV. Therefore, a generic powertrain model is used for consumption and vehicle’s dynamics simulations and is coupled with genetic optimization.     «

Conventional vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines usually suffer from lower efficiency when they are equipped with an all-wheel-drive (AWD) system. In contrast to that, AWD electric vehicles (EV) usually have more than one motor installed and therefore offer an additional degree of freedom which can be used for optimizing operation points of the motors. Together with brake energy recovery this enables a huge potential to improve overall vehicle efficiency. This contribution investig...     »