Battery Discharge Strategies for Energy Management in Electrified Truck for Pickup and Delivery Application

Fuel economy in a hybrid electric vehicle is significantly affected by the battery discharge strategy. This paper investigates the blended battery discharge strategy with four possible battery State of Charge (SOC) profiles to compare the fuel savings possible over a default Charge Discharge – Charge Sustaining strategy, given that the vehicle’s duty cycle is known. A pickup & delivery truck with Range Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV) powertrain architecture has been modeled. Vehicle speed control is implemented using a distance-based driver that matches the distance traveled from every start to stop in the drivecycle. On-board energy management is implemented using the Energy Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS). It is found that a predicted power consumption-based battery discharge profile results in the least fuel consumption. A distance based discharge has relatively higher fuel consumption but is quite close.