Thru-life impacts of driver aggression, climate, cabin thermal management, and battery thermal management on battery electric vehicle utility

• Applies real-world climate and driver data, validated vehicle and battery models.
• Quantify effects of climate, driver aggression, HVAC, and battery thermal management.
• Cold-climate BEV utility challenged by inefficient cabin heating systems.
• Hot-climate BEV utility challenged by high peak battery temperatures and excessive degradation.
• Active cooling required for aggressive drivers in hot climates.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) offer the potential to reduce both oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions, but have a limited utility that is affected by driver aggression and effects of climate—both directly on battery temperature and indirectly through the loads of cabin and battery thermal management systems. Utility is further affected as the battery wears through life in response to travel patterns, climate, and other factors. In this paper we apply the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Battery Lifetime Analysis and Simulation Tool for Vehicles (BLAST-V) to examine the sensitivity of BEV utility to driver aggression and climate effects over the life of the vehicle. We find the primary challenge to cold-climate BEV operation to be inefficient cabin heating systems, and to hot-climate BEV operation to be high peak on-road battery temperatures and excessive battery degradation. Active cooling systems appear necessary to manage peak battery temperatures of aggressive, hot-climate drivers, which can then be employed to maximize thru-life vehicle utility.