Modeling of the OSU EcoCAR 2 vehicle for Drivability Analysis

Drivability is an important problem that creates a significant level of discomfort and loss of customer acceptance in road vehicles. Drivability becomes an even more significant problem for hybrid electric vehicles with more than one path of energy flow from one of the prime movers to the wheels. Switching of power from one primary mover to the other may also create problems of drivability. A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is considered in this paper. A generic model of the driveline of this vehicle that is easily transferable to other vehicle architectures is first developed and presented. Analysis and measurements of the actual components of this vehicle followed by parameter identification based on experimental data are used to obtain a validated version of the driveline model. The drivability problem and basic drivability performance indices are introduced. A comparison of the driveline under consideration with changes in critical parameters is presented to demonstrate the effect of these parameters on drivability. While drivability control is not treated in this paper due to length restrictions, available methods in the existing literature are presented as a basis for future work.