Downsizing Possibilities of the Range Extender on a Range Extender Vehicle Using Predictive Information∗

This paper investigates the downsizing possibilities of the Range Extender (RE) on a Range Extender Vehicle by making use of predictive information of the driving mission and a blended discharging strategy. The information of the driving mission is used to assure that the battery charge level is high enough to support the additional energy needed for long gradients. Due to the fact that gradients are naturally limited by topography, the additional energy required for climbing can be delivered by the battery, while the RE can be sized to only fulfil the power required for high speed driving on flat roads . For the realistic studied example the RE can be downsized by 30 % without any performance degradation.