Optimization of Powertrain Parameters of a Battery Electric Vehicle for Shuttle Service Usage

– Although Electric Vehicles (EVs) had been used for transportation since the end of 19 th century, they were superseded by Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) propelled vehicles due to limited performance and low driving range problems. In the last 2 decades considering the performance advancements and price drop in the battery technology, EVs started to gain significant attention and usage. Furthermore, they have zero in use emissions, reducing the effects of fossil fuels in terms of air pollution and Global Warming (GW). However, compared to ICE propelled vehicles main drawbacks like low driving range and long charging durations limit the favourability of EVs. Considering special use cases such as shuttle services in specified areas, these drawbacks lose their importance. The proposed study involves, the selection design and optimization of an EV to be used in the American University of the Middle East (AUM) campus considering the main objective as to complete the daily tasks with a single charge during the night. A longitudinal vehicle model is generated for the EVs in MATLAB/Simulink, a benchmarking vehicle is selected using vehicle model outputs and parameter optimization for battery capacity and final drive ratio (FDR) is performed. The final design has 32.47 % less battery capacity, 1.94 % less vehicle weight and 7.901 seconds 0 – 25 kph vehicle acceleration duration, 17.86 % less than the original selected configuration. The results of this study will serve as a valuable input for the autonomous driving car development project planned at AUM.