Electric-thermal collaborative control and multimode energy flow analysis of fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles in low-temperature regions

The energy flow distribution characteristics of electric vehicles operating in various propulsion modes and all climatic scenarios have not been thoroughly explored. To achieve effective electric-thermal collaborative energy management, intelligent control methods must be applied considering various climatic conditions to alleviate mileage anxiety. In this study, we developed a novel electric–thermal collaborative energy management strategy based on an improved deep neural network and energy quantification model to increase the global energy conversion efficiency. The complete energy consumption distribution characteristics are summarized under various strategies and propulsion modes based on an experiment data collected by the vehicle control unit that involves battery self-heating, cabin heating, acceleration consumption, and fuel consumption in the temperature range of −10°C-35 °C. Our findings indicate that, for a fuel cell hybrid bus in the cycle including the initial cabin heating process, the heating consumption in the pure electric mode was 9.9 kWh/cycle and 13 kWh/cycle when the ambient temperature is −2 °C and −10 °C, respectively, accounting for 33 % and 42 % of the total consumption, respectively. After using the waste heat from the fuel cell, the consumption of electric heating under the same conditions is only 3.7 kWh/cycle. In the high-temperature scenario, the cabin cooling consumption is 3.26 kWh/cycle, accounting for only 18 % of the total energy consumption. Finally, in low-temperature scenarios, the electric–thermal collaborative strategy reduced the cost by 14.7 % and 9.2 % in the pure electric and hybrid modes, respectively. Thus, our approach significantly improves energy utilization and conversion efficiency, especially at low temperatures.