Ambient Temperature Effects on Battery Electric Vehicle

The driving range of an electric vehicle depends on the vehicle weight, road load conditions, battery capacity, and battery performance. The battery rated capacity and its characteristics could be heavily affected by the ambient temperature. This paper investigates the effects of ambient temperature on the electric vehicle driving range, equivalent fuel economy, and performance. A production-type battery electric vehicle is modeled and simulated in the AVL-Cruise platform using semi-empirical data. The modeled vehicle battery pack consists of 20Ah Lithium-Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt-Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) cells. The battery cell characteristics are experimentally measured to build the battery pack model. The simulated driving range and equivalent fuel economy are correlated with the published information as vehicle model validation. Series of simulations on driving cycles (UDDS, HWFET, US06, and WLTP) with across a broad range of ambient temperatures are conducted to investigate the quantified effects of ambient temperature on driving range, equivalent fuel economy, and vehicle performance. Simulation results show that driving range and fuel economy are much reduced to 70% at low ambient temperature. Driving range and fuel economy are almost not affected by high ambient temperature, such as 50 C, since this model does not include accessory load of thermal management. The vehicle performance is almost not affected by the ambient temperature.