Hybrid Electric Vehicles, 2nd Edition

19A Holistic Perspective on Vehicle Electrification

19.1 Vehicle Electrification – What Does it Involve?

As we come to the end of this book, it is reasonable to ask about the whole purpose of developing hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles, or in a wider sense about electrification of vehicles. We need to take an unbiased view in considering these questions and be realistic and take a scientific stand, rather than following a particular trend, which can be very short term. We should also look at the complete picture in this connection. This involves whether a vehicle should be fully electrified in terms of its propulsion – leading towards a pure EV – or should the vehicle be partially electrified, leading towards an HEV, or mild HEV, or should we just electrify some non‐propulsion related components or systems within the vehicle? As is obvious from the previous chapters of the book, these issues pertain to drive cycles and applications involved. They also relate to how many vehicles we are talking about and whether fuel economy and pollution control are the foremost issues, or are there other things that we should consider? In addition, we need to look at a complete global system point of view rather than at the vehicle only: if we solve one problem of fuel economy or pollution, then are we creating some problems elsewhere? The point is that developing of HEVs, EVs etc. involves not just the automotive industry, but also other industries related to power electronics, electrical ...