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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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DOE OSTI2022

Experimental driving performance evaluation of battery-powered medium and heavy duty all-electric vehicles

As the push to reduce air pollutants and carbon dioxide for global warming continues, there is increasing interest in the development and deployment of battery electric vehicles for heavy-duty applications as one of the critical and challenging steps of a broader effort to fully electrify the transportation sector. This study evaluated and quantified the energy consumption rates and energy regeneration rates for three heavy-duty battery electric vehicles (a step van, a yard tractor, and a class 8 truck) using driving cycle tests with a heavy-duty vehicle chassis dynamometer. Information in this area is currently very limited, and yet it is critical to understanding how effective heavy-duty battery electric vehicles will be for a wide range of applications as the electrification of the heavy-duty vehicle market continues to expand. Energy consumption rates ranged from 0.37 and 2.71 kWh/km for most vehicle/cycle combinations. On a diesel liter energy-equivalent basis, the heavy-duty vehicles had approximately 3 to 6 times better energy consumption rates compared to comparable diesel vehicles, with weight normalized energy consumption rates also comparing favorably to the current and future greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards for equivalent diesel vehicles. Based on battery capacities ranging from 80 to 215 kWh, the vehicle ranges varied from 38.18 km to 171.2 km, with ranges of 115.9 km to 171.2 km for most types of driving and lower ranges of 38.18 to 42.20 km for sustained grade cycles. Overall, the advantage of improved energy consumption rates coupled with improvements that can be expected for battery technology and vehicle range, provide promise for expanded use of heavy-duty vehicles going into the future.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Downloadable Dynamometer Database (D3): Public Test Data on Advanced-Technology Vehicles

Access to high-quality, independent vehicle test data is critical to advancing energy-efficient transportation research. The Downloadable Dynamometer Database (D3) is a public repository of dynamometer test data on advanced-technology vehicles, generated at the Advanced Mobility Technology Laboratory (AMTL) at Argonne National Laboratory and hosted by the Transportation and Power Systems Division. The database has been made available to support researchers, students, and professionals engaged in energy-efficient vehicle research, development, and education. A wide range of vehicle categories has been tested (i.e., alternative fuel vehicles, conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles, all-electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), as well as various drive cycles and test conditions documented in the accompanying D3 user presentation. Stakeholders can select a vehicle type, identify a vehicle of interest, and download the associated test data for use in their own analyses. Data downloaded from D3 must be accompanied by the required attribution: "This data is from the Downloadable Dynamometer Database and was generated at the Advanced Mobility Technology Laboratory (AMTL) at Argonne National Laboratory." These data are critical to vehicle modeling, validation, technology assessment, and educational use.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2024

Negative Medium-Voltage Direct Current Discharges in Air under Simulated Sub-Atmospheric Pressures for All-Electric Aircraft

The increase in the global temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions is a major concern to the world. To achieve the goal of zero emissions by 2050 in the USA the practical realization of all-electric vehicles, particularly all-electric aircraft (AEA), is important. For the design of electrical power systems (EPSs) in all-electric aircraft, a bipolar medium-voltage direct current (MVDC) system of ±5 kV is being investigated. However, several challenges manifest when using such voltages in a low-pressure environment. One of the main challenges is the partial discharge (PD) behavior of the insulation. It is important to study the PD behavior of the insulation by simulating the aviation environment in the lab. This work aimed to study the partial discharge behavior of air under a negative DC voltage in a needle-to-plane electrode geometry by simulating the aviation pressures in the lab. The partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) and the breakdown voltage (BDV) show an obvious pressure-dependent variation. Regression analysis was performed to better understand the relationship between the PDIV and pressures. Plots were drawn for the average discharge current at each voltage step until breakdown. This paper’s findings can provide valuable insight into the design of EPS for an AEA. To the best of our knowledge, such a study has not been carried out to date.

air discharge↗

DOE OSTI2023

At a Glance: Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) include all-electric vehicles - also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) - and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

At a Glance: Electric Vehicles (French Translation)

Electric vehicles (EVs) include all-electric vehicles - also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) - and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This is the French translation of NREL/FS-5400-87123 (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/87123.pdf).

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Joint routing of conventional and range-extended electric vehicles in a large metropolitan network

Range-extended electric vehicles combine the higher efficiency and environmental benefits of battery-powered electric motors with the longer mileage and autonomy of conventional internal combustion engines. This combination is particularly advantageous for time-constrained delivery routing in dense urban areas, where battery recharging along routes can be too time-consuming to economically justify the use of all-electric vehicles. However, switching from electric to conventional fossil fuel modes also results in higher costs and emissions and lower efficiency. This paper analyzes this heterogeneous vehicle routing problem and describes two solution methods: an exact branch-price-and-cut algorithm and an iterated tabu search metaheuristic. From a methodological perspective, we find that the exact algorithm consistently obtains tight lower bounds that also serve to certify the metaheuristic solutions as near-optimal. From a policy standpoint, we examine a large-scale real-world case study concerning parcel deliveries in the Chicago metropolitan area and quantify various operational metrics including energy costs and vehicle miles traveled. We find that by deploying roughly 20% of range -extended vehicles with a modest all-electric range of 33 miles, parcel distributors can save energy costs by up to 17% while incurring less than 0.5% increase in vehicle miles traveled. Increasing the range to 60 miles further reduces costs by only 4%, which can alternatively be achieved by decreasing the average service time by 1 minute or increasing driver working time by 1 hour. In conclusion, our study reveals several key areas of improvement on which vehicle manufacturers, distributors, and policy makers can focus their attention.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Electric Vehicle Basics

Electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity as their primary fuel or to improve the efficiency of conventional vehicle designs. EVs include all-electric vehicles, also referred to as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). In colloquial references, these vehicles are called electric cars, or simply EVs, even though some of these vehicles still use liquid fuels in conjunction with electricity. EVs are known for providing instant torque and a quiet driver experience. Other types of electric-drive vehicles not covered here include hybrid electric vehicles, which are powered by a conventional engine and an electric motor that uses energy stored in a battery that is charged by regenerative braking, not by plugging in, and fuel cell electric vehicles, which use a propulsion system similar to electric vehicles, where energy stored as hydrogen is converted to electricity by the fuel cell.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Electric Vehicle Basics (French Translation)

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSI↗

DOE OSTI2024

An integrated transportation-power system model for a decarbonizing world

Rising demand for electricity from electric vehicles (EVs) will require new paradigms to guarantee reliable and low-cost electricity. This study couples an agent-based travel demand simulator and an electricity grid model to assess the economic costs of supplying power to meet EVs' added demand across the Chicago region. Results suggest that shifting from personal EVs to a fleet of shared, fully-automated all-electric vehicles (SAEVs) could lower per-mile emissions, congestion, and embodied vehicle and charging infrastructure emissions. Further, the results should compel policymakers to shift the cost of providing power onto commercial customers, like electric ride-hail fleets, through price-indexed electricity prices, which can shift charging to off-peak periods or away from resource-scarce hours.

Integrated modeling↗

DOE OSTI2022

Batteries (2021 Annual Progress Report)

This document summarizes the progress of VTO battery R&D projects supported during the fiscal year 2021 (FY 2021). In FY 2021, the DOE VTO battery R&D funding was approximately $\$$115 million. Its R&D focus was on the development of high-energy batteries for EVs as well as very high-power devices for hybrid vehicles. The electrochemical energy storage roadmap (which can be found at the EERE Roadmap web page2) describes ongoing and planned efforts to develop electrochemical storage technologies for EVs. To advance battery technology, which can in turn improve market penetration of PEVs, the program investigates various battery chemistries to overcome specific technical barriers, e.g., battery cost, performance, life (both the calendar life and the cycle life), its tolerance to abusive conditions, and its recyclability/sustainability. VTO R&D has had considerable success, lowering the cost of EV battery packs to $\$$185/kWh in 2019 (representing more than 80% reduction since 2008) yet even further cost reduction is necessary for EVs to achieve head-to-head cost competitiveness with ICEs (without Federal subsidies). In addition, today’s batteries also need improvements in such areas as their ability to accept charging at a high rate, referred to as extreme fast charging (XFC) (15 minute charge) – to provide a “refueling” convenience similar to ICEs, and the ability to operate adequately at low temperatures. Research into “next-gen lithium-ion” batteries which would provide such functionalities is one of the R&D focus areas. VTO is funding research on both “next gen” chemistries (which employ an alloy anode and/or a high voltage cathode) and beyond lithium-ion (BLI) chemistries (which can, for example, employ a lithium metal anode).

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2023

Cradle-to-grave mercury emissions of light-duty gasoline and electric vehicles in China

China is actively promoting vehicle electrification, which is deemed to help achieve its ambitious carbon neutrality goal by 2060. Here we show that vehicle electrification in China leads to an increase in automotive emissions of mercury, a persistent, global hazardous pollutant regulated in the United Nations’ Minamata Convention. We found that with current technologies, life-cycle mercury emissions of battery electric vehicles of 300 miles of all-electric range are 92% higher than conventional gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles, primarily due to the high mercury emissions from coal-based electricity generation. Notably different from greenhouse gases, mercury emissions are mainly embedded in vehicular material production and vehicle manufacturing, accounting for 50–60% for electric vehicles and ~90% for gasoline vehicles of their life-cycle mercury emissions. Even with a deeply decarbonized power grid, mercury footprints of electric vehicles would still be higher than those of gasoline vehicles, implying a potential increase in automotive mercury emissions in any countries that promote vehicle electrification. Measures including decarbonizing electric grid, implementing mercury-specific emission control through vehicle supply chain, and increasing metal recycling in electric vehicle batteries will help mitigate the unintended mercury emission increase caused by vehicle electrification.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Cradle-to-Grave Lifecycle Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Light-Duty Passenger Vehicles in China: Towards a Carbon-Neutral Future

Vehicle electrification is considered a pathway for on-road transportation decarbonization in China. Different from the conventional gasoline vehicles whose emissions are mainly released from vehicle tailpipes, emissions of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are from the upstream processes of electricity generation and vehicle manufacturing, thus a comprehensive lifecycle analysis and comparison of BEVs with gasoline vehicles is required to quantify the emission mitigation benefit of vehicle electrification and determine the path to a carbon-neutral future. In the study, we compare the cradle-to-grave (C2G) lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of gasoline and electric vehicles in China and analyze the greenhouse gas emission reduction of vehicle electrification in different provinces. Results show that under the current technologies, the national average C2G GHG emissions for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) of 100 miles (i.e., 160 km) and 300 miles (i.e., 480 km) all-electric range (AER) are 231 and 279 g CO2eq/km, respectively, 22% and 5% lower than those for gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). Improving vehicle fuel efficiency by hybridizing gasoline ICEVs can effectively reduce C2G emissions to 212 g CO2eq/km. At the provincial level, C2G GHG emissions of BEVs vary according to the provincial electricity mix. In eight provinces, C2G GHG emissions of BEVs with 300 miles AER (BEV300s) are higher than those of gasoline ICEVs due to the GHG-intensive coal-based electricity mix. In the future scenario, with low carbon fuels (such as high-level bioethanol blending gasoline) and electricity decarbonization, the national average C2G emissions of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and BEV300s can be reduced to 55 and 73 g CO2eq/km, respectively. Further decrease of C2G GHG emissions relies on reducing vehicle-cycle emissions from material processing and vehicle component manufacturing.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Study of Electric Vehicle Range Loss Associated with Replacement Tires

The FuelEconomy.Gov website has become a trusted source for consumers to find information pertaining to fuel economy and fuel-efficient vehicles. As electric vehicles are an increasingly important part of the light-duty fleet in the U.S., there is a need to expand the website content that is targeted to electric vehicle (EV) owners. This report addresses a concern about which several anecdotal reports have come to the attention of the website support staff. Specifically, some EV owners have observed a sudden, noticeable decrease in their all-electric range when they replace the tires that came with their vehicle when it was new. This change has reportedly led some owners to take their vehicles to the dealership service department out of concern that something had gone wrong with the vehicle.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Optimized V1G and V2G Electric Vehicle Fleet Management and Grid Transaction at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, CA

The overall technical goal of the project was to demonstrate an all-electric bi-directional non-tactical fleet at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar that was integrated and controlled with other distributed energy resources (DERs) (i.e., PV, stationary battery, and building loads) to provide resilience to critical electric loads in the event of grid outages, to minimize charging costs, and to provide economic energy resources to electricity markets. In this project, the specific, technical objectives were: 1. Demonstrate that bi-directional electric vehicles can provide critical complementary services to fixed storage batteries in microgrid applications while performing function as non-tactical vehicles. 2. Demonstrate participation of bi-directional (V2G) and unidirectional (V1G) PEVs for demand management and minimization of charging costs. 3. Demonstrate integration of multiple DERs for grid service participation. US Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar in San Diego was the site of this electric vehicle-to-microgrid-utility grid test and demonstration project. Existing microgrid assets in this study included (1) a public works building; (2) a 30-kW rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system and (3) a separate 250 kW carport PV system. In this project, six bi-directional V2G vans were located at the MCAS Miramar’s showcase building-scale microgrid to develop and test technical capabilities that V2G can provide in microgrid applications (e.g., cost reduction and resiliency). These resources provided aggregated demand management and simulated participation in current retail DR programs. The vehicles used in this demonstration were selected because they provided functionality that MCAS Miramar needed, 15 passenger transport and facilities work cargo carrying capacity, and bi-directional charging capability that the research project required. All vehicles in this study were manufactured and distributed by VIA Motors, Inc. There were six vehicles total and each was VIA’s VTRUX eREV V2G model, a modified General Motors Chevrolet 2500 2WD van. Three of the vans were configured as passenger vans and the other three were configured as cargo vans. Each van had an on-board bi-direcrtional inverter/charger, Bel Power Solutions model 350INVCHGT150-120-240-8G nominally rated at +/-15 kW. The VIA van’s charging connector follows the J1772 charging protocol. The bi-directional EVSEs demonstrated in this study were manufactured by Coritech, Inc. Each VGI-80-AC charging station enabled enhanced V2G charging capability to a Clipper Creek CS-100 charging module. The enhanced capabilities included ethernet communication following the SEP2.0 protocol with a distributed energy resource function set and an operator screen displaying real-time SOC, voltage, and current. The VGI-80-AC charging stations are classified as level 2 with a maximum current output of 80 A or effectively 19 kW. The VIA van’s onboard charger limited the charging and discharging power to 15 kW in each direction. A control computer was installed in the EWOC and connected to an existing monitor. The V2G control communication network was a completely stand-alone closed system that did not have any connection to any other networks on the base. A cybersecure remote communication connection was created with a cellular modem, firewall hardware, and a virtual private network configuration.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Decarbonizing all-electric communities via carbon-responsive control of behind-the-meter resources

The progression of electrification in the building and transportation sectors brings new opportunities for energy decarbonization. With higher dependence on the grid power supply, the variation of the grid carbon emission intensity can be utilized to reduce the carbon emissions from the two sectors. Existing coordinated control methods for buildings with distributed energy resources (DERs) either consider electricity price or renewable energy generation as the input signal, or adopt optimization in the decision-making, which is difficult to implement in the real-world environment. This paper aims to propose and validate an easy-to-deploy rule-based carbon responsive control framework that facilitates coordination between all-electric buildings and electric vehicles (EVs). The signals of the grid carbon emission intensity and the local photovoltaics (PV) generation are used for shifting the controllable loads. Extensive simulations were conducted using a model of an all-electric mixed-use community in a cold climate to validate the control performance with metrics such as emissions, energy consumption, peak demand, and EV end-of-day state-of-charge (SOC). Our study identifies that 4.5% to 27.1% of annual emission reduction can be achieved with limited impact on energy costs, peak demand, and thermal comfort. Additionally, up to 32.7% of EV emission reduction can be obtained if the EV owners reduce the target SOC by less than 21.2%.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2022

Electrifying High-Efficiency Future Communities: Impact on Energy, Emissions, and Grid

To combat climate change and meet decarbonization goals, the building sector is improving energy efficiency and electrifying end uses to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. All-electric buildings are becoming a trend among new constructions, introducing opportunities for decarbonization but also technical challenges and research gaps. For instance, further investigation is needed to understand how the adoption of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) and distributed energy resources (DERs) in all-electric communities would affect energy consumption, carbon emissions, and grid planning. This paper presents a case study of a mixed-use, all-electric community located in Denver, Colorado. We use URBANopt TM , a physics-based urban energy modeling platform to model the community and then evaluate the impact of EEMs and DERs (i.e., photovoltaics [PV], electric vehicles [EVs], and batteries) on the community's energy usage, carbon emissions, and peak demand. The results show that adding EEMs and PV led to both energy consumption and carbon emissions reductions across all building types. However, we saw fairly limited impact of EEMs and PV on buildings' peak demand in our case. Additionally, due to overnight EV charging activities and higher grid carbon intensity at night, the carbon emissions in multifamily buildings have a noticeable increase compared to scenarios without vehicles. Finally, the addition of batteries helped reduce peak demand by 11%-29%. The modeling workflow and evaluation methods can be applied to similar communities to evaluate their performance and the effect of integrating EEMs and DERs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Condition monitoring of permanent magnet AC machines for all-electric transportation systems: State of the art

The current state of the art on emerging and efficient techniques for condition monitoring of permanent magnet (PM) alternating-current (AC) machines deployed in electric vehicle (EV) applications is presented. The discussion includes the most common and specific types of faults in PM motors, such as rotor demagnetisation and stator inter-turn faults, respectively. Fault indicators, such as voltage (v s ) and current (i s ) signals and machine signatures based on motor back electromotive force (EMF) (E B ) and magnetic flux (φ), are taken into account as a measuring quantity in diagnosing motor faults. Other signatures, including thermal analysis, acoustic noise, and vibrations, are also illustrated as some of the emerging techniques in estimating the performance of EV motors while under operations. In addition, various fault modelling methods, condition monitoring techniques, and comprehensive approaches applied in diagnosing the effect of machine faults during its incipient stages are illustrated. Since most of the fault diagnostic techniques discussed here include only machine-based quantities as fault indices/indicators, the provided solutions are therefore found to be more reliable and accurate for diagnosing the motor faults. This comprehensive review study is inclusive of the existing fault diagnostic techniques, which are currently employed in industrial and commercial practices, in addition to the new methodologies proposed by the authors. All the given condition monitoring schemes therefore seem significantly vital in estimating the state of health of PM AC machines while under operation in all-electric transportation systems.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Hydrogen Infrastructure Analysis for the Port Applications [Slides]

The International Maritime Organization has committed to 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 worldwide as of 2023. This analysis includes performing an inventory and modeling efforts to understand the energy, equipment and cost requirements to support decarbonization of cargo handling and shore power at U.S. Ports, along with assessment of zero- and near- zero emission fuel supplies at or near U.S. ports focused upon Hydrogen technologies. Initial market assessment for ocean going vessels for harbor support and ocean-going vessels is explored. An energy analysis is performed on the port system using a holistic approach and considering the port as an entire ecosystem that functions as a transportation and energy node. Presently, a comprehensive view is lacking for future analysis efforts, this analysis seeks to address this gap in data by evaluating four representative port types and the potential for utilizing hydrogen for the maritime industry. Every port is different, but broadly they could be bracketed into reference cases with scaling factors for the relative size of the port operations. These reference ports are for future use, potentially as baselines for analysis and development of demonstration programs. An equipment inventory for each reference port type (container, bulk, breakbulk, and inland waterway) is presented. A comparative analysis of fuel cell electric and battery electric equipment is conducted based on the following criteria: technology readiness level, refueling/charging time, operational range, energy consumption, and fuel cost savings compared to baseline internal combustion engine equipment. The tradeoffs and synergies between two alternative powertrains is highlighted. Based on energy and infrastructure analysis, average and high equipment utilization profiles across different port types is identified and quantified baseline fuel and electricity demand for various decarbonization scenarios. Based on the portfolio of equipment converted to fuel cell electric, the estimates of initial capital investment are provided for hydrogen refueling stations across ports. An energy demand model is developed that predicts well the all-electric cargo handling equipment annual energy consumption for ports with annual tonnage under 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The model is a good rubric to follow for further energy demand models that can create a scalable solution to understand the energy needs of cargo handling equipment, whether they are all-electric, hydrogen fuel cell, or powered by another fuel-type. Zero and near-zero emission fuel supply at ports is evaluated looking into the characteristics of hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol as an alternative fuel, as well as the bunkering status. The readiness of reference ports to produce ammonia or methanol and bunker the fuel is examined based on the framework developed by the Global Maritime Forum and Rocky Mountain Institute.

08 HYDROGEN↗