Battery right sizing for commercial vehicles

Battery right sizing for commercial vehicles

Marco Kachler, Borg Warner Stuttgart GmbH

Jan Neunzling BorgWarner Akasol GmbH

Anita Bongards, BorgWarner Stuttgart GmbH

Abstract

In 2015 the Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted. Its goal is to limit global warming by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases like CO₂.

As a result, many countries are increasing the installation of renewable power generators and imposing limits for CO₂ emissions. The global transport sector plays a major role with 7.1 Gt CO₂ in 2020 (1). With a share of 30.9 %, the area of commercial vehicles contributes to a large part of the emissions.

For commercial fleet owners the total cost of ownership (TCO) is the most important factor for making strategic decisions. In that TCO, delivery time, the battery and glider cost as well as charging time play a major role. A battery with a capacity that is too small will result in significant pauses for enroute-charging which is more costly than depot charging and increases trip duration. An oversized battery on the other hand will reduce the available payload and increase power consumption per ton of transported goods. In the end it’s a balancing act to make the right decision and track all influencing factors for the TCO calculation as well as for residual value of the vehicle and the battery.

BorgWarner has developed a battery sizing tool, that allows fleet owners or OEMs to determine the right battery size for specific use cases. In this presentation we will show how costs, charge and operation time can be used to design optimal battery configurations. The functionalities of this tool will be demonstrated by describing an exemplary case study. The example shows how the battery size will influence energy consumption for a truck with 12t payload for a daily trip length of 500km. It will point out which effects are dominating the TCO outcome and what impact it has on charging strategy and battery state of health.

Motivation

Understanding the impact of battery size (capacity) on vehicle range, charge time, battery state of health (SoH) and ultimately total cost of ownership is key for developing vehicles that will succeed on the market.