A key factor for environmentally-friendly fuel-efficient vehicles.
In the near future, substantial changes in mobility and land transport will take place. Population growth, energy issues, environment preservation and improvement of life quality and mobility safety will require revolutionary innovations. The automotive industry will need to undergo a deep transformation to react and adapt to mobility needs. Market development will be dominated by a widening demand from Asia, while breakthrough innovations will characterise mature automotive markets.
Electric technology will support mobility innovation. Today, pure electric vehicles (PEV) are still a niche product and will grow with a regular positive trend in next 10 years. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are becoming mass-market products in Western Europe, USA and Canada. In 10 years, more than 15% of passenger cars will be either hybrid/ plug-in hybrid or pure electric. Key economic drivers for hybridisation are: CO2 emission standard targets (95 g/km by 2020 in EU) for passenger cars and fuel economy (i.e. cost of ownership reduction) for industrial and commercial vehicles.
However, impacts of vehicle electrification go beyond the vehicle itself – rethinking infrastructures and implementing a high degree of integration at different levels. Clearly, electric power generation and distribution have to be restructured to meet PHEV and PEV recharging requirements to exploit the related business opportunity.
As far as vehicle and power train management is concerned, CO2 emission mitigation and fuel saving require real-time on-line optimisation. Integration with traffic monitoring and control systems, navigation systems, fleet management systems and so on, can provide fundamental real-time data to this purpose. At the same time, global management systems can improve their strategies by exploiting vehicle state information.
Finally, a high degree of integration is required within the vehicle, for an intense overall vehicle energy optimisation. Achieving concrete benefits from hybrid technology in actual vehicle use is not straightforward. A detailed investigation of the application is necessary for a successful design of the hybrid powertrain and tight integration between powertrain and vehicle components and their electronic control is essential.
Pure Power Control S.r.l. (P2C) is a SME located in Navacchio Technological. Pole, near Pisa (Italy). Founded in 2008, the mission of P2C is to design and develop environmentally-friendly propulsion systems for land vehicles and marine applications. P2C is a partner of automotive and off-highway OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, as well as shipyards, for the development of innovative low-emissions and fuel efficient hybrid powertrains, based on either electric or hydraulic technology. P2C is also a provider of engineering services for model-based systems engineering, modelling and simulation, and advanced electronic control.
In the development of hybrid electric/ hydraulic powertrains, P2C provides its partners with:
- A comprehensive model-based systems engineering design and optimisation of the hybrid electric/hydraulic powertrain;
- Advanced solutions for hybrid powertrain control and vehicle energy management, with tightly integrated and efficiently operated powertrain subsystems and foremost optimisation of vehicle efficiency and performances. Depending on the application, the proposed solutions can be either available on a rapid-prototyping platform for hybrid vehicle concept demonstration or included in an existing on-board electronic control unit as well as implemented on a dedicated additional unit.
Control is a key factor for environmentally- friendly fuel-efficient intelligent vehicles, which safely travel and operate by understanding and interacting with the environment.
Ing. Andrea Balluchi PhD
Pure Power Control S.R.I
Tel +39 237 5691133
