A comparison of fuel consumption between hybrid and intelligent vehicles during urban driving

Two major emerging automotive technologies are the continued development of hybrid-electric drivetrains and telematics-enabled (or ‘intelligent’) vehicles capable of garnering and utilizing information about the traffic environment in which the vehicles are operating. The significant costs of each of these technologies are located internal to the vehicle (i.e. the powertrain) in the former case and external to the vehicle (i.e. the road and communication infrastructure) in the latter. In this paper, a simple algorithm is proposed for shaping the velocity profile of an intelligent vehicle subjected to different degrees of traffic information. The fuel consumption of this intelligent vehicle is then compared to a hybrid vehicle with a configuration optimized for an urban drive cycle under the constraint that its performance must match the conventional vehicle it is replacing. This provides some perspective on the extent to which telematics can be used to improve fuel economy relative to the best possible hybrid alternative. Finally, the fuel consumption of an intelligent-hybrid vehicle is investigated; however, the optimal use of information and switching control in the hybrid drivetrain remains an unsolved problem to date.