Design and Comparison of the Handling Performance of Different Electric Vehicle Layouts

In contrast to conventional internal combustion engine driven vehicles, the number of motors in fully electric cars is not fixed. A variety of architectural solutions, including from one to four individually controlled electric drive units, is possible and opens up new avenues in the design of vehicle characteristics. In particular, individual control of multiple electric powertrains promises to enhance handling performance in steady-state and dynamic conditions. For the analysis and the selection of the best electric powertrain layout based on expected vehicle characteristics and performance, new analytical tools and metrics are required. This article presents and demonstrates a novel offline procedure for the design of the feedforward control action of the vehicle dynamics controller of a fully electric vehicle and three performance indicators for the objective comparison of the handling potential of alternative electric powertrain layouts. The results demonstrate that the proposed offline routine allows achieving desired understeer characteristics with any of the investigated vehicle configurations, in traction and braking conditions. With respect to linear handling characteristics, the simulations indicate that the influence of torque-vectoring is independent of the location of the controlled axles (front or rear) and considerably affected by the number of controlled axles.