Fuel consumption and emissions analysis for a hybridized vehicle

The improvement of the energetic efficiency in vehicular systems is a growing demand when developing new technologies for the automotive sector.Laws and regulatory standards that aim at the reduction of fuel consumption, such as the Brazilian INOVAR-AUTO, create constrains in order to improve the overall efficiency and reduce the emissions of new produced automobiles.Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) became an alternative to achieve these goals, by adding electricity as an auxiliary propulsion source.Several surveys have revealed the advantages of hybrid configurations, which demonstrated significant fuel savings resulting from shifting the engine operation point to regions of lower consumption.This study evaluates the impact of the conversion of a 1.0L vehicle into a plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV), by means of coupling electric motors supplied by lead-acid battery to the vehicle rear wheels (Parallel HEV Configuration).Thus, by means of simulations, this work aims to investigate the impact that the auxiliary electric system can produce in the fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases when the vehicle is submitted to the standard Brazilian drive cycles NBR 6601 and NBR 7024. INTRODUTIONThe number of people who are adept to the means of private transportation has increased over the last decades.This number is strongly correlated with the number of automobiles in use on the roads around the world.If it is assumed that the automakers will follow on producing the majority of the cars equipped with conventional combustion engine, the fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will keep growing [1].Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) are gaining attention due to their ability to reduce gasoline/diesel consumption by using electricity from the grid as an alternative energy source [2].If this energy is produced in a clean way and transmitted efficiently to the PHEVs' battery, it is possible to say that these vehicles are more environmental friendly than the conventional ones, considering all the resources spent per kilometer.