Determining a suitable all electric range for a light weight plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

With the increasing awareness and adoption of eco-friendly vehicle technologies such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs); most if not all major worldwide vehicle manufacturers have released an eco-friendly vehicle or have announced a future release (e.g. concept demonstrator vehicles). Such vehicles can meet current legislative emissions standards (with comparatively lower CO₂ tailpipe emissions compared to conventional combustion engine vehicle equivalents), yet performance in the real world is often far worse than quoted test figures (e.g. fuel economy). In order to maintain and grow customer acceptance of such vehicle technologies it is important that real world usage is considered during the design and development processes. This paper describes the method of selecting a suitable all electric range (AER) to meet both legislative emissions and real world usage demands and demonstrates its use through a case study of a lightweight plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).