Power consumption characterization, modeling and estimation of electric vehicles

Rapid electric vehicle (EV) penetration gives a threatening challenge in electric energy generation. An 1,814 kg curb weight full electric vehicle driving 18,129 km/year consumes electricity energy equivalent to 74% of the total residential electricity use per person in the US. This implies that 27% more nationwide electricity generation is needed when 70% of passenger vehicles are replaced with EVs. This paper is the first step toward systematic EV design-time and runtime optimization. We introduce instantaneous power consumption modeling of an EV by the curb weights, speed, acceleration, road slope, passenger and cargo weights, motor capacity, and so on, as a battery discharge model. The model also considers the onboard charger, regenerative braking and so on, as a battery charge model. To insure model fidelity, we fabricate a lightweight custom EV, perform extensive measurement, and derive model coefficients using multivariable regression analysis. We estimate the EV instantaneous power consumption of a given speed and route profiles and verify the estimation fidelity with a real test run data.