Affordable Electrical Range by Modularity (BEREIT)

The long-term goal of resource and climate friendly mobility requires energy-efficient vehicles with new affordable drive concepts. Electric drives in general and plug-in hybrids in particular help to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, but they are still more expensive than combustion motors. Cost can be reduced by developing modular and scalable components for the drive train, using the advantage of great lot sizes. It has to be investigated, whether modular concepts can compete with individually developed drive trains concerning efficiency and driving performance.

Scalable drive topologies for hybrid vehicles will be developed, and two demonstrator vehicles will be built up from currently available components. Various operating strategies for different drive concepts will be developed taking different driving cycles into consideration. Furthermore, a series of electrical machines and associated power electronics will be developed and optimised for the use in vehicles with different degrees of electrification. A cost model including material and production cost depending on lot size will be created to be able to estimate possible cost savings due to the increased modularity.