Eco-driving: potential fuel economy for post-manufactured hybrid vehicles

Eco-driving is an efficient and economical way to reduce vehicles' energy consumption. Eco-driving techniques have been practised for decades. However, only conventional vehicles have been deeply studied particularly by using optimisation and modelling to identify the energetically best speed profiles. In this paper, eco-driving of hybrid vehicles is addressed. The complexity of speed profile optimisation problem is increased as we have to consider the two energies consumed on-board, i.e., fuel and electricity. Considering an existing hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) with its own energy management strategy, we propose here an original approach based on dynamic programming, vehicle modelling and an equivalence factor between the consumed fuel and electricity. Results show that the defined factor should be carefully chosen in order to achieve the best fuel economy.