Fuel cell vehicle energy management strategy based on the cost of ownership

This study presents a novel energy management strategy (EMS) which outperforms the published strategies developed for an international technology challenge, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Motor Vehicles Challenge 2017. The objective of the strategy is to minimise the cost of ownership of a low-power (15 kW) fuel cell (FC)-battery electric vehicle. Both the fuel consumption cost and power sources degradation costs are combined to represent the total cost of ownership. The simple adaptive rule-based strategy optimises the FC operation during low-traction power operation and switches to battery charge-sustaining operation for high traction power operation. This minimises fuel consumption and increases the lifetimes of the FC and of the battery. The strategy is then compared with the EMS of the 2015 Toyota Mirai, and the challenge vehicle model is modified to capture the learnings from the Mirai. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis for a plug-in FC vehicle is considered in order to improve FC lifetimes and to reduce costs for short drive cycles.