Experimental Test Campaign on a Battery Electric Vehicle: Laboratory Test Results (Part 1)

The experimental measurement of the energy consumption and efficiency of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) are key topics to determine their usability and performance in real-world conditions. This paper aims to present the results of a test campaign carried out on a BEV, representative of the most common technology available today on the market. The vehicle is a 5-seat car, equipped with an 80 kW synchronous electric motor powered by a 24 kWh Li-Ion battery. The description and discussion of the experimental results is split into 2 parts: Part 1 focuses on laboratory tests, whereas Part 2 focuses on the on-road tests. As far as the laboratory tests are concerned, the vehicle has been tested over three different driving cycles (i.e. NEDC, WLTC and WMTC) at two different ambient temperatures (namely + 25 degrees C and -7 degrees C), with and without the use of the cabin heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. To further investigate this aspect, the European draft MAC test procedure has been also applied. The results show that the energy consumption of the vehicle ranges from 157 to 278 Wh/km (i.e. equivalent gasoline consumption from 1.8 to 3.1 l/100km) and the grid-to-wheel efficiency approximately ranges from 46.6% to 79.0%, depending on the test conditions. The driving range measured with the full-length test procedure results to be between 112 and 127 km, whereas the one-cycle abbreviated range test approach provides values between 74 and 131 km. The multi-cycle procedure has been also applied, in order to investigate the sensibility of the calculated range to different numbers of cycles considered. The paper provides the reader with a detailed description of the measurement equipment and setup adopted during the tests, setting the background for future technical analyses and experimental campaigns.