The Benefit of Assisted and Unassisted Eco-Driving for Electrified Powertrains

Eco-driving assistance systems that encourage drivers to engage in fuel-saving behavior are effective at improving energy-efficiency, with recent research directed towards incorporating predictive models of energy losses in these systems to optimize recommendations. In this article, we evaluate a predictive eco-driving assistance system on three powertrains: a combustion engine-driven vehicle, a parallel hybrid electric vehicle, and a battery electric vehicle. In each case, energy consumption is found by applying a quasi-static model to driving simulator data for a simulated route including urban, rural, and highway sections. We find that both assisted and unassisted eco-driving has a beneficial effect in all cases, with the assistance system leading to reductions in energy usage of 6.1%, 15.9%, and 16.6% for the combustion engine, hybrid electric, and battery electric powertrains, respectively.