An Analysis of Hybrid/Electric Vehicle Monitoring Systems and Parameters

Electric or hybrid vehicles are becoming increasingly popular these days due to their friendly environmental approach, low or almost nonexistent fuel consumption, low taxes or governmental buying bonus. However, very congested metropolitan areas may affect the electric/hybrid vehicles performance, reliability and battery health due to excessive wear, high waiting times and low-speed movement. Frequently monitoring the hybrid/electric vehicles parameters may be needed to prevent electrical or electronic malfunctions, since this kind of issues may be expensive to solve. In this paper, we explore the ways these types of vehicles can be electronically monitored and investigate the influence of certain factors (environmental, traffic-related) over the vehicle's performance, reliability and battery wear/health. An overview of the equipment, software and working principles of the testing devices is presented. Also, we propose a low-cost electric/hybrid vehicle monitoring system based on the acquired knowledge. A 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV was used for experimentations, parameter monitoring and all the system were tested using this plug-in vehicle.