Design of an innovative 2-by-2 hybrid electric vehicle

An innovative vehicle powertrain architecture is proposed to decrease overall well-to-wheels emissions and increase fuel economy. The vehicle provides 4-wheel drive through the use of an electric motor driving the rear wheels in conjunction with an IC engine driving the front wheels. The engine is powered by hydrogen and E85 mixture fuels and a fuel cell is used to charge the battery pack. To verify the design, vehicle models and control strategy were developed in Matlab/Simulink environment. Simulation results prove that this design can increase fuel efficiency by 50%.