An integrated thermal management strategy for cabin and battery heating in range-extended electric vehicles under low-temperature conditions

The integrated thermal management strategy under low-temperature conditions can effectively alleviate mileage anxiety associated with electric vehicles and improve the thermal comfort of the cabin. In this study, an integrated thermal management topology for range-extended electric vehicles is proposed, which recovers the waste heat from the range extender and the electric drive system for the heating of the battery and the cabin to improve energy utilization. Considering the driving modes and heating demands, the working modes and switching rules are designed. Especially, a control-oriented coupling system model is established for pure-electric mode. Taking cabin heat load demand, battery heat generation, and electric drive system heat generation as disturbances, a model predictive controller is designed for the heating power of the heater. An integrated thermal management system model verified by experiments is established in AMEsim. The initial temperature of the environment and vehicle is −20 °C, and the target temperatures of the cabin and the battery are set at 20 °C and 25 °C respectively. The feasibility of the strategy is verified by the co-simulation of Simulink and AMEsim under 4 WLTC cycles. The results show that in the range-extended mode, the integrated system shortens the battery heating time and reduces fuel consumption by more than 10.2 % compared with the independent system. In pure-electric mode, the heating speed of the proposed model predictive control strategy is slightly faster than that of the on–off strategy, the heating energy consumption is reduced by 20.95 %, and the total energy consumption for propulsion and thermal management decreased by 2.84 %.