Exploring the Impact of Vehicle Lightweighting in Terms of Energy Consumption: Analysis and Simulation on Real Driving Cycle

Today, reducing vehicle energy consumption is a crucial topic. For electric vehicles, reducing energy consumption is essential to address some of the most critical issues associated with this type of vehicle, such as the limited range of electric powertrains and the long battery recharging times. To lower the environmental impact during the vehicle’s use phase and reduce energy consumption, vehicle mass reduction (lightweighting) is an effective strategy. The objective of this work is to analyze the vehicle parameters that influence lightweighting outcomes on a real driving cycle, representative of the home-to-work travel in the northern Italy. In particular, a previous work carried out on standard driving cycles is repeated, in order to observe whether it is possible to draw the same conclusions regarding the variability of the lightweighting outcome. This study was conducted using two opposite vehicle models, a compact car and an N1 vehicle, simulated through a well-established vehicle simulation tool for energy consumption estimation. The study reveals that even for the real driving cycle, as for the WLTC and US06 standards, the parameters that most influence the outcome of the lightening are rolling resistance, the characteristics of the battery pack, the aerodynamic coefficients and the efficiency of the transmission. Finally, the standard cycle that best fits with the real one considered in this study is the Artemis Urban Cycle.