A Model for Range Estimation and Energy-Efficient Routing of Electric Vehicles in Real-World Conditions

This paper presents an integrated model for energy consumption and range estimation, capable of energy-efficient routing. This integrated model predicts the energy consumption on all road segments in the road network and applies shortest path algorithms to calculate energy-efficient routes. A temperature-dependent model of the battery internal resistance based on real-world data translates the energy consumption prediction into driving range. The graph representation of the road network is transformed from a node-based graph to an edge-based graph to allow cost allocation of one edge based on the characteristics of the preceding edge. The integrated model is used to perform an analysis of energy-efficient routes for a real-life scenario. The analysis showed that the energy-optimal route is different from the time-and distance-optimal route with energy-efficiency gains up to 37% for the chosen scenario. The energy-efficient route tends to lean toward a distance-optimal route in the case of low auxiliary consumption and to lean toward a time-optimal route in the case of high auxiliary consumption. The energy-efficient route generation is tested in real life for one case of the chosen scenario. The measured results showed a good match with the predicted values for the energy consumption with a 9% mean relative error and preserved the ranking of all routes in terms of the travel distance, travel time, and energy consumption. The proposed integrated model is a functional model for energy consumption in real-life that differentiates many energy consumption influencing factors and produces energy-efficient routes with good accuracy.