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The focus of this paper is the design, implementation, and initial testing of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle drivetrain in a 2009 GM compact SUV base vehicle by the University of Victoria's EcoCAR Team. The Team is using a condensed three-year vehicle development process modeled after those used by Tier 1 automotive manufactures, and mandated by the competition rules of EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. During the first year of the competition, intensive research was performed to identify a powertrain architecture that would give the best overall performance based on greenhouse gas emissions, criteria air contaminant emissions, fuel economy, petroleum use, and vehicle performance according to the weighting formulas of the competition. As a result, an extended range electric vehicle utilizing GM's Two-Mode transmission, a large lithium-ion battery pack, and a rear traction motor was selected; these components were integrated into the vehicle in the second year of the competition.

Advances in battery and hybrid powertrain technology have significantly expanded the automotive design space. In this work, the design process of a new extended range electric vehicle (E-REV) is presented, following the industry standard vehicle development process (VDP). To effectively achieve the design targets, the team developed the project following a model-based design (MBD) approach which is similar to what is used in industrial practice. The design process started from a vehicle technical specification, which defines the required vehicle performance characteristics. Then models were built to exam various design options against the design targets. Improved vehicle performance was demonstrated through model-in-loop (MIL), software-in-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-loop (HIL) simulations.