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This work presents a system-level methodology developed to identify the optimum design of heat exchangers for Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Waste Heat Recovery Systems (WHRS) for automotive applications. The optimization of the evaporators is done following an iterative system-level approach, where system and vehicle outputs, such as the Fuel economy (FE) and the System Payback Period are the objects of study. A 1D software has been developed to run an algorithm that, fed with corroborated assumptions, calculates the efficiency of the ORC cycle, the WHRS power output, the WHRS payback period, the FE potential and the Fuel Savings per year - hereby FSPY - for different sets of evaporator designs. The algorithm identifies the optimum trade-off for evaporator efficiency, pressure drop, weight and cost to maximize the system FSPY. The concept of the evaporator is a counter cross-flow heat exchanger; this is, the exhaust gas flows all along the outer case across the internal tubes.