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As vehicle emission regulations become increasingly rigorous, the automotive industry is accelerating the development of electrified vehicle platforms such as Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV). Since the available waste heat from these vehicles is limited, additional heat sources such as electric heaters are needed for cabin heating operation. The use of a heat pump system is one of the solutions to improve EV driving range at cold ambient conditions. In this study, an efficient gas-injection heat pump system has been developed, which achieves high cabin heating performance at low ambient temperature and dehumidification operation without the assistance of electric heaters in ’17 model year Prius Prime.

This study reports on a new generation ECS (Ejector Cycle System) which includes a highly efficient ejector and a novel system configuration. The ejector is working as a fluid jet pump that recovers expansion energy which is wasted in the conventional refrigeration cycle decompression process, and converts the recovered expansion energy into pressure energy and raises the compressor suction pressure. Consequently, the ejector system can reduce power consumption of the compressor by using the above mentioned pressure-rising effect and improve energy efficiency of the refrigeration cycle. The ejector consists of a nozzle, a suction section, a mixing section and a diffuser. The objective of this study is to improve actual fuel economy of all vehicles by ejector technology. The previous generation ECS was reported in 2012 SAE World Congress1. Now, a new generation ECS has been successfully developed and released in the market for Mobile Air Conditioning systems as of 2013.