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The rapid development of CO2 reduction policies pushes an equivalent effort by the OEMs to design and produce Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) in order to lower the global CO2 emission of its fleet. The main effort has been applied primarily to the electric traction architecture (electric traction motor and battery energy storage). Furthermore, extending BEV autonomy range continues to be deficient and this is even more critical when the customer operates the air conditioning system to reach and maintain the cabin comfort. The aim of this work is to present vehicle level design solutions, that reduce the energy demand by the air conditioning system, allowing the vehicle to increase it’s range.

The cabin comfort is one of the most competitive issues in the automotive area of business. The thermal comfort and the environmental well-being are fundamental performances that contribute to generate the more general idea of perceived quality. The CRF developed in the past the concept so-called “healthy bubble” that was implemented in the Lancia Dialogos concept car. The passengers are surrounded by an air bubble, created by generating low velocity air flows, that are diffused through the interior panels and components (e.g. dashboard, roof, back of the seats, etc.), and by surfaces temperature control (e.g. carpet, seats, etc.). At present the original idea has generally been accepted, and different solutions to diffuse air and to control surface temperature of vehicle interiors have been proposed by some automotive supplier.

The possibility to check some requirements on the design is an important point to introduce the work of the ergonomists in early phases of the project. In this sense we developed a method for the simulation of the human motion during accessing to a vehicle and present an application in virtual prototyping of new car models. The method is based on the modulation of the kinematics of real movements acquired from subjects performing accessibility movements to a real car cockpit. This approach was applied with success to the different motor strategies shown by the subjects.