Opportunities for Electrified Internal Combustion Engines 2020-01-0281

The automotive industry is polarized between external pressures for ‘zero’ emission battery electric vehicles (BEV) and the ability to manufacture them economically and with minimal environmental impact. Most predictions of future BEV market share suggest that the internal combustion engine (ICE) has an important role to play in personal transportation for the next several decades. That engine will very likely be part of a hybrid architecture. Accepting that the engine will be part of a hybrid powertrain permits new design rules and strategies for the ICE. A major change of the engine could be to reduce BMEP, power density and/or engine speed requirements as performance demand will be supplemented by electric machines. This study focuses on simple changes to the ICE to increase thermal efficiency assuming supplemental electric energy. A GT-Power study quantifies the potential benefit of optimized turbocharger sizing, compression ratio and enrichment mitigation for two engine displacements, 1000 cc and 2000 cc. Finally, a GT-Drive study identifies the potential impact of baseline and hybrid-optimized engines of varying displacements by way of scaling BSFC maps. The study shows that heavily downsized vehicles, operating over high-power drive-cycles benefit most from the hybrid optimized engine.