Regensburg, March 23, 2021. Vitesco Technologies,a leading international provider of modern drive technologies and electrification solutions, is strengthening its electrification strategy with a Smart Thermal Management, thereby increasing the attractiveness of electrified mobility. With a market growth of around 30% annually until 2025, the technology is one of the company’s long-term core areas.
 
It’s an experience that owners of electric vehicles and hybrids have hardly been able to avoid until now. In winter and summer, the electric range of their vehicles drops significantly, because electricity for heating or cooling also has to be provided by the battery. Due to this effect, the range can decrease by up to around 40% at -10 °C, for example. Vitesco Technologies is using its system expertise to significantly reduce this loss in range. Existing and new products make it possible to control the heating and cooling requirements in the entire vehicle in a more energy-saving way. This is what’s known as Smart Thermal Management.
 
In addition to the longer range, especially in winter, other advantages of the system include faster battery charging, an extended service life for central components, and more comfortable vehicle air conditioning.
 
Smart Thermal Management from Vitesco Technologies regulates the optimum temperature window for components such as the power electronics, electric motor and battery in every operating situation, and then keeps this temperature constant. The trick here is that both heating and cooling requirements are provided flexibly. Sensors, electrical pumps and switchable multi-way valves (coolant flow control valves, CFCVs) are used for this purpose. From these three product platforms, custom solutions for all vehicle architectures can be implemented in accordance with the economical modular principle.

Efficiency is a question of temperature

An internal combustion engine operates optimally at around 100 °C. In electrified vehicles, however, the situation is more differentiated: A lithium-ion battery feels “most comfortable” between 20 °C and 40 °C. The inverter and charging electronics should not get much hotter than 60 °C, and the electric motor should not heat up beyond 80 °C. Each of these systems has a connection to the Smart Thermal Management, which prevents overheating or, in the case of the battery, undercooling. The higher the degree of electrification of a vehicle, the more important Smart Thermal Management becomes. In all-electric vehicles, it comprises approximately three times as many components as in mild hybrids.

But it’s not just about cooling. Heating the passenger space is required in cold external temperatures. In addition, a lithium-ion battery delivers much less current at -10 °C than in the optimum temperature range, and the battery also cannot absorb the valuable currents from recuperation at such cold temperatures. For example, electric vehicles have a much shorter range in winter than in summer. Smart Thermal Management can remedy this by increasing the temperature of a battery that is too cold. The system then switches over to cooling seamlessly when this is required. “Smart Thermal Management allows up to 80% of the summer range to be achieved in electric cars in winter,” says Peter Biber, Head of Business Development and Strategy at Sensing and Actuation.