There Is More to EVs Than Powertrain & Batteries — Part II
By: Continental Communications India
Tags: Ev, Automated Driving, Safe Mobility, Electric Vehicles, Assisted Driving

By Prashanth Doreswamy, Country Head — Continental India & Managing Director, Continental Automotive Components India

We talked about some of the simpler features in the Part I of my blog about the changing architecture of an EV.

Let us envision the experience of driving an EV, which will also probably be automated to a certain extent?

For starters, I think we’d be quite grown to charging our cars, and keeping an eye on the battery indicator. My car will plug itself into its charger the minute I get home, ensuring that I always have power. The technology would have evolved that my car will tell me precise range considering all the driving factors accurately.

We talked about remote diagnostics, potential threats, and connected technologies last time. I would probably also have a diagnostic app on my phone that gives me indicators about my car’s health, so that I am notified well in advance about any potential issues.

Let us look into the technologies that contribute to performance and safety.

Assisted Driving Features

We must keep in mind that as we look at the electrification of vehicles, we are also making the vehicle connected, assisted, and to a certain degree, automated.

Smart, Connected, and Automated

The base of the research for all these technologies is safety. How do we ensure that a car is truly safe, regardless of what engine powers it? With electrification, various sensors come into play. There are more control units installed in a car. There is a higher percentage of software in a vehicle. Some of these features are meant to assist the driver. At the outset, these seem like things we need to do to meet the customers’ demands for safety. But we should also remember that these products need to fit into the overall architecture of the electric vehicle.

At Continental, we have a whole range of assisted driving technologies. Radars, sensors, Lidar, and cameras work as a part of the ecosystem providing critical information to the driver to help optimize the experience and performance in three fields of application: safety, maneuvering, and cruising.

Adaptive Cruise Control

There are simple things already being deployed like the adaptive cruise control, which automatically maintains a safe distance from vehicles ahead or an unexpected intrusion of a slower vehicle in vehicle path, by controlling the powertrain and the Electronic Brake System to adjust the subject vehicle speed rather than abrupt play with acceleration. Thus contributing to the overall safety and vehicle efficiency.

And then we have the trained parking system. It is such a great advantage to have a technology to counter complicated parking situations. Rather than a tedious process of parking a car in a constrained space, requiring many attempts to correct the parking position, the trained parking function uses the car’s existing sensors, such as cameras and radars, to detect the surroundings and park the car more accurately.

The Trained Parking function records and stores the sequence of a parking procedure. When the procedure is to be repeated, at the touch of a button, the vehicle independently performs the previously learned parking procedure.

The result is an efficient use of battery power, avoiding physical impact on the vehicle, and a stress-free parking. Many such use-cases of radars, lidars, and cameras enable EVs into safe, efficient, and intelligent transportation systems.

Now, let’s make it a little more complex and add more elements of intelligence to the EV. AI helps in solving problems and understand complex facts and data. They continuously adjust the actions based on previously acquired data and experience. The learning algorithms demonstrate a tremendous benefit for automated driving.

AI plays a large role in taking over human tasks. Vehicles will be able to interpret even complex and unforeseeable traffic situations.

With AI into the EV equation, the benefits are immense — learning driving patterns and habits, analyzing the driving environment and surroundings, range calculation based on realistic predictions, offer more personalized service, etc. The result? A stress-free driving experience, with no anxiety of finding a charging station en route to one’s destination. The system does the hard work and we just enjoy the pleasure of driving.

Braking Systems

An electric vehicle is lighter, quieter. Naturally, this brings about a change in the braking systems that the EV uses.

When mobility had its humble beginning, the braking process was very different. The vehicles were slowed down by pulling a lever attached to cables and were challenging to control. In 1914, Fred Duesenberg developed the first hydraulically operated system, which upgraded the system. The evolution of braking continued from thereon. Today the electronic contents are a standard feature.

With EV, the braking system got a little more creative, braking effectiveness aside the energy management, and space optimization is also given equal importance. This is where a dynamic recuperative feature adds a great value, which can be fulfilled by brake-by-wire systems.

The MK C1 electrohydraulic brake-by-wire brake system reduces CO2 emissions and increases the range of electric vehicles.

The “One-Box Brake-By-Wire Solution” aims to enable full utilization of the recuperation potential. It allows the vehicle to recover more electricity and achieve measurable CO2 savings. The One-Box system integrates the brake actuation, the brake booster, and the control systems into a single, compact, and weight-saving module. Let’s take an example of Continental’s MKC1 solution. It helps reduce CO2 emissions of hybrid electric vehicles by around 5 g/km and also extends the electric range of all battery-powered vehicles with savings of about 30 percent regenerative energy.

Secondly, Electric Parking Brakes (EPB) will replace the manual hand brakes with a button, increasing the braking accuracy, making it safer, of course, removing the chunky box in the middle of the car, opening room for more space. Simply put, the EPB is an advanced version of a conventional parking brake, with functionality to hold the vehicle stationary on grades and flat roads. The driver activates the holding mechanism with a button, and the brake pads are then electrically applied onto the rear brakes. Simple yet powerful, right?

Tires, Lighting, and Beyond

The type of tire holds a vital place in contributing to EV’s performance. Today, the market offers multiple tire options that are specifically designed for EVs. For instance, 20-inch Conti.eContact tires for electric vehicles deliver rolling resistance that is an impressive 30 percent or so lower than that of a conventional tire. Another variation of the tire for hybrids offers 20 percent less rolling resistance.

ContiSilent-Technology

Our ContiSilent™ is an innovative tire technology reduces road noise by up to 9 dB. An inner tire absorber, made of polyurethane foam, is attached to the inner surface of the tire tread, to cushion the road. Electric vehicles will be lot more silent compared to regular vehicles, ContiSilent™ will simply complement the low noise factor. The technology does not affect the driving performance, mileage, load, or speed capability of your car.

For optimal performance, not just the right tires, but the management of tires is also crucial to maintaining the EV range.

TPMS

The Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) helps in reading the tire pressure directly from the wheels with battery-fed sensors mounted on the rim and integrated into the valve. Special software in the control device then processes the data received and displays it on the instrument panel.

Illumination within the car or exterior, the lighting requirement in EV is just as same as the conventional vehicle. However, energy management should supplement the performance. The lighting in a modern car will essentially be intelligent and intuitive. To support these characteristics, an equally robust light control unit comes into play.

Intelligent Headlamp Control

The light control units will manage the power utilization from the central grid of the EV more expeditiously.

Intelligent Battery Sensor (IBS) is an ancillary safety component that continuously monitors the lithium-ion battery’s prime parameters. The sensor provides data on State-of-Charge (SOC), State-of-Health (SOH), State-of-Function (SOF) of the battery. The IBS feature helps in avoiding sudden vehicle breakdowns by delivering timely warnings of the battery state.

Intelligent Battery Sensor

The sensor system is combined with the regenerative brake systems to execute safety functions. EVs primarily work on motors, unlike engine-based ones, making this feature all the more necessary in electrically driven vehicles. The sensor is essential in optimizing EV start-stop systems’ functioning, resulting in improved battery life and reinforcing CO2 reduction measures.

The EV ecosystem allows us to venture into possibilities that did not exist before. We are shaping the future of mobility. We are changing the architecture of the vehicle, making it automated, adding features beyond imagination. When we look beyond batteries and powertrain too, the possibilities remain endless for electric vehicles.