Over the past hundred years engineers and scien-tists have worked hard to perfect the way cars are designed, developed and produced; cars that have been powered nearly exclusively by internal com-bustion engines. Since around 2010 the automotive market has been undergoing drastic changes and shifting towards large-scale launches of electric vehicles (EVs). In Norway, new registrations of electric cars already exceeded those of conventional vehicles in June 2017. In 2020, according to CAM (center of automotive management) the total of all e-cars sold in Norway was even greater than that of conventional cars.
Developing an EV is radically different from developing a traditional car. All components are completely new, very different from combustion engine drivetrains and interlinked, which means they can strongly affect each other’s performance, and it is complex to find the global design optimum as there is not so much experience as for cars with combustion engines. Also, the technology itself is still under development, which requires a flexible development process, as there is not yet as much experience as with cars with combustion engines. How can these hurdles be overcome and affordable yet reliable EVs be brought to the market as quickly as possible?
OBELICS helps solve these challenges by enabling what is known as frontloading: the use of virtual models to build and test new designs. Traditionally, vehicle design has been a (more or less) linear process: a design is created using preliminary data or expert knowledge, costly prototypes are built and tested and finally the design is corrected based on the test results. Instead, frontloading allows engi-neers to understand the impacts of design chan-ges and analyze a system before it is built. Using advanced and easy to scale models and simulations, engineers can test and validate the components very early in the development process. Prototypes do not have to be built until an advanced (and computer-tested) design is available. Frontloading makes it cheaper and faster to develop new EVs.
The goal of the OBELICS project was to develop a framework for te design and testing of electrical powertrains and vehicles. The innovations will reduce the development effort by 40%, improve the drivetrain efficiency by 20% and increase the safety by a factor of 10. The models and simulations developed in OBELICS include new scalable (real-time capable) models and new testing and safety analysis methods.
