News Source: School of Mechanical Engineering

Editor: News Agency of BIT

Translator: News Agency of BIT, Li xinxin

Recently, the team of academician Sun Fengchun and professor Wang Zhenpo of the National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles, Beijing Institute of Technology, together with Zuo-Jun Max Shen, tenured professor of the University of California, Berkeley and vice president of the University of Hong Kong, have collaborated on the research achievements "Assessment of battery utilization and energy consumption in the large-scale development of urban electric vehicles" (Authors: Zhao Yang, Wang Zhenpo, Zuo-Jun Max Shen, Sun Fengchun), which has been published online in the form of direct submission and research article in the world's top journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). BIT is the first correspondence unit of the thesis. The first author Zhao Yang is a doctoral student under the joint supervision of academician Sun Fengchun, professor Wang Zhenpo and professor Zuo-Jun Max Shen of HKU; professor Wang Zhenpo and professor Shen Zuojun are the co-corresponding authors of the thesis.

With the large-scale deployment of electric vehicles worldwide, the electric vehicle industry's demand for power battery resources and urban energy is growing rapidly, and it is of great significance to assess the power battery utilization and energy consumption of urban electric vehicles. This thesis introduces big data of electric vehicles to power battery resources and urban energy related fields for the first time, breaking through the problem of large-scale evaluation of electric vehicle power battery utilization and energy consumption, which is of great significance to the research of power battery resources, energy and carbon emissions involved in the large-scale development of global electric vehicles. By combining the data of large-scale urban electric vehicles, statistical methods and artificial intelligence algorithm, this thesis reports the important laws of the difference between large-scale and small-scale applications of electric vehicles, such as the difference in power battery utilization and the seasonal fluctuation of energy consumption of electric vehicles. In the thesis the climate data is introduced, the model is extended to multiple regions of the world to compare and analyze the differences of important laws related to electric vehicle power battery utilization and energy consumption in different regions of the world. For example, in Beijing, even if the monthly driving demand of electric vehicles remains unchanged, the average energy consumption difference of electric vehicle groups caused by seasonal changes can reach up to 21%.

Figure 1 Global multi-regional assessment of the difference in energy consumption of electric vehicles.

Figure 2 Comparison of active vehicles among light electric vehicle groups in different seasons in the target area.

The achievements in the thesis are formed under the support of two National Key R & D Programs of China (2018YFB1700600 and 2019YFB1600800) and a key support project of Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91746210). For the first time, through the analysis of big data of electric vehicles, a bridge between large-scale electric vehicle application and urban electric vehicle macro resource， as well as between energy assessments, is established, which provides data and theoretical basis for the research on large-scale development of electric vehicles.

PNAS is called Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, which is one of the world's four major journals (Cell, Nature, Science, PNAS). It has a history of more than 100 years and has a high international reputation. The articles published by PNAS cover research fields including: medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, environmental ecology, social sciences, etc. PNAS is one of the most cited comprehensive journals. Articles published in PNAS often represent cutting-edge and internationally leading research reports, academic reviews, major discoveries, and subject reviews.

More about the team:

Sun Fengchun, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, professor and doctoral supervisor of School of Mechanical Engineering of BIT, is one of the pioneers and founders in the field of new energy vehicles in China.

Wang Zhenpo, professor and doctoral supervisor of School of Mechanical Engineering of BIT, director of National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles of BIT, has long been engaged in theoretical research and tackling key problems of engineering technology in the field of new energy vehicles, and presided over the construction of national monitoring and management platform for new energy vehicles.

Zuo-Jun Max Shen, tenured professor at the UCB and outstanding visiting professor at Tsinghua University, is currently vice president of the HKU. He is mainly engaged in the research of supply chain design and management, service system design and optimization, transportation optimization, analysis and decision-making, etc.

Zhao Yang，doctoral student in the School of Mechanical Engineering of BIT，is under the joint supervision of academician Sun Fengchun, professor Wang Zhenpo and professor Zuo-Jun Max Shen；the main research contents focus on large-scale electric vehicle charging energy prediction, power battery utilization and vehicle energy consumption assessment, power battery fault diagnosis.

Information about the article (* is the corresponding author)：

Yang Zhao, Zhenpo Wang*, Zuo-Jun Max Shen*, and Fengchun Sun. "Assessment of battery utilization and energy consumption in the large-scale development of urban electric vehicles." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 17 (2021).

Link to article:

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2017318118