Powertrain electrification continues to be a growing trend in vehicular applications. Electric powertrains have numerous advantages over traditional mechanical and hydraulic powertrains but there are still important challenges to overcome for long-term commercial success. This research presents a technological assessment of present and future developments of powertrain electrification in non-road mobile machinery (NRMM). The challenges and opportunities of NRMM electrification are described in detail. The trends and drivers related to technological development such as regulations, policies and market development are analyzed, and technology enablers are highlighted. Future scenarios are formulated based on the prevailing trends and drivers, development of key components, scientific literature and status of the non-road mobile machinery industry. Some recommendations are also given in relation to the development of hybrid and electric powertrains for NRMM. The key findings of this research indicate that the electrification of NRMM is slowly started and the progress is demonstrated by hybridization of some specific, successful mobile machines. In short-term, high component and technology development costs remain the main barrier for higher adoption of electric and hybrid powertrains. In the long-term scenario, many NRMM can operate autonomously and powertrain electrification has become mainstream technology.
Alternative powertrains are rapidly increasing in popularity in city buses. Hence, it is vitally important to understand the factors affecting the performance of the powertrains in order to operate them on appropriate routes and as efficiently as possible. To that end, this paper presents an exhaustive driving cycle and passenger load sensitivity analysis for the most common city bus powertrain topologies. Three-thousand synthetic cycles were generated for a typical suburban bus route based on measured cycles and passenger numbers from the route. The cycles were simulated with six bus models: compressed natural gas, diesel, parallel hybrid, series hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell hybrid, and battery electric bus. Twenty reference cycles featuring various types of routes were simulated for comparison. Correlations between energy consumption and the various driving cycle parameters and passenger loads were examined. Further analysis was conducted with variance decomposition. Aggressiveness and stop frequency had the highest correlation with the consumption. The diesel bus was the most sensitive to aggressiveness. The parallel hybrid had a lower statistical dispersion of consumption than the series hybrid on the suburban route. On the varied routes, the opposite was true. The performance of the parallel hybrid powertrain deteriorated significantly on cycles with high aggressiveness and stop frequency. In general, the high correlation between aggressiveness and energy consumption implies that particular attention must be paid to limiting high-speed accelerations of city buses.
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