MAHLE’s integrated thermal management system can increase the vehicle’s cruising range by 7%-20%, depending on the specific design of the model.
The cruising range of electric vehicles has always been the focus of consumers, especially northern consumers, who have their own worries about whether electric vehicles can withstand the continuous low temperature test of minus 20 or 30 degrees. Not only are consumers concerned, but car companies are also racking their brains on how to overcome the problem of electric vehicles’ winter battery life. Many battery thermostat systems have also come from this.

In order to further improve the winter cruising range of electric vehicles and eliminate consumers’ concerns, MAHLE has developed an integrated thermal management system (ITS) based on heat pumps, which can not only improve the winter cruising range of electric vehicles The mileage is up to 20%, and it also has a certain control convenience and adaptability to the future vehicle structure.

As we all know, due to the lack of stable and usable waste heat from the engine, most electric vehicles currently use electric heaters and resistance heating methods to heat the cabin and heat the batteries in winter. In a low temperature environment, this causes an additional burden on the battery, which may cause a fully charged electric vehicle to halve its cruising range in winter; the same is true in summer. The additional energy required for cabin cooling and battery cooling will cause battery life. The shortening of mileage.

In order to solve this problem, MAHLE integrated different thermal management components into a system that can operate in multiple modes-ITS. The core of the system is a cooler, indirect condenser, thermal expansion valve and electric compressor. Composed of a semi-closed refrigerant circuit. The indirect condenser and cooler are equivalent to the condenser and evaporator in the traditional refrigerant circuit. Different from the traditional air-cooling method, the system refrigerant and the cooling liquid exchange heat, so two cooling liquid streams are generated. ITS uses R1234yf as a refrigerant, and traditional vehicle coolant as a medium to make the vehicle’s cooling circuit conduct heat conduction with various heat sources and heat sinks.

In a road test of a compact electric vehicle, MAHLE verified the ability of its integrated thermal management system to significantly reduce the mileage loss, especially in low temperature environments. The original car with traditional electric heating has a cruising range of 100 kilometers. After being equipped with ITS, its cruising range has increased to 116 kilometers.

“The MAHLE integrated thermal management system can increase the mileage of the vehicle by 7%-20%. The specific increase varies depending on the specific design of the model. It is worth mentioning that the system can significantly reduce the mileage of the vehicle in the winter. Loss.” said Laurent Art, the pre-development director of the MAHLE Thermal Management Division.

As Laurent Art said, in addition to extending the cruising range, the flexible design and adaptability of ITS are also additional advantages. Currently, MAHLE is using the climate wind tunnel to perform control optimization and other series of tests on the prototype vehicle equipped with ITS. In addition, MAHLE is cooperating with some US OEM customers to carry out further performance and cost optimization work. It is believed that with the upgrade of these thermal management systems, the problem of electric vehicles affected by the climate will be further changed.