Today we are in the position to see this differently. “The future automotive powertrain will be electric” is a prognosis of Bosch. The conversion of the powertrain to be electric assisted or become all electric was pushed through significant development effort over the last couple of years.
Today we see the hybrid technology being used in many different platforms of almost any OEM and the first all electric vehicles are available from series production. But the electric powertrain is not only revolutionizing the automotive industry.
At Bosch Engineering we are getting more and more requests for hybrid and electric powertrain solutions for off-highway applications. This includes for example fork lift trucks, municipal multi-purpose carriers, and also marine applications. These applications could benefit from the system and sub-system development efforts for automotive solutions and from the mature and high quality of powertrain components.
For any application it is important to make sure, that the requirements and the duty cycle are well understood and that the system, sub-system and the components are very well fitted together for their individual usage. High efficiency plays an important role, especially for the electric powertrain, since energy storage systems are still very cost effective. High performance simulation tools are used to support the effort of finding an overall optimized solution. Safe and environmental friendly solutions are a must for Bosch. However cost, efficiency, function, weight and packaging are also important requirements. Often, the first system development solution found is not the best to meet all these criteria. Iterations have to be made using simulation tools and measurements in order to find out what is best for each individual system layout.
What has to be kept in mind: “The optimum of each subsystem and component is not necessarily the overall optimum of the entire system“.
By Heiko Weller, Bosch.
