A New Consideration for Validating Battery Performance at Low Ambient Temperatures

Existing validation methods for equivalent circuit models (ECMs) do not capture the effects of operating lithium-ion cells over legislative drive cycles at low ambient temperatures. Unrealistic validation of an ECM may often lead to reduced accuracy in electric vehicle range estimation. In this study, current and power are used to illustrate the different approaches for validating ECMs when operating at low ambient temperatures (−15 °C to 25 °C). It was found that employing a current-based approach leads to under-testing of the performance of lithium-ion cells for various legislative drive cycles (NEDC; FTP75; US06; WLTP-3) compared to the actual vehicle. In terms of energy demands, this can be as much as ~21% for more aggressive drive cycles but even ~15% for more conservative drive cycles. In terms of peak power demands, this can range from ~27% for more conservative drive cycles to ~35% for more aggressive drive cycles. The research findings reported in this paper suggest that it is better to use a power-based approach (with dynamic voltage) rather than a current-based approach (with fixed voltage) to characterise and model the performance of lithium-ion cells for automotive applications, especially at low ambient temperatures. This evidence should help rationalize the approaches in a model-based design process leading to potential improvements in real-world applications for lithium-ion cells.