Battery monitoring in hybrid vehicles
By L. Colombel and R. Portas
Luc Colombel is Vice President, Automotive Division, LEM. Ramon Portas is Director of Automotive Sales in Europe
The market for hybrid gasoline/electric and diesel/electric vehicles is beginning to gain momentum, especially in the US and Asia. These vehicles bring new requirements for accurate battery condition monitoring. For hybrid vehicles to operate at maximum efficiency, the full capacity of the battery must be used during each discharge cycle (when the car is using the electric motors and the combustion engine is not consuming power). If the control system activates the combustion engine before the battery has been fully discharged, fuel consumption will increase. If, on the other hand, the restart of the combustion engine is delayed too long, there is a risk that the battery will discharge completely, and that the car will “stay stuck”.
