This article introduces the current status and development trends of new energy vehicles in Europe, covering the European auto market, the EU’s carbon emission regulations, the new energy promotion policies of EU governments, and the new energy vehicle strategies and technical road-maps of European original equipment manufactures (OEMs). Although the long-term goals of new energy vehicles of major European OEMs are different, because they must comply with the same CO₂ emission regulations, the short-term technical road-maps are similar, that is, pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles go hand in hand. In terms of power batteries, European OEMs have all adopted lithium ion battery technology; In terms of pure electric powertrain system, European OEMs basically adopt the configuration of drive motor combined with single speed reducer; In terms of hybrid powertrain systems, the choice of European OEMs is based on the parallel structure, which has not only potential for optimizing energy transmission efficiency, enriching working modes, but also giving full play to the traditional advantages of European OEMs in engine and transmission technology. It is worth mentioning that dedicated hybrid transmission (DHT) technology has been successfully launched in Europe. This technology can give full play to the advantages of electrified powertrains and is forming a development trend. The EU’s strict CO₂ emission regulations are the biggest driving force to ensure the sustainable development of new energy vehicles in the next few decades. Europe’s strength in traditional automotive technology, production, and sales is also becoming a strong advantage in the development of its new energy vehicles. It is expected that in the next ten years, the share of new energy vehicles in Europe will continue to grow steadily, and new energy vehicles will dominate the European market before 2040

The limitation of traction battery systems in performance, cost, life, and safety constitutes the bottleneck for
the diffusion of electric vehicles. This paper analyzes dozens of electric vehicles in the phase of R & D and several major
commercialized electric vehicles, identifies and reviews four key technologies for the traction battery system, the assembly
of cells into the battery, thermal management, electric energy management, and safety. Underlying these key technologies,
two fundamental academic issues are specified: 1) the generation, transfer, and removal of heat in the stacked composite
system comprising cells and heat conduction plates/flow fields; 2) the modeling, identification, and control of the battery
system comprising a multitude of non-linear, time-varying cells connected in parallel and series. Further development
tendency for traction battery systems are viewed, such as the smart cell and the integration with the grid and internet.

Life prediction and performance state estimation online are important in the life stage for each lithium-ion battery in electrical vehicles (EVs). The battery capacity and internal resistance were used to compare the model structure and the chemical meaning of eigen-parameters of two basic approaches; one is the identification of specific parameters based on the Equivalent Circuit Model (ECM) in the time domain and the other is Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) analysis in the frequency domain. The results show that the common inherent conflict between the nonlinearity of batteries and the linearization of the identification algorithm constrains the development of lithium-ion battery in EV. Therefore, proposals such as aging mechanism, new life modeling approach, hardware structures and algorithm improvement are given to resolve the difficulties encountered in the implementation of battery life estimation online for lithium-ion systems.

Lightweighting of automotive is an important measure for energy conservation and emissions
reduction with significance for sustainable development of automotive industry. This paper summarizes the
current research and future trends of automotive lightweight technology in China and in the world from three
aspects: the structural optimization, the lightweight materials, and the advanced manufacturing technology.
The review includes the basic principles and research developments of structural size optimization, shape
optimization, to pological optimization, and multidisciplinary design optimization. And it introduces the
applications of high-strength steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, plastic material, composite material;
as well as the applications of hydroform and laser welding in automotive industry. The authors think that the
lightweight technology future research area are the improvement of automotive structural optimization theory,
the multi-material integration, the lightweight components, and the systematization and integration of lightweight
technology.

PMSM (permanent magnet synchronous motor) drive systems has been having general used in
various industries needed high precision control due to a rapid development of microprocessors. The proper
system configuration is still complex and time consuming. To overcome such a limitation, this paper presents
a FOC (Field Oriented Control) algorithm for PMSM speed control algorithm performed in Matlab/Simulink by
using standard blocks only, which is realized in almost any DSP (Digital Signal Processing) processor by using
auto-coding tool in Matlab. STM32F4 microcontroller was employed. Simple Active Currents Reading Error
Compensator was introduced for appropriate feedback signals filtering. Precision of the signal was set to around
10 mA of current –10 Bit with an Analog-to-Digital Converter operated by three bidirectional 5-A Hall current
sensors. A PMSM sensored motor was tested in 0~2 000 r/min. The experimental step responses to desired
speeds show good dynamic and smooth performance of the entire system.

The state-of-the-art and technical trends of intelligent and connected vehicle (ICV) are illustrated.
The ICV system architecture included the value chain, technology chain and industrial chain. The four stages of
ICVs were the advanced assistance, connected assistance, cooperative automation and highly/fully automated
driving. Some key technologies of ICVs were introduced such as environmental perception, decision making,
dynamical control, human-machine copilot, V2X communication and platform, cyber security. Therefore, China
should develop the ICV industry rely on the top-down design by using the national institutional advantages
because the ICV will be an important direction of the automotive technology in the future, and the ICV
development is a great opportunity for the transformation and upgrading of China's automobile industry.

The performance and life of electric-vehicle battery-systems are affected by the temperature. A
liquid cooling/heating Battery Thermal Management (BTM) with an optimum geometric structure was designed
to keep the average battery-system temperature in the range from 20 ℃ to 45 ℃ and the temperature gradient
within 3 ℃ . According to overall system flow balancing in a BTM, cooling/heating plates with different structure
parameters were simulated to investigate cooling effects of the BTM. An infrared thermal imager monitored the
cooling/heating plate temperature rises in battery-system heating experiments. Experimental and simulation
results were shown to be the same. The results show that the structure with an inlet and an outlet on the
same side has an even flow distribution. By combining the simulation and optimization, the obtained optimum
combination of the inlet velocity and the temperature in the cooling/heating plate reduces the plate-surfacetemperature
standard-deviation to 2.61 ℃ , and makes the battery system uniformly heated.

Several countries’ governments are producing mandatory regulations of automotive engineering
to reduce CO2 emission and fuel consumption. The electric vehicles are one of the results by engineers'
special efforts. This paper gives a wider view of innovation of automotive engineering and a look into the
future. Technology trends include that 1) More Intelligent driver assistance systems can be distinguished
into safety functions, comfort functions, traffic efficiency improvement and environmental effect reduction; 2)
Body technology is determined by the used materials with competition between multi-materials, steel, and
carbon fibres; 3) Chassis technology is improved by integrated vehicle dynamics control, active suspension
components and material application; 4) Drive trains are converted into hybrid-drives with intelligent solutions
on the horizon for these hybrid gearboxes, but also for four-wheel drive systems; 5) Electronic control is
focusing on central control modules, the mobile phone for quite new applications and inventions for car
lighting.

Field data analyses have shown that the occupant protection in rear seats failed to keep pace with the advances in front seats likely due to their low occupancy and the lack of advanced safety technologies. This study provided a comprehensive literature review on rear seat occupant protection addressing the different needs for a diverse population, ranging from children in harness restraints to adults with a wide range of stature, age, and body shape. Based on the findings from field data analyses, experimental studies, and computational simulations, rear seat safety can be improved by properly using age-appropriate child restraints and introducing
adjustable/advanced/adaptive features into the rear seat restraint systems. However, the lack of biofidelic injury assessment tools for children, older, and/or obese occupants will be one of the major challenges for further improving the rear seat safety. The increased proportion of older and obese populations, the growth of lightweight vehicles, the popularity of smart-phone-based ride service, and the advances in active safety technology and autonomous vehicles will likely increase the significance of rear seat safety but at the same time will pose additional challenges. All these trends suggested that more efforts on optimizing rear seat restraint systems adapting to a wide range of impact conditions, occupant characteristics and sitting postures are necessary in the future.

 Investments of automotive safety technology have substantially been increased due to heavy casualty in traffic accident in China. It thereby accelerates the improvement of R&D capability of safety technology and commercialization process. The fact that the domestic-brand vehicles have achieved C-NCAP 5-star rating marks a great leap forward in terms of passive safety technology in China. The research of passive safety is further performed with regard to pedestrian protection, rear-row passenger’s protection, whiplash protection and cyclist protection. Meanwhile, the research and development of active safety, pre-crash safety and intelligent automotive network system have become the focuses. The perfect combination of high level active and passive safety technology regarding to passenger, vehicle and environment will promote the accomplishment of safety philosophy of zero crash and zero casualty. The subject establishment of state-level development and industrialization, and regulations constitution and perfection thereof will become the driving force of rapid growth of auto safety technology

The current international vehicle technology was introduced. This article described the passive safety technology: automotive collision safety design and vehicle structure design technology, key technology of advanced passenger restraint systems, vehicle safety devices to protect pedestrians, collision safety and security performance evaluation database platform; and the active safety technology: vehicle dynamics stability control technology, integrated chassis control technology, intelligent security auxiliary control technology, pre-warning technology based on people - Vehicle dangerous condition monitoring. A development mode of the advanced automotive security technology, was proposed. The  trends of the car-road coordinate control, intelligent highway and basic research of common technology were also preseuted.

To promote the fuel economy level of passenger vehicle industry in China is beneficial to energy
saving and emission reduction. The Corporate Average Fuel Consumption (CAFC) of passenger vehicles
in China market was investigated based on the authority’s data and standards. The results show that the
passenger-vehicle CAFC in China market in the year of 2011 is 7.5 L/(100 km), which overall meets the target
value of Phase 2 in the "Limits of Fuel Consumption for Passenger Cars" (GB 19578-2004, 2004-09-02) of
China, but does not meet the target of Phase 3 (GB 27999-2011, 2011-12-30). The vehicle companies with
independent-brands have lower real CAFC values than those with the joint-venture-brands, but have a higher
ratio of the real value to the CAFC target standard, so they have more work to do to meet the Phase 3 standard.
Compared with domestic vehicles, imported passenger vehicles have higher CAFC real values and a higher
ratio of the real value to the target standard, which shows a severe challenge to the domestic vehicles.

Ethanol is being promoted as a renewable fuel and as a means of improving energy security. The
blends of gasoline and ethanol from 0 – 100 % ethanol were studied to evaluate their spray characteristics,
combustion performances, and particulate emissions with blends of ethanol and water with up to 40 % water
by volume being tested to research the combustion performances of different water ethanol blends and the
miscibility of water with ethanol/gasoline blends using ternary phase diagrams for gasoline, ethanol, and water.
The results show that presence of water in ethanol/gasoline mixtures is not an impediment to their use as a fuel
in gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines. Adding ethanol to gasoline increases the injected fuel volume and the
persistence of the fuel sprays, especially for a cold engine, leads to reduced mixture homogeneity, a decrease
in the combustion stability, and an increase in particulate matter emissions for a stoichiometric mixture. Adding
water to ethanol further increases injected fuel volume, but the increase in combustion duration and reduction in
combustion stability are not significant with up to 30 % water by volume.

A review on the state-of-art in the world for fuel cell technology was given, which is an efficient,
clean, and new energy technology, including in China, northern America, European Union, Japan, South Korea
and so on. A comparison analysis was made in different aspects, such as the technical specifications of fuel
cell vehicles, the lifetime and the environmental adaptability of fuel cell engines, the hydrogen storage system,
the key materials, the auxiliary system of fuel cells, the demonstration of fuel cell vehicles and the infrastructure
of hydrogen refueling stations. The results show that global automobile companies are prepared for the
industrialization of fuel cell vehicles, and will enter mass production stage in 2015; while fuel cell vehicles are still
in the demonstration stage in China. The future hot points in next generation fuel cell vehicles are the cell life
extension, the system cost reduction, the hydrogen infrastructure construction, and commercial demonstration.

Authors reviewed the role of fuel additive in producing quality transportation fuels and fuel additive for optimal vehicle performance, meanwhile studied fuel additive application for advanced hybrid vehicles and direct injection engines. Transportation fuel and vehicle technology are rapidly evolving in response to regulatory and commercial efforts to assure energy supply, improve fuel economy and reduce mobile source emissions.  Along with these changes, the fuels must meet the demands for transportation and storage in a safe and efficient manner and the vehicle performance requirements to ensure acceptable operation in consumer use.  This evaluation looks at the broad class of fuel additives and considers how they can provide fuel producers with a means to readily deliver safe and effective transportation of fuel and to allow for effective operation of changing engine technologies. 

Along with the development of economy and vehicle technology, traffic accidents have some particular characteristics including the high mortality of vulnerable road users and ‘nonstandard groups’ of people, crash incompatibility, high death rate of single-vehicle accidents, and a significant number of accidents caused by drivers’ insufficient perception. The developing trends of active safety technologies and passive safety technologies in terms of each subsystem by analyzing the traffic accident data in China, Europe and the United States since 2000. The main trends of passive safety include protection on vulnerable road users, adaptive passenger protection, crash compatibility and adaptive crashworthiness. The main trends of active safety include vehicle dynamic management and intelligent driving assistant. The comprehensive safety technology integrating the active and passive safety will be an important trend for the development of future vehicles.

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology has already made tremendous advances. However,
performance, cost, and durability remain the key problems before PEM fuel cells can be successfully commercialized. This
paper is a review of current status in the study of PEM fuel cells and the existing challenges for their use in electrical vehicle
(EV) applications,basedon a survey of the published literature. In reviewing the current status, we introduce presentstate-ofthe-
art PEM fuel cell technology for EV applications and look at key technical achievements. PEM fuel cell research has made
particularly significant progress in improving performance, cost, and durability, primarily focusing on the main components of
the stack and system. Nonetheless, commercialization of fuel cell electrical vehicle (FCEV) applications is still confronted with
performance, cost, and durability hurdles, hindering the achievement of the 2010/2015 US DOE (Department of Energy) targets.
The maintenance of fuel cell vehicles as another component of their future commercializationwas also reviewed.

  Contactless power transfer systems are desirable having more compact and lightweight for electric vehicles (EVs) recharging. A transformer of the system was developed according to the criteria of having high efficiency, a large air gap, and good tolerance to misalignment. The transformer uses series and parallel capacitors with rectangular cores and double-sided windings, with the size of 240 mm×300 mm×40 mm, the gap length of (70 ± 20) mm, the misalignment tolerance in the lateral direction of ± 125 mm, and the secondary mass of 4.6 kg. The characteristics of the system were studied with a charge control circuit and lead acid batteries being connected to the secondary winding. The results show that an output power of 1.5 kW and efficiency of 95% was achieved in the normal position and that the system has acompact-structure, light-weight, and satisfies the above criteria.

Diesel engine has advantages of low fuel consumption, high torque output and wide power range,
and has been widely used in transportation and engineering machinery as a power. The diesel powered
vehicles can only meet future stringent emission regulations using aftertreatment devices. This paper compared
the different vehicle emission regulations in Europe, the USA, Japan and China, and analyzed in-cylinder and
aftertreatment technical approaches to meet the emission regulations for light-duty and heavy-duty diesel
vehicles. The research status of the mainstream aftertreatment technologies like diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC),
nitrogen oxides (NOx) selective catalytic reduction (SCR), lean NOx trap (LNT) and diesel particulate filter (DPF)
was described and discussed. The future development of the diesel emission regulations and aftertreatment
technologies was prospected.

Temperature sensitivity statistics were collected and analyzed for lithium-ion battery (LIB) of electric
vehicles (EV) based on survey of papers and patents. The results show that low and high temperatures have
great effect on the performances, respectively, severely affecting the operation and the market penetration of
EVs. To mitigate this problem, some techniques are used including changing raw material properties, optimizing
cell designs, and using battery thermal management systems (BTMS). Further research for temperature
sensitivity is to improve the cathode materials and anode materials of LIB to increase electric conductivities
and ionic conductivities; to optimize electrode structures and cell structures to uniform thermal and electrical
distribution; to develop new protocols for alternating current (AC) preheating/charging at low temperatures; and
to incorporate the liquid cooling method.

Since China promised to “reach the carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2060” at the 75th United Nations General Assembly in September 2020, the Paris Agreement signed by major countries and regions in 2016 has controlled the rise of global temperature and accelerated carbon neutrality policies and actions. As the leading power of a large number of road and non-road mobile machinery and national defense equipment, internal combustion engine (ICE) not only undertakes the important mission of energy saving and emission reduction in the near and medium term, but also faces great challenges and important opportunities on how to achieve carbon neutrality in the future. Based on the analysis of carbon neutrality policies and actions in major European countries, America, Japan and China, this paper puts forward two technical paths and their feasibility of low-carbon and zero carbon of ICE in the near and medium term, as well as the key technologies to be solved for zero carbon ICE fueled by biomass fuel, green hydrogen, green ammonia and green electricity synthesized fuel (e-fuel). It aims to explore the road of sustainable development for the future of ICE. Existing research shows that ICE, as an efficient and high power density thermal engine for converting chemical energy into mechanical energy, still has a large room for energy saving through the combination of electrification and intelligent technologies. Compared with fuel cell power, ICE has a more complete industrial chain, higher technical maturity and lower cost. By utilizing zero carbon fuels, ICE can still be widely used in large-scale power equipment such as heavy trucks, construction machinery, ships and aviation, so as to promote the early realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality in China’s energy and transportation field.

Electromagnetic brakes (EBs) are widely applied in commercial vehicles for their characteristics of
contactless, fast response, and simple controlling. The principle and research situation of EBs were given to
expand their application scopes and functions. The application status, the structure, the working principle and
the control method of EBs were discussed to three main EBs including the eddy current retarder, the rotary eddy
current retarder, and the self-excited retarder for commercial vehicle. The results show that the key technologies
are the external and inner characteristics of the electromagnetic brakes, the matching designs and the design
of control strategy and the controller of united braking system of both electromagnetic and friction. Technology
focus for electromagnetic braking will be the integrated system of electromagnetic brakes and frictional brakes,
and function extension of electromagnetic brake system.

Safe-driving was assisted with key parameters calibrated according to the driver’s characteristics
using a developed system of vehicle collision warning and collision avoidance (CW/CA). The system defines the
inverse of time-to-collision (TTC-1) as the evaluation index with the grading warning and braking safe distance
model adopted based on hazardous level ε . A millimeter waveradar obstacle detection method was designed
with adaptive cruise control (ACC). The system configuration and control logic were designed based on a Jetta
car with the collision avoidance test and the manual / automatic interaction test implemented on dry roads. The
real car experiments show that the CW/CA system in accordance with desired TTC-1 index improves vehicle
active safety, and embodies the driver’s priority and cooperation.

This paper summarizes the developments for vehicles and fuels in an energy and environmentally
constrained world to solve transportation problems of air pollution, energy insecurity, and climate change. The
results show that as the regulatory landscape in Europe and North America has recently moved to reductions
of greenhouse gas emission caused by motor vehicles, efficient vehicle technologies and low-carbon fuels will
play increasingly important roles in the transportation sector. Globally, multiple solutions are being pursued. Such
solutions include efficient vehicle technologies, clean fuels, alternative fuels (including biofuels, advanced biofuels),
and electric drive technologies such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and battery-powered electric vehicles. Strong
regulatory requirements for energy conservation and emission reductions for motor vehicles can continue to provide
a platform and incentives for research, development, and deployment of these vehicle and fuel technologies.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) was perhaps the most attractive topic during
the last decade for engine combustion researchers so was subsequently investigated more intensively than other
engine technologies. Its application has stagnated at the present but its derivatives such as partially premixed
compression ignition (PPCI) still remain as promising alternatives to the conventional combustion systems. This
paper presents an overview of the research on HCCI and its derivatives and it also provides a future outlook of
the next generation of new combustion systems in relation to the concept of premixed compression ignition. It is
believed that multiple injections of multiple fuels using even higher compression ratios combined with boosting
will be the way forwards for high efficiency engines and this development trend will likely lead to merging of
diesel and gasoline engine technologies using premixed compression ignition.

Vehicle networking (VNC) is a combine of vehicle and “Telematics”. A new VNC concept based on
triple-network convergence was put forward to answer some misunderstanding in VNC. The three networks
include the on-board mobile internet, the inter-vehicle network, and the in-vehicle networking. The Telematics,
the V2V (vehicle to vehicle) / V2I (vehicle to infrastructure), and the in-vehicle networking are fusing each other,
and are integrating to V2X (X includes vehicles, infrastructures, pedestrians, internets or other needs). The
definition and the connotation of VNC were proposed with the three core values including mobility, safety, and
environment, and with three applicability key-technologies and four common key-technologies. The applications
in automotive industry and prospects of the VNC were indicated.

The technologies for development of spark ignition direct injection (SIDI) engines still need further research in China. Advanced
spray laser diagnostics, three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3-D CFD) modeling and the combustion diagnostics based on optical
engine play leading roles in the development of SIDI combustion systems. Among these technologies, advanced laser diagnostics is becoming
increasingly important, because through laser diagnostics one can realize visualization and quantitative measurements of in-cylinder processes,
which are essential for validation of CFD modeling and understanding the physical phenomena in the mixture formation and combustion
processes. This paper summarizes and compares various technologies in spray laser diagnostics which are used to provide information
for modern SIDI combustion system development. The review includes diagnostics for spray structures, flow fields, droplet sizes and fuel
evaporation, which enables optimization and matching of the spray, air flow and the combustion chamber of an SIDI combustion system.

Development status and trend of connected automated vehicle highway (CAVH) system are presented. The system consists of four key modules: sensing module, fusion and prediction module, planning module, and control module. The system initially starts from a level of “simple vehicle, smart road” or “smart
system” and gradually migrates to a higher-level system of “smart vehicle, smart road”, which can significantly improve transportation efficiency, traffic safety and energy consumption. The development of the CAVH system is very important for China. Accordingly, the roles and functions of government agencies in transportation planning, construction and management need be well defined to develop the CAVH system.

This paper illustrates the development of Chinese automotive industry and the evolvement of related energy and emission regulations in the decade 2000—2009. It points out that the importance of energy-saving will exceed the problem of pollution. Gasoline direct injection (GDI) and downsizing are the main two approaches for low fuel consumption.The downsizing technology for port fuel injection (PFI) gasoline engines has an advantage of low cost, while the downsizing technology for GDI engines has a better fuel economy. The 2nd generation of GDI engines with stoichiometric combustion has a limited potential of low fuel consumption. The 3rd generation of GDI engine should solve three problems, including knock at high compression ratio, combustion stability in exhaust diluted atmosphere, and particulate matters formation in stratified mixture. Homogeneous charge compression ignition ( HCCI) is an ideal combustion mode for energy-saving and emission reduction of gasoline engines. Gasoline/diesel dual-fuel combustion can reach the highest benefit on fuel consumption, providing the possibility for unification of gasoline engines and diesel engines in the future.

Durability is one of the challenges for the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles. The mechanisms and solutions
for fuel cell degradation are elucidated from the material and system point of view. In the aspect of fuel cell system, typical
operating processes are analyzed, such as driving cycles, start-stop, low load and idle conditions, in which reactant starvation,
dynamic potential scanning and local high potential have significant impacts on the fuel cell durability. Feasible strategies are also
discussed for mitigating the degradation. The current state and perspective are addressed on the durability of key material in fuel
cells, i.e., catalyst, catalyst support, proton exchange membrane, membrane electrode assembly and bipolar plate. The effective
methods to enhance the fuel cell durability should be based on both the material innovation and system improvement. Currently,
the improvement on system control strategy is a feasible way to prolong fuel cell lifetime although it has been result in a complex
system. Nevertheless, material innovation is a long term task to promote the fuel cell durability. Fuel cells with advanced durable
materials and simply system is a desirable goal for the fuel cell vehicle application.

The current global energy structure is in a period of transition, in which low carbon and carbon neutralisation are among top priorities in all economic operations and planning activities, including the automotive industry. There is a diversified development trend in the energy sources of automotive power systems. The electrification starting from light duty vehicles seems to be an irreversible general direction, but it may take a longer time as was expected earlier. The hydrogen era faces many challenges of various technical and non-technical issues before its arrival. Artificial intelligence(AI) is becoming more and more widely used in every stage of vehicle research and product development involving application. This article introduces the development trend of powertrain system diversification towards 2035, the year when the significant tradition is supposed to take place, with related thought and outlook.

The clean energy power generation technology represented by photoelectric and wind power can provide clean power supply for electric vehicles, reduce the carbon emissions of the whole life cycle, and help the realization of the “dual carbon” strategic goal in the field of transportation, so it has been rapidly developed in recent years. In order to promote the application of transportation and energy integration technology and clarify the key issues in related research, this paper reviews the research progress of domestic and foreign scholars in the integration technology of electric vehicles and clean energy in the past 10 years. Firstly, the necessity and practical significance of the integrated development of the two are introduced. Secondly, the existing research results are divided into two categories: highway environment and urban road environment, and the current research results of electric vehicle and clean energy integration technology are summarized from the three levels of power grid, charging station and vehicle. And finally, considering the strong random fluctuations in clean energy power generation and electric vehicle charging, Some suggestions on the future development direction are put forward, such as strengthening the integrated development of public energy, constructing a variety of complementary clean energy generation strategies, establishing the integrated optimization technology of “source-network-charge-storage”, strengthening the self-consistent energy scheduling of distributed micro-grid, and strengthening the operation and management of wireless photovoltaic charging roads.

Driven by both national policies and market demand, Chinese automakers have achieved breakthroughs in hybrid powertrain technology since 2021. They have launched a range of hybrid electric vehicles tailored to the market demand and consumer preference in China, embodying distinct Chinese characteristics and leading globally in the field. Recently, the sales of hybrid electric vehicles have exploded. In 2023, sales of hybrid passenger cars in the Chinese market exceeded 3 million units, marking an 83% year-on-year increase. However, influenced by the electrification megatrend, there still exists the viewpoint in the automotive industry that hybrid electric vehicles are merely transitional technology. Some consumers are also skeptical about the domestic hybrid electric vehicles. To correct these biased perceptions, this paper explores China's hybrid vehicle powertrain technology routes, focuses on diversified hybrid architectures and dedicated core components, and introduces a novel definition for the degree of hybridization, serving as a generalized index for evaluating the level of electrification in powertrains. It compares the mainstream hybrid technologies both domestically and internationally, analyzes cutting-edge features and development trends. The research highlights that Chinese hybrid electric vehicles feature large-capacity power batteries and plug-in hybrid technology, allowing for flexible integration and agile synergies between power sources (engine and motor) and energy sources (power battery and range-extending system). Compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, hybrids enable focusing on improvement in engine thermal efficiency, engine operating efficiency, and overall fuel economy through electric drive integration. In contrast to battery electric vehicles, hybrids mitigate range anxiety cost-effectively by using the engine-generated electricity. They also achieve endurant and strong power output at lower hardware costs by leveraging mechanical drivetrain technologies such as engine driving and transmission torque amplification. These distinctive advantages position hybrid electric vehicles as pivotal in steering the automotive industry towards a carbon-neutral direction in the long term. The sharpened insight into today’s market and clarified vision of the future presented in the article could be beneficial to the further advancement of hybrid powertrain technology in China.

With the rapid advancement of intelligent connected technology, the functionalities of intelligent vehicular terminals equipped in connected vehicles have correspondingly expanded. After decades of development, these intelligent vehicular terminal systems have made significant progress in various domains and demonstrated substantial potential in the field of autonomous driving. This paper begins with the current status of intelligent vehicular terminals within the connected environment, describes the architecture of these systems, and reviews their evolutionary journey facilitated by intra-vehicle communication and vehicle-to-road cooperative empowerment. Furthermore, the paper delves into the profound impact of innovations in vehicular network wireless communication technology in the 5G era on the development of intelligent vehicular terminals. It also thoroughly reviews recent research achievements in cooperative driving and control, edge computing and fog computing, and digital twinning, while also anticipating the challenges these terminals face in information security and autonomous driving testing.

496 elderly and 431 young and middle-aged pedestrian accident samples extracted from the China In-depth Accident Survey (CIDAS) database were studied to clarify the differences between the injury characteristics and injury risk of elderly and young adults pedestrians, and to provide a theoretical basis for improving pedestrian collision safety regulations. Firstly, the distribution of injury sites and the similarities and differences of injury types between aged and young adult pedestrians were compared. Furthermore, the injury risk curves of head AIS3+, chest AIS3+ and lower limb AIS2+ of elderly and young pedestrians based on vehicle collision velocity were established. The results show that the difference between the two types of pe-destrians in the proportion of chest injuries is as high as 20.9%. At 40 km/h collision speed, the differences in the risk of head, chest and lower limb injuries are 38.9%, 39% and 21.2%, re-spectively. Therefore, the improvement of pedestrian crash safety regulations in China can consider the test methods or injury criteria of elderly and young pedestrians differently, and it is particularly necessary to include the car-elderly chest crash test evaluation method.

The global automotive industry is experiencing a wave of electrification and intelligence. The automotive product definition and industrial pattern are being reshaped. China’s new energy vehicle sales reached 8.3 million units from January to November 2023, a year-on-year increase of 37%, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 31%. Tesla leads the technological transformation and evolution trend of the global automotive industry. In 2022, Tesla sold 1.31 million vehicles, which is still far behind Toyota (about 10.48 million vehicles) and other manufacturers. However, its market value has exceeded US$700 billion, ranking first among global automakers, reflecting investors' optimism about its long-term development. Reviewing Tesla's development history, the author concludes that its success is mainly based on three reasons: self-developed full-stack technology; defining products based on first principle; and continuous cost reduction driving sales growth. New entrants and technology companies are actively following up, and traditional companies are accelerating their transformation. In 2022, local brands already accounted for 80% of China's new energy vehicle market. In the future, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China and the world will continue to increase. Under the wave of electrification and intelligence, the pattern of the automotive industry will continue to change. Companies with full-stack self-developed capabilities, product definition and reconstruction capabilities, and industry chain coordination capabilities are expected to gain higher market share.

As the application of the nonlinear air spring model, this paper conducted the dynamic simulation and subjective evaluation of the air suspension vehicle. Combined with frequency and amplitude dependency of the dynamic stiffness model of the air spring and Simulink simulation, a 7 degree-of-freedom model for vehicle with air suspension system was proposed. The root mean square value and power spectral density of suspension dynamic travel and sprung acceleration under different road conditions were compared. The dynamic characteristics of the air suspension vehicle under different speeds, road surfaces and shock absorber damping conditions were analyzed from the perspectives of time and frequency domain. The subjective and objective tests were carried out on the vehicle equipped with different air springs. The results show that the prediction error of suspension dynamic travel is less than 7%, and the prediction error of sprung position acceleration resonance peak value and resonance frequency is less than 6%. Therefore, the results verify the universality and accuracy of the proposed model. The model can reflect the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle with air suspension, and can provide mechanism explanations for subjective and objective ride comfort tests.

A life-cycle carbon emission assessment model was developed for mini-electric vehicles in the Chinese context to answer how much carbon reduction would be achieved by mini-electric vehicles in China's context. The research used the GREET (the Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation) model, which including: the cradle-to-gate (CTG), the energy cycle (or well-to-wheel, WTW), and the gate-to-cradle (GTC), based on a typical travel data of 1 030 vehicle·days from mini-electric vehicles. The results show that the mini-electric vehicles' average daily travel distance is 37.2 km, and the daily travel mileage of 73.1% days are less than 50.0 km. With average grid conditions in 2021, the life-cycle carbon emissions (CO₂ equivalent) of mini-electric vehicles are 26.8 t per vehicle with the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) driving cycle, which is about 33% lower than that of internal combustion engine vehicles in the same class. The WTW carbon emission (CO₂ equivalent) of a mini-electric vehicle is 19.3 t, accounting for 72% of life-cycle emissions. The improvement of power-grid cleanliness and the increase in the power-battery recycling rate of will help to further reduce the carbon emission by pure electric mini vehicles.

A human-like safe-speed-planning method was proposed for vehicle curve entry considering coasting and safe-speed based on the chaos theory and the real curve driving velocity data to improve the safety, the comfort and the travel efficiency of autonomous vehicles. A comfort mode and an efficiency mode were constructed through formulating the curve-entry speed-planning problem of autonomous vehicles as the multi-objective optimization problems. A singularity velocity was defined to simplify the constraint condition with high-order and non-linear characteristics and to improve its computation efficiency. The results show that both the lateral accelerations and the longitudinal accelerations satisfied the friction circle constraint for the proposed strategy, with guaranteeing the driving safety in different curve scenarios. Compared with the method regardless of coasting, the maximum longitudinal acceleration, which are generated by the proposed strategy, was reduced by 9.76% in the comfort mode with the travel efficiency being improved by 61.73%. In the efficiency mode, the longitudinal accelerations values are the acceleration threshold, which satisfy the acceleration constraint with an increase of 88% in traffic efficiency. Therefore, both the comfort mode and the efficiency mode achieve a balance between comfort and travel efficiency.

A black spot discrimination method for road-traffic accidents was proposed based on spatiotemporal combination to improve the identification accuracy, and to assist the prevention and control of traffic accidents. The spatiotemporal overlap rate was used to measure the road danger degree; the cumulative frequency of the spatiotemporal overlap rate was fitted by using the hyperbolic tangent function; and the point corresponding to the fitted-function curvature minimum-radius was stipulated as the critical value; and the spatiotemporal composite points, which were larger than the critical value, were discriminated as the accident black spots; The traffic accident data collected by the Traffic Police Brigade of the Second Jurisdiction of the Chengnan (Chengdu-Nanchong) Expressway were utilized to conduct an example study. A total of 13 accident black spots was discriminated from 64 effective cases by utilizing the time-space composite method. The results show that the Crash Prediction Accuracy Index (CPAI) values are 2.29, 2.03, 2.03, 2.29, respectively for the accident frequency method, for the cumulative frequency curve method, the kernel density analysis method, and the spatiotemporal overlap rate method. It means that the spatiotemporal overlap rate method has good discriminatory accuracy. The spatiotemporal overlap rate method, which combines both spatial and temporal dimensions, increases the reliability of black spot discrimination.

The driver's femur and tibia injury characteristics from the accelerator pedal mounted on floor in Euro NCAP frontal offset crash were investigated with formulating corresponding femur and tibia protection strategy. Including analyzing the characteristics of the foot kinematics and the injury curves during crash test for two kinds of vehicles equipped respectively with a body front panel and a floor mounted accelerator pedal on a same platform. An advanced strategy of femur and tibia protection was proposed by using tests and finite element simulation analysis, and was verified in the vehicle crash test. The results show that the tibia injury for the accelerator pedal on body front panel generates mainly in the lower tibia with the high bending moment in X direction caused by foot outward rotation; The injuries of the floor mounted accelerator pedal are small, which occurred in the upper tibia and femur with a high bending moment in Y direction and knee slider displacement caused by the impact of the tibia on the dashboard. By using the advanced strategy, the knee slider is improved by 72.2% with an upper tibia index (TI) of 48.6% compared to the strategy before optimization, while the knee slider displacement (D_S) is improved by 11.5% with an upper tibia index of 25% compared to the stages of vehicle mounted accelerator pedal on body front panel.

The visual obstacle is the main cause of collisions between cars and electric two-wheelers at intersections. In order to clarify the accident characteristics and facilitate the development of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) test scenarios for electric two-wheelers suitable for Chinese roads, this paper statistically analyzed the traffic violations, obstacle types and accident scenarios of 510 cases of car-to-electric two-wheel vehicle collisions with visual impairments in the Road Vulnerable Group Traffic Accidents (VRU-TRAVi) database. The relationship between the speed and time to collision (TTC) in the different collision scenarios was investigated and analyzed, the impact of obstacles on accident avoidance were also calculated with frame-by-frame analysis and direct linear theory. And the accident characteristics and scenario statistics were compared with the results of previous studies. The results show that four typical collision scenarios in the car-to-electric two-wheel vehicle with visual obstacles are extracted: fixed obstacle scenarios, adjacent lane of the vehicle in the reverse direction of travel or the same direction waiting for the vehicle as an obstacle scenarios, and non-adjacent lane moving obstacle scenarios. The average of TTC in the four scenarios are 1.12, 1.02, 0.96, and 1.27 s. The car speeds are 24-47, 27-46, 27-46, and 18-45 km/h; the electric two-wheeled vehicle speeds are15-27, 15-24, 15-24, and 16-24 km/h. The research results can provide reference for the key technology of pre-collision accident scene test of electric two-wheelers with visual impairment.

A finite element model was developed to simulate side-collision scenarios on a new type of energy-vehicle (EV) battery-pack to enhance the battery safety of EVs in the side-collision accidents. Using LS-DYNA, five different collision simulations were performed at various speeds. The stress curves at the geometric center of the battery pack's side wall and the battery module damage conditions were extracted. A predictive neural network model from the back propagation (BP) was established for battery module collision damage based on the correlation between the stress curves and the battery-module damage-conditions factors. The model's input quantity was the stress curves, and the output vector was the module damage conditions. The results show that three blocks at five different speeds are predicted incorrectly after collisions, while the remaining 177 blocks are predicted correctly with an accuracy rate of 98.33%. Therefore, this algorithm's design enables the identification of specific modules prone to damage in electric vehicles during side collisions, which holds significant implications for enhancing overall electric vehicle safety.

The damage and energy absorption characteristics of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminated cylindrical shells under the condition of drop hammer impact were studied to explore the application prospect of CFRP in automotive curved parts. Based on the homogenization method of composite materials, a multi-scale model of CFRP laminated cylindrical shells was established to investigate the effect of radius of curvature on the impact damage and energy absorption of CFRP laminated cylindrical shells under the penetration condition. The functional relationship between the minimum penetration energy and the material parameters of the laminated cylindrical shell, structural parameters and drop hammer parameters was established with the nonlinear fitting method, so as to realize the rapid prediction of the minimum penetration energy at the conceptual design stage. Compared with the simulation results, the error of the fitting formula is less than 20%. The results show that the peak load width of laminated cylindrical shell is larger and more stable than that of flat plate. Under the impact of 60 J, the damage area of each layer of the laminated cylindrical shell is relatively uniform, and the damage area of the fiber is independent of the curvature radius, and the damage area of the matrix increases with the curvature radius. When the radius of curvature is 100 mm, the laminated shell has good bearing capacity and deformation resistance, and has good impact resistance. When the curvature radius is 200 mm, the laminated shell dissipates the most energy, and the energy absorption effect is better.

A fatigue driving behavior recognition algorithm was proposed based on the deep learning model to identify fatigue driving behavior and to reduce the incidences of road traffic accidents. An illuminance enhancement method and a reflection component equalization method were used to improve the quality of video images. The Machine Vision Toolbox software was used to extract facial behavior features of fatigued drivers. A deep learning model was constructed and trained by using a dual-stream network to achieve fatigue driving behavior recognition. The images of participants' driving behavior in fully enclosed segments during different sleep periods were selected as experimental test targets. The results show that the recognition time is 89 ms, the accuracy is 97.6%, and the recall rate is 97.0% when 1 000 images of fatigue driving behavior are tested by the proposed algorithm; The computing power requirement (floating-point operations per second, FLOPS) is less than or equal to 88. Therefore, this algorithm improves the recognition accuracy of fatigue driving behavior, helps to reduce the incidence of road traffic accidents.

A lane-keeping algorithm was designed with the model predictive control (MPC) algorithm for commercial vehicles equipped with intelligent assisted driving. This algorithm took account parameter estimation and was capable of estimating mass and lateral velocity, which were difficult to directly measure. The extended Kalman filter (EKF) and recursive least squares (RLS) were used to estimate the lateral velocity and the mass of the vehicle, respectively. An MPC lane-keeping controller based on the estimated parameters was designed. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) was constructed. Different test conditions were established to verify the lane keeping algorithm. The results show that compared with the ordinary MPC, the time for vehicle correction is reduced by 28.6 % and the overshoot is smaller in the offset return condition. In the highway condition, the root mean square of the lateral error is reduced by 4.2 cm. At low sensor costs, the correction ability and tracking accuracy are improved.

A typical collision accident between vehicle and safety island was investigated, with reconstructed the accidents by utilizing PC-CRASH to investigate the protective effect of the height design of road traffic safety island on pedestrians and occupants in collision accidents. The influence of different vehicle collision speed and different safety island heights on the safety protection of pedestrians and occupants in the vehicle was analyzed with LS-DYNA based on the accident reconstruction. The results show that too low of the safety island height was the main cause of pedestrian casualties in the collision between vehicle and safety island. In the common speed range (30~50 km/h) of urban roads, the safety island designed with a height of more than 350 mm could effectively prevent the vehicle from driving on the safety island, so as to protect pedestrians. However, the 3-ms peak deceleration of the vehicle is much more than 72 g, which will lead to a high risk of head injury for the occupants of the vehicle. The future safety island design should consider the dual-protection of both pedestrians in the safety island and occupants in the vehicle. Therefore, it should be considered to design energy-absorbing buffer device around the safety island while raising the height of it, so as to better realize the safety protection of occupants in the vehicle through the dual-absorption of both the vehicle and the safety island.

The survival space and top bearing capacity of a heavy truck cab in the crash test cannot meet the roof strength requirements in Protection of the Occupants of the Cab of Commercial Vehicl (GB 26512-2021). In order to improve the top bearing capacity and increase the survival space of the passengers, the finite element analysis (FEA) model of the side-top pressure impact of the cab was established, and the effectiveness of the model was verified by simulation and test benchmarking. According to the energy transmission characteristics of the body frame structure and the closed cavity, the weak parts such as A-pillar, rear wall and roof were locked accurately, and the effective optimization plan was formulated. The result shows that dredging the key force transmission paths such as the A-pillar, roof and rear wall, and forming a closed cavity section can effectively improve the roof strength, so that the top bearing capacity of the cab can be increased from 70 kN to 102 kN under the premise of satisfying survival space, the carrying capacity has increased by 31.3%. The structural optimization idea can provide theoretical guidance for the design and development of body structure.

A multi-vehicle collaborative path planning method based on distributed model predictive control (DMPC) was proposed to address the conflict issues in the intelligent connected autonomous driving environment at signal-free intersections with multiple vehicles, The approach employed a distributed model predictive control framework for independent calculations among multiple vehicles. It utilizes a rolling temporal prediction of surrounding vehicle trajectories to facilitate future state interactions between vehicles. The planning results were shared based on the vehicle-vehicle interaction communication feature in the intelligent connected environment. The method introduced safety constraints such as road boundary constraints, acceleration constraints, and collision constraints. The safety trajectory for multiple vehicles to safely navigate through a signal-free intersection was computed through quadratic programming. The effectiveness of the proposed method was validated by establishing a signal-free intersection environment using the MATLAB driving scenario designer module under two different scenarios. The results show that under straight and curved driving conditions, the inter-vehicle minimum distances are 2.58 m and 2.99 m, respectively, meeting the safety distance constraints for collision avoidance. The method achieves collaborative collision avoidance among multiple vehicles while ensuring passage efficiency.

Based on real traffic accident cases in the national vehicle accident depth investigation system, a human-vehicle collision finite element model was established and verified to investigate the lower limb kinematic response and biomechanical injury characteristics of pedestrians in human-vehicle collisions. Three postures of pedestrians standing, walking and running, were simulated with THUMS dummy, and three collision positions were selected according to the transverse structure characteristics of the front of the vehicle, and the kinematic response and biomechanical injury of pedestrian lower limbs at the collision position were analyzed. The results show that the lateral structure of the front of the vehicle has a great influence on the motion response and injury of the left and right legs of pedestrians at a collision initial velocity of 40 km/h; the high-risk areas of the pedestrian femur are the femoral head and femoral shaft, with a maximum value of 124.9 MPa, while the high-risk area of the tibia is the tibial shaft, with a maximum value of 157.2 MPa; the maximum transverse bending angle and the maximum shear displacement of the left knee joint reaches 37.1° and 12.5 mm, respectively, and its injury risk is higher than that of the right knee joint; in the headlight collision area, the pedestrian's lower limb sufferes a lower injury than that of the other collision areas.