Valeo’s research into mild hybrid technology is powering ahead, thanks to new government funding. The European Commission (EC) has given its approval of France’s offer of financial assistance to Valeo to support its ‘Essencyele’ mild-hybrid R&D programme. Valeo will receive €24.2m (US$36.8m) in state aid: €8.3m in grants, €5.3m in repayable advances for industrial research and €10.6m in repayable advances for experimental development.
The EC has noted that without the financial support, the project would not have been conducted and Valeo would instead “have focused its R&D on specific requests from customers and made incremental improvements to its systems.”
Mild hybrid compromise
Valeo is working on the Essencyele project with local OEM PSA Peugeot Citroen along with GKN, Hutchinson and SME EFS and seven research organisations. The supplier is hoping to end up with a viable mild hybrid system for the market: an electric motor with integrated electronics (the i-Motor), an engine control unit (ECU), an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system, an electrified turbocharger turbine wastegate actuator (turbo e-actuator) and an electrified cylinder deactivation system (e-DoD).
The approach is squarely on development of an intermediate (or mild) hybrid system for gasoline-engined vehicles, a compromise option between inexpensive stop-start micro hybrid technology and more expensive full hybrid systems. The supplier has been banking on its low-cost approach to mild hybrid system design to give it an advantage over the likes of Bosch, Continental and Denso.
Its Hbyrid4All project – the name clearly highlighting Valeo’s focus on affordability – promises fuel savings of more than 15% and CO2 reductions of up to 50%. The Hybrid4All architecture is based on a compact motor generator which uses a low voltage (48 volt) electrical system, keeping costs down. It brings together Valeo’s enhanced Stop-Start technology, regenerative braking and torque assist functions. Henri Trintignac, Valeo’s Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Strategy Vice President, told Automotive World last year that the company’s earliest mild hybrid systems would show up in small volume cars in 2016-2017, with mass production in 2018-2019. This would tie in advantageously with Europe’s 2020 target of reducing average fleet CO2 emissions to 95g/km.
Micro, Mild or Full
With OEMs facing tightened emissions standards, the market for various degrees of hybrid systems is poised for growth. BorgWarner, another player in the field, expects the smallest degree of hybridisation, the micro hybrid systems (stop-start), to rise from a fitment level on light vehicles of around 38% in 2017 to around 60% in 2022 due to the associated low price tag. For mild hybrids and fully electric vehicles, it is predicting much smaller growth, held back by heftier cost premiums. For mild hybrid systems, BorgWarner expects a fitment rate of less than 1% in 2017, rising to 2-3% by 2022.
Continental, like Valeo, has sensed a hole in the market between basic stop-start systems and more expensive full hybrids. “There is a gap today between relatively affordable 12-volt start-stop systems and much more sophisticated hybrid solutions at voltages typically between 200 and 400 volts,” commented José Avila, head of the Powertrain Division and member of Continental’s board of management, speaking earlier this month.
The German supplier is taking a modular systems solutions approach to e-mobility, allowing OEMs to realise hybrids of varying degrees with voltage levels between 12 and 400 volts. The supplier maintains that adding an electric component to a conventional drivetrain improves an engines emissions and fuel consumption more than any modification alone could provide. It describes these systems as representing the entry level to electric vehicles but asserts that the higher the degree of electrification, the greater the efficiency gains will be.
With this new funding behind it, Valeo hopes to maintain its competitiveness in the segment against the likes of its German rivals.
Megan Lampinen
