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The advancement of electric mobility as a measure to comply with international climate targets and sustain renewable resources in the future has led to an electrification of the mobility sector in recent years. This trend has not been spared in the logistics and commercial vehicle sector. Emerging electric powertrain concepts for long-haul vehicles have since been developed and adapted to different use cases and axle concepts. In this paper, the authors show the influence of the powertrain topology and the associated design of the electric machine on the efficiency and energy consumption of commercial vehicles. For this, existing series or prototype long-haul axle topologies are analyzed regarding their efficiency and operating points within four driving cycles. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis on the influence of the total gearbox ratio tests the assumed designs. We find that single-machine topologies offer efficiency advantages over multiple-machine topologies. However, this study highlights a joint consideration of application-specific machine design and topology to realize the full technological potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State of the art powertrain optimization compares the energy consumption of different powertrain configurations based on simulations with fixed driving cycles. However, this approach might not be applicable to future vehicles, since speed advisory systems and automated driving functions offer the potential to adapt the speed profile to minimize energy consumption. This study aims to investigate the potential of powertrain optimization with respect to energy consumption under optimal energy-efficient driving for electric buses. The optimal powertrain configurations of the buses under energy-efficient driving and their respective energy consumptions are obtained using powertrain-specific optimized driving cycles and compared with those of human-driven unconnected buses and buses with non-powertrain-specific optimal speed profiles. Based on the results, new trends in the powertrain design of vehicles under energy-efficient driving are derived. The optimized driving cycles are calculated using a dynamic programming approach. The evaluations were based on the fact that the buses under energy-efficient driving operate in dedicated lanes with vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication while the unconnected buses operate in mixed traffic. The results indicate that deviating from the optimal powertrain configuration does not have a significant effect on energy consumption for optimized speed profiles; however, the energy savings from an optimized powertrain configuration can be significant when ride comfort is considered. The connected buses under energy-efficient driving operating in dedicated lanes may reduce energy consumption by up to 27% compared to human-driven unconnected buses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]