Visual Performance Maps for Human Choice in Hybrid Electric Vehicle’s In-Wheel Motors: Part I — Purchase Criteria

Satisfying human needs means to respond directly to human choice / human commands at the time of purchase, in real time operation, for maintenance / tech mods over the life history of the vehicle, and for refreshment in the future hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) equipped with four-independent in-wheel motors (IWM). This leads to maximizing human choice. To meet human choice means not only to keep the human fully informed on a series of choices, but also to maximize their self-awareness.Meeting human choice requires visual performance maps. Based on the future HEV with an open (modular) architecture, visual performance maps help customers make right choices what they want, so that a vehicle can be tailored to a particular customer priority such as cost and drivability for an aggressive driver. This paper demonstrates how different types of an IWM are matched to different types of customers. The decision framework developed in this paper is based on detailed human needs structured by performance maps to visually guide the customer in terms of purchase / operation / maintenance / refreshment decisions. Part I is focused on purchase criteria, while Part II discusses operation / maintenance / refreshment criteria.Copyright © 2015 by ASME