An exemplary reinforcement assembly includes, among other things, a heel kick that extends horizontally between rockers of an electrified vehicle, and a reinforcement bracket that horizontally overlaps with the heel kick and is secured to an outboard portion of the heel kick. An exemplary reinforcement method includes, among other things, resisting a load applied to a side of an electrified vehicle using a reinforcement bracket secured to an outboard portion of a heel kick. The heel kick extends horizontally between rockers of the electrified vehicle. The heel kick and the reinforcement bracket are horizontally overlapped with each other.

A fault diagnosis method for a series hybrid electric vehicle AC/DC converter, implementing identifying and diagnosing of an open circuit fault of a power electronic components in an AC/DC converter, and including the following steps: first, establishing a simulation model for a series hybrid electric vehicle AC/DC converter, and selecting a DC bus output current as a fault characteristic; then classifying fault types according to a quantity and locations of faulty power electronic components; next, decomposing the fault characteristic, that is, the DC bus output current by means of fast Fourier transform to different frequency bands, and selecting harmonic ratios of the different frequency bands as fault diagnosing eigenvectors; and finally, identifying the fault types by using a genetic algorithm-based BP neural network.

Methods and systems are provided for adjusting a vehicle cabin heating system, based on particulate filter (PF) regeneration prediction. In one example, a method includes predicting an amount of exhaust heat that may be recovered via an exhaust heat exchanger during an upcoming PF regeneration event, and prior to the PF regeneration event, adjusting an amount of electric power supplied to an electric heater of the cabin heating system. The amount of adjustment may be based on the predicted amount of exhaust heat that may be recovered.

Methods and systems are provided for drying a wet-fouled spark plug during engine flooding conditions. In one example, a method may include, reverse rotating the engine unfueled and activating a heating element of an exhaust catalyst to flow heated ambient air through the combustion chamber to dry the wet-fouled spark plug.

A vehicle diagnosis system determines whether a vehicle has an abnormality in a temporal engine stop function or a power regeneration function that negates a greenhouse gas reduction effect of the engine. When the vehicle diagnosis system determines an abnormality, the vehicle diagnosis system provides a notification of the abnormality.

An inverter for a vehicle includes a power controller and gate drive board (GDB) electrically in series, the controller including logic circuitry configured to, responsive to presence of an ignition signal, permit flow of low voltage power through the controller to the GDB to activate the GDB, and responsive to presence of a wake-up signal, but not the ignition signal, prevent flow of low voltage power through the controller to the GDB.

The vehicle is a hybrid vehicle capable of traveling using motive power of at least one of an engine and a motor generator. The vehicle includes: a fuel pump; an injection valve injecting fuel supplied from the fuel pump to the engine; a fuel pressure sensor detecting a supply pressure of the fuel generated by the fuel pump; and an engine ECU. The engine ECU performs a fuel pressure increasing process of increasing the supply pressure of the fuel generated by the fuel pump, and conducts a fault diagnosis of the fuel pressure sensor based on a value detected by the fuel pressure sensor during the fuel pressure increasing process. The engine ECU conducts the fault diagnosis of the fuel pressure sensor in a case where the engine is being stopped and a vehicle speed is higher than a threshold value.

An electronic control unit is configured to i) turn off a charging relay when a charger is disconnected from an external power source while external charging is in progress which is started when the charger is connected to the external power source and the charging relay is turned on while a system is off and in which a battery is charged with electric power from the external power source by the charger, and ii) set the period from the disconnection of the charger from the external power source to the turn-off of the charging relay to be longer when preliminary air conditioning is in progress than when preliminary air conditioning is not in progress.

In a method performed by a control unit for controlling energy flows of a vehicle, where the vehicle includes a vehicle energy system which in turn includes a plurality of energy subsystems. Within each energy subsystem one form of energy is used. The energy subsystems are operationally connected by converters, wherein converters are devices converting at least one form of energy to another form of energy. By setting a price, limits for the converters converting energy between the energy subsystem the energy flows of the vehicle can be controlled by the control unit such that at least during period of times the order in which the energy subsystems of the vehicle is provided with energy can be changed.

A vehicle diagnosis system determines whether a vehicle has an abnormality in a temporal engine stop function or a power regeneration function that negates a greenhouse gas reduction effect of the engine. When the vehicle diagnosis system determines an abnormality, the vehicle diagnosis system provides a notification of the abnormality.