Systems and methods for improving operation of a hybrid vehicle are presented. In one example, an electrical load may be automatically activated to consume electrical energy produced during driveline braking so that driveline braking may be extended. The electrical load may be a windscreen heater or other device.

A control system for hybrid vehicles that prevents an occurrence of shock resulting from manually shifting an operating mode is provided. The control system is configured to switch an operating mode between HV mode in which the vehicle is powered mainly by the engine and EV mode in which the vehicle is powered mainly by said motor in response to a manual switching operation. The control system delays a startup of the engine until satisfaction of a predetermined running condition, if the manual switching operation is executed to shift from the EV mode to the HV mode under a condition that the running condition falls within a region where both of the HV mode and the EV mode are selectable.

A power management device of a power system manages the power generation quantity of the whole power system. A power generation control device controls a power generation device using a power generation command value (Ifccon1req) of the power generation device, said power generation command value having been acquired from the power management device via a first signal system, and a parameter (Ibat) that is directly acquired from a parameter acquisition unit via a second signal system.

A computing system coupled to at least one vehicle includes a processing circuit comprising one or more processors coupled to one or more memory devices storing instructions therein that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the processing circuit to: obtain, from a third-party remote computing system, first information; receive, from a vehicle, vehicle information comprising a calibration identifier, generate, based on the first information and the vehicle information, custom calibration information; and transmit, over a network, the custom calibration information to the vehicle that replaces at least a portion of the vehicle information stored in at least one vehicle controller of the vehicle.

A method for controlling propulsion of a heavy-duty vehicle includes. configuring a nominal shaft slip of the drive shaft in dependence of a desired longitudinal wheel force to be generated by the driven axle, wherein a shaft slip is indicative of a difference between a current vehicle velocity and a vehicle velocity corresponding to the rotation speed of the drive shaft, obtaining a rotation speed of the left wheel and a rotation speed of the right wheel, as function of a current shaft slip of the driven axle, estimating a peak shaft slip value associated with an open differential peak longitudinal force of the driven axle, based on the current shaft slip and on the corresponding obtained speeds of the left and right wheels, and controlling propulsion of the heavy-duty vehicle unit by setting the current shaft slip of the drive shaft based on the configured nominal shaft slip adjusted in dependence of the estimated peak shaft slip value.

A vehicle includes an engine, a motor, a battery that stores an electric power for driving the motor, and a control apparatus. The control apparatus is configured to control the engine and the motor in one of control modes, the control mode includes a charge sustaining (CS) mode and a charge depleting (CD) mode. During the CS mode, a first determination is made to determine that the engine malfunction has occurred when a number of times of abnormal combustion occurring during a current trip is equal to or larger than a threshold. During the CD mode, instead of or in addition to the first determination, a second determination is made to determine that the engine malfunction has occurred when a cumulative number of times of abnormal combustion is equal to or larger than the threshold.

A method for operating a motor vehicle having a hybrid drive is disclosed. The hybrid drive includes an internal combustion engine, an electric machine having an associated energy store, which can be charged when the electric machine is operated as generator, and an electronically shiftable transmission, the gears of which can be manually upshifted or downshifted by operating a selecting element, wherein the electric machine is switched to generator operation when a lower gear is selected by operating the selecting element at least once or another shifting mode of a transmission control unit leading to a higher rotational speed because of a gear change is selected and, after the gear selection or shifting mode selection, the acceleration of the motor vehicle is not changed or changed only to a predetermined extent by pressing the accelerator pedal.

A method is disclosed for estimating the residual energy of an electric energy accumulator that supplies an electric assistance traction drive of a motor vehicle with electrical energy. The method includes determining a future operating intensity of the assistance traction drive based on at least one input that characterizes the driving style of a section of route lying ahead, and reserving an energy component of a total quantity of energy available from the energy accumulator. The reserved energy component is determined from the determined future operating intensity based on a predefined consumption parameter. The consumption parameter characterizes the drive-specific consumption of electrical energy via the electrical assistance traction drive. The method further includes estimating the residual energy by reducing the total amount of energy available by the reserved energy component.

When it is judged that a downward slope segment exists in a scheduled traveling route, the control device of a hybrid vehicle sets a target remaining capacity SOC* in a pre-use segment in a downward slope segment and the downward slope segment to a low-side remaining capacity Sd which is Sd smaller than a standard remaining capacity Sn (step S105). Furthermore, when it is presumed that a rise amount of a remaining capacity by an extended regeneration control is large in the pre-use segment and the downward slope segment (refer to a judgment as Yes in step S104), the target remaining capacity SOC* is set to a low-side remaining capacity Sd which is a sum of Sd and S1 smaller than the standard remaining capacity Sn (step S106).

In a vehicle that includes an engine including a starter, an automatic transmission unit having an input shaft coupled to an output shaft of the engine via a first clutch, and a motor generator (hereinafter, referred to as MG) coupled to the input shaft of the automatic transmission unit via a second clutch, an electronic control unit starts up the engine with the use of the starter in a state where the MG is disconnected from the engine by releasing at least one of the first clutch or the second clutch when an IG-on operation has been made in an IG-off state (a state where the vehicle is stopped in a P range) and a power control unit that supplies electric power to the MG has a failure.