A method detects a vehicle overweight state for a vehicle equipped with a power unit including a traction battery. The method selects a number of vehicle acceleration phases. The method includes, for each selected acceleration phase: calculating a mean value of a differential force equal to a value of the traction loads of the unit from which there are subtracted the value of the acceleration resultant force and the value of the sum of the resistive loads experienced by the vehicle, calculating a statistical value based on the calculated mean values of the differential force, and comparing the statistical value against a vehicle overweight threshold value. The vehicle is in an overweight state if the statistical value is higher than the threshold value.

A variety of methods, controllers and algorithms are described for controlling a vehicle to closely follow one another safely using automatic or partially automatic control. The described control schemes are well suited for use in vehicle platooning and/or vehicle convoying applications, including truck platooning and convoying controllers. In one aspect, a power plant (such as an engine) is controlled using a control scheme arranged to attain and maintain a first target gap between the vehicles. Brakes (such as wheel brakes) are controlled in a manner configured to attain and maintain a second (shorter) target gap. Such control allows a certain degree of encroachment on the targeted gap (sometimes referred to as a gap tolerance) before the brakes are actuated. The described approaches facilitate a safe and comfortable rider experience and reduce the likelihood of the brakes being actuated unnecessarily.

Provided is a travel control device by which it is possible to further improve fuel economy in a vehicle. A travel control device has the following: a weather information acquisition unit that acquires weather information indicating a weather state of a road on which a vehicle travels; an estimation value switching unit that sets in a modifiable manner an estimation value for travel resistance on the vehicle traveling on the road, according to the acquired weather information; a coasting travel estimation unit that estimates a change in speed of the vehicle on the road on the basis of the estimation value for the set travel resistance; and an automatic travel control unit that generates a travel schedule for the vehicle including driving travel and coasting travel on the basis of the estimated change in the vehicular speed, and causes the vehicle to travel according to the generated travel schedule.

A variety of methods, controllers and algorithms are described for controlling a vehicle to closely follow one another safely using automatic or partially automatic control. The described control schemes are well suited for use in vehicle platooning and/or vehicle convoying applications, including truck platooning and convoying controllers. In one aspect, a power plant (such as an engine) is controlled using a control scheme arranged to attain and maintain a first target gap between the vehicles. Brakes (such as wheel brakes) are controlled in a manner configured to attain and maintain a second (shorter) target gap. Such control allows a certain degree of encroachment on the targeted gap (sometimes referred to as a gap tolerance) before the brakes are actuated. The described approaches facilitate a safe and comfortable rider experience and reduce the likelihood of the brakes being actuated unnecessarily.

A method for analyzing the distribution of energy expenditures of a motor vehicle from data from a communications network and from parameters of the vehicle includes steps in which the energy expenditures of the vehicle over a journey are calculated, the said energy expenditures are analyzed by comparing them with at least one model of the vehicle simulating the same journey, an energy balance report is formulated on the basis of the analysis of the energy expenditures and of the fuel consumption and the said energy balance report is communicated to an external server.

A vehicular control system is presented where the contact patches of the vehicle have reduced impact on an environment. Vehicular control systems include force sensors and terrain sensors that provide real-time or near real-time information about the operating environment of a vehicle. The force sensor data may be used to derive one or more forces which can be used to infer the nature of the vehicles contact patches. As the vehicular control system detects changes in a terrain attribute from the terrain sensors, the vehicular control system determines what the contact patches should be to address the terrain change and determines the necessary forces to give rise to the target contact patches. The vehicular control systems may then adjust the operational parameter values of the vehicle to generate the target contact patches to thereby reduce the impact on the environment.

A control device that executes display control to perform emphasis display of a preceding vehicle, includes a detection unit that detects a candidate vehicle for a following target from among a plurality of the preceding vehicles; a calculation unit that calculates, a reduction effect of energy consumption to be obtained when traveling following the candidate vehicle; and an emphasis display setting unit that performs setting for performing emphasis display of the candidate vehicle. Further, when the display control is executed, the emphasis display of the candidate vehicle is performed according to a degree of emphasis set by the emphasis display setting unit.

A method for controlling motion of a heavy-duty vehicle, the method including: obtaining input data related to one or more parameters of a tire on the heavy-duty vehicle, determining at least part of the one or more tire parameters based on the input data, configuring a tire model, wherein the tire model defines a relationship between wheel slip and generated wheel force, wherein the tire model is parameterized by the one or more tire parameters, and controlling the motion of the heavy-duty vehicle based on the relationship between wheel slip and generated wheel force.

A driving assistance apparatus includes: an estimation unit configured to estimate a brake-on vehicle speed as a vehicle speed at which a driver of a vehicle starts a brake operation, based on information related to deceleration of the vehicle and vehicle-speed information; a deceleration-operation-point calculation unit configured to calculate location information of a deceleration-operation point where the driver of the vehicle starts a deceleration operation, based on the brake-on vehicle speed; and an information presentation unit configured to present driving assistance information for prompting the driver of the vehicle to perform the deceleration operation, corresponding to the calculated location information of the deceleration-operation point and a running position of the vehicle.

A vehicle control apparatus including a surrounding circumstances detector detecting surrounding circumstances of a self-driving vehicle and an electric control unit including a microprocessor configured to perform generating an action plan of the self-driving vehicle based on the surrounding circumstances and controlling the engine and the transmission so that the self-driving vehicle travels by self-driving in accordance with the action plan. The generating includes generating a first action plan and a second action plan, the first action plan including target position data of the self-driving vehicle, the second action plan including an acceleration instruction to a target vehicle speed not including the target position data, and the controlling includes controlling the engine and the transmission, so that the self-driving vehicle accelerates to the target vehicle speed at a target torque minimizing a fuel consumption quantity per unit travel distance when the second action plan is generated.