As Ford ramps up its e-powertrain
activities, E&Htravels to the car maker’s new electric vehicle development
headquarters in Michigan to catch up with its head of electrified powertrain
engineering, Kevin Layden.
It has become apparent that, if the
customer’s work life and home life fit the profile, said consumer will purchase
an all-electric vehicle for his/her daily commute and – this is the important
part – weekend errands and getaways, without the usual concern for operating
range, battery life or charging time. Or at least that’s what the marketing
teams at various OEMs want us to believe.
On
the road, the 2014 Ford E-Series Cutaway will be greatly influenced by whatever
rear-ends you choose to place on it. With regards to power, you can rely on its
powertrain. It can tow a maximum of 10,000 pounds.
While such a self-promoting vision can be
questioned at this point in time, especially when taking into consideration the
up-front cost of an EV compared with an economical IC-engined car, there’s no
denying that on an R&D front there’s been a massive engineering effort on
the part of the global automotive industry, to the point that nearly every
single major car maker today has a hybrid or full electric product on sale, or
is planning to launch one soon.
Ford’s foray in the EV arena nicely
encapsulates such growth – and the increased importance – of e-powertrain
R&D as well as product realization. Heading up electrified powertrain
engineering for the USA’s second-largest car maker is Kevin Layden, who says
that the EV program at Dearborn has gone from being made up of just a handful
of people and prototype vehicles in a nearby industrial park, to a new HQ
building that houses around 900 people delivering some 300 new technology
patents every year.
But while such expansion has been sharp,
for Layden, a 28-year Ford veteran with qualifications from Ohio State and
Michigan universities, it’s important to take each step at a time: “We are
looking at how we grow, sensibly, trying to make the best use of the current
products we have to replicate the success of the C-Max, the Fusion and the MKZ,
reusing the expensive components – the battery cells, the inverters, motors and
generators – and then fitting the engines into a specific platform. As we go
into the future, we are going to try to do the same thing.
The
result is a concept vehicle that takes a day’s worth of sunlight to deliver the
same performance as the conventional C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid, which draws
its power from the electrical grid.
“So, we are looking at how to get the right
engineers, the people who are going to fit here, not just fill the job, but
really excel. I’m really impressed with Ford Motor Company. I’ve worked with a
lot of different people, and there are a lot of good people in the industry,
but overall, I would have to say our powertrain area sets a really high
standard, and the people in electrified powertrain are absolutely outstanding.”
The Magic Bullet
Ford’s e-powertrain group is essentially
based on three legs: the project management team that deals with issues such as
timing, tracking and delivery; the design and release team; and a third group
for systems engineering, calibration and control. “Within that, we also have a
battery and cell group, a power electronics group, and then specialists working
on motors and generators,” elaborates Layden. “The calibration and controls
group, which is the softer side, includes the people who actually write the
code.”
Forget
regular cargo space with the C-MAX Energi, as the batteries consume nearly all
trunk room.
According to Layden, a great deal of work
is currently being done in matching the right tool to the right engineering
task, from engine and e-motor sizing through to vehicle weight, aerodynamics
and even covering the integration of new technologies, such as stop/start
functionality. “We’ve got a lot going on, from stop/start, to mild hybrids, to
implementing our full hybrid systems,” he adds.
And the magic bullet – the battery
breakthrough that the entire industry is chasing – continues to be a part of
everyday life in Layden’s five-story building at Ford.
