Advances on heat pump applications for electric vehicles

A detailed literature review is presented for the applications of the heat pump technologies on the electric vehicles Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system. Due to legal regulations, automotive manufacturers have to produce more efficient and low carbon emission vehicles. Electric vehicles can be provided these requirements but the battery technologies and energy managements systems are still developing considering battery life and vehicle range. On the other hand, energy consumption for HVAC units has an important role on the energy management of these vehicles. Moreover, the energy requirement of HVAC processes for different environmental conditions are significantly affect the total energy consumption of these vehicles. For the heating process, the coolant of internal combustion (IC) engine can be utilized but in electric vehicles, we have not got any adequate waste heat source for this process. The heat pump technology is one of the alternative choices for the industry due to having high coefficient of performance (COP), but these systems have some disadvantages which can be improved with the other technologies. In this study, a literature review is performed considering alternative refrigerants, performance characteristics of different heat pump systems for electric vehicles and thermal management systems of electric vehicles.