Beautiful connected and electrified technology

Hybrid & Electric System Design & Integration

• VP has designed from the ground up multiple hybrid / electric powertrain systems and integrated them into several vehicle platforms, giving the company a well-tested and highly developed set of powertrain design and integration capabilities.
• In-house end-to-end capabilities include design, testing and validation, and rapid prototyping from component to full system level across a broad range of applications.
• VP has a proven capability and track record of collaborating with OE and tier one manufacturers on large and highly complex intercontinental development programmes utilising VP and customer technologies.
• Follow the links to some examples of completed projects:
  • Heat Battery for Hybrid & Electric Vehicles
  • Augmented Reality Tools with Hololens

Control Systems

• VP has developed proven IP for hybrid and electric system and vehicle control in production vehicles
• VP has tackled challenging areas and implemented ground-breaking solutions for energy management in hybrid systems instantaneously optimising between two energy sources to provide the best system level performance. Through the addition of geo-fencing VP has developed site and route specific optimisations.
• Secure remote connectivity for diagnostics and control of complex, high value systems is a cornerstone technology for any system development VP produces. This includes over-the-air software updates allowing continuous improvement processes to be employed on early market products.
• VP specialises in embedded control of large systems throughout the hierarchy from low-level component control to full system master or supervisory control.
• As part of a powertrain controller VP has developed and validated a suite of control algorithms including:
  • A full traction control interface for heavy commercial vehicles
  • Speed, torque and power control for diesel range extenders with multiple power-take-off driven ancillaries
  • Vehicle control interfaces to integrate with both new and existing vehicle data systems
  • Safe fault handling for sub-systems and components based on function and role.

Battery Systems

• VP has conducted the development of full battery systems for automotive applications. From the beginning of the definition of a new battery product through to validation and low-rate-manufacturing, VP has the knowhow, innovative technology and capability to provide a cutting edge product.
• VP has developed a highly tuned and very well tested cell welding process which overcomes the complexities traditionally associated with welding lithium-ion cells to current-carrying busbars. This simpler technique can reduce both the part count and the cost of joining cells into blocks.
• VP has extensive intellectual property in BMS software for high voltage lithium-ion battery systems and has proven this in real-world operation. With a library of proprietary algorithms, VP has tackled some of the most challenging problems in battery control.
• Thermal management is one of the most critical aspects of battery system design and VP has developed market leading thermal management solutions. These range from immersive cell cooling through to direct contact evaporative and isothermal structural elements as well as forced air cooling.
• VP has its own in-house cell testing lab, which allows electrical characterisation of battery cells as well as life cycle tests with application dependent duty cycles, and to verify the cell manufacturer’s claims.
• VP has an in-house pilot manufacturing line for a full high voltage, liquid cooled battery system. It uses individual cylindrical cells and pre-manufactured parts that go through multiple stages of welding and modular manual assembly.

PaaS and SaaS Heavy-Duty Vehicle IoT Telemetry

• VP has developed a scalable cloud based telemetry data platform and on-board hardware to connect vehicles with secure, encrypted authentication.
• Its uniqueness and strength lies with it being developed and tested in parallel with other VP powertrain technologies for several years, ensuring hand-in-glove compatibility and domain relevance combined with incredible scalability.
• As well as suite of software-as-a-service applications for manufacturers and vehicle operators it also has platform access for OEMs to create new product specific functions such as predictive maintenance, performance analysis and location based services.
• VP’s big data and machine learning tools have been used to develop predictive data models for high value powertrain components and systems improving warranty support and generating new value streams.