Prediction of Electric Vehicle Range: A Comprehensive Review of Current Issues and Challenges

Electric vehicles (EV) are the immediate solution to drastically reducing pollutant emissions from the transport sector. There is a continuing increase in the number of EVs in use, but their widespread and massive acceptance by automotive consumers is related to the performance they can deliver. The most important feature here (a hot topic at present in EV research) is related to the possibility of providing a more accurate prediction of range. Range prediction is a complex problem because it depends on a lot of influence factors (internal, external, constant, variables) and the present paper aims to investigate the effect of these factors on the range of EVs. The results and aspects of current worldwide research on this theme are presented through the analysis of the main classes of influence factors: Vehicle design, the driver and the environment. Further, the weight and effect of each potential factor which influences EV range was analyzed by presenting current issues. An exhaustive and comprehensive analysis has made it possible to identify future research and development directions in the EV research field, resulting in massive future and immediate EV penetration in the automotive market.