Vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11485236-B2
Application number	US-202016931089-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 16, 2020
Priority date	Sep 25, 2019
Publication date	Nov 1, 2022
Grant date	Nov 1, 2022

Abstract

A vehicle includes a motor, a second drive source, and a drive controller. The motor is a first drive source configured to drive wheels. The motor has a plurality of switchable modes that differ in at least one of a number of poles or a type of torque for rotating a rotor. The second drive source is configured to drive the wheels in parallel with the motor. The drive controller is configured to set, during switching of the modes, a target driving force of the second drive source to be larger than a target driving force of the second drive source before the switching of the modes.

First claim

The invention clained is:

1. A vehicle comprising:
a motor serving as a first drive source configured to drive wheels, the motor having a plurality of switchable modes that differ in at least one of a number of poles or a type of torque for rotating a rotor;
a second drive source configured to drive the wheels in parallel with the motor; and
a drive controller configured to set, during switching of the modes, a target driving force of the second drive source to be larger than a target driving force of the second drive source before the switching of the modes.

2. The vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein
the drive controller is configured to
set a total driving force to be equal to a requested driving force requested for the vehicle, the total driving force being obtained by totaling a target driving force of the motor and a target driving force of the second drive source, and
set a difference driving force between the requested driving force and an actual driving force of the motor during the switching of the modes as the target driving force of the second drive source during the switching of the modes, regardless of the total driving force.

3. The vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein
the drive controller is configured to
cause the motor to switch the modes when a switching loss is smaller than a maintenance loss, and
cause the motor to maintain a current mode of the motor when the switching loss is greater than or equal to the maintenance loss,
the switching loss being an energy loss of the vehicle determined assuming that the modes are switched, the maintenance loss being an energy loss of the vehicle determined assuming that the current mode is maintained without switching of the modes.

4. The vehicle according to claim 2 , wherein
the drive controller is configured to
cause the motor to switch the modes when a switching loss is smaller than a maintenance loss, and
cause the motor to maintain a current mode of the motor when the switching loss is greater than or equal to the maintenance loss,
the switching loss being an energy loss of the vehicle determined assuming that the modes are switched, the maintenance loss being an energy loss of the vehicle determined assuming that the current mode is maintained without switching of the modes.

5. A vehicle comprising:
a motor having a plurality of modes that differ in at least one of a number of poles or a type of torque for rotating a rotor; and
circuitry configured to
cause the motor to operate as a first drive source to drive wheels,
cause the motor to switch the modes,
cause a second drive source to drive the wheels in parallel with the motor, and
set, during switching of the modes, a target driving force of the second drive source to be larger than a target driving force of the second drive source before the switching of the modes.

Assignees

• Subaru Corp

Inventors

• Yoshida Kazuhiro
• Inoue Satoshi
• Machida Takuya

Classifications

• B60W2710/083

  Torque · CPC title

• B60L2240/423

  Torque · CPC title

• B60W2510/083

  Torque · CPC title

• B60W20/10

  Controlling the power contribution of each of the prime movers to meet required power demand · CPC title

• H02K21/14

  with magnets rotating within the armatures · CPC title