IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v256y2026iphs0960148125021597.html

Time-dependent range degradation in low-carbon electric vehicle thermal management systems: A quantitative assessment across China

Author

Listed:
  • Jia, Fan
  • Yin, Xiang
  • Zhang, Yichen
  • Fang, Jianmin
  • Zong, Shuo
  • Cao, Feng
  • Chen, Bin
  • Wang, Xiaolin

Abstract

CO2 thermal management systems have become increasingly critical in electric vehicle (EV) applications given the energy efficiency enhancement potential and compatibility with low-carbon technologies. Nevertheless, inherent challenges such as refrigerant leakage and trans-critical operational characteristics create uncertainties regarding the impact on driving range attenuation, limiting practical engineering guidance. To address this gap, a micro-leakage assessment model was established to quantify the effects of daily refrigerant micro-leakage on cabin climate control performance and system stability in typical Chinese cities. The research further analyzes EV range degradation patterns caused by cumulative leakage under diverse urban climate conditions. By incorporating meteorological parameters, spatial correlations between regional climate factors and performance decay rates were mapped, revealing climate-dependent maintenance requirements. Through systematic quantitative evaluation of range attenuation, this work proposes limiting component-level micro-leakage to below 1.5α as a critical threshold. These results provide technical foundations for standardizing CO2 thermal system maintenance protocols, supporting sustainable implementation in EV aftermarket services, and global e-mobility industry development.

Suggested Citation

  • Jia, Fan & Yin, Xiang & Zhang, Yichen & Fang, Jianmin & Zong, Shuo & Cao, Feng & Chen, Bin & Wang, Xiaolin, 2026. "Time-dependent range degradation in low-carbon electric vehicle thermal management systems: A quantitative assessment across China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(PH).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:256:y:2026:i:ph:s0960148125021597
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.124495
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148125021597
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2025.124495?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Zhihua & Wang, Fenghao & Ma, Zhenjun & Lin, Wenye & Ren, Haoshan, 2019. "Investigation on the feasibility and performance of transcritical CO2 heat pump integrated with thermal energy storage for space heating," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 496-508.
    2. Yu, Tianchan & Liu, Shurong & Li, Xianting & Shi, Wenxing, 2025. "Operation strategy and performance of thermal management system with dual-evaporation temperature for electric vehicles," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PD).
    3. Jia, Fan & Yin, Xiang & Cao, Feng & Fang, Jianmin & Wang, Anci & Wang, Xixi & Yang, Lichen, 2024. "A novel control method for the automotive CO2 heat pumps under inappropriate refrigerant charge conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    4. Guo, Rong & Sun, Ziyi & Luo, Maohui, 2024. "Energy-efficient battery thermal management strategy for range extended electric vehicles based on model predictive control and dynamic programming," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    5. Zhang, Yiqi & Li, Mengyi & Dong, Jiaxiang & Zhang, Ce & Li, Xiuming & Han, Zongwei, 2023. "Study on the impacts of refrigerant leakage on the performance and reliability of datacenter composite air conditioning system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    6. Wu, Di & Hu, Bin & Wang, R.Z., 2021. "Vapor compression heat pumps with pure Low-GWP refrigerants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    7. Qi, Zhaogang, 2014. "Advances on air conditioning and heat pump system in electric vehicles – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 754-764.
    8. Yu, Binbin & Long, Junan & Zhang, Yingjing & Ouyang, Hongsheng & Wang, Dandong & Shi, Junye & Chen, Jiangping, 2024. "Life cycle climate performance evaluation (LCCP) of electric vehicle heat pumps using low-GWP refrigerants towards China's carbon neutrality," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 353(PA).
    9. Song, Yulong & Wang, Haidan & Ma, Yuan & Yin, Xiang & Cao, Feng, 2022. "Energetic, economic, environmental investigation of carbon dioxide as the refrigeration alternative in new energy bus/railway vehicles’ air conditioning systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    10. Wang, Qian & Jiang, Bin & Li, Bo & Yan, Yuying, 2016. "A critical review of thermal management models and solutions of lithium-ion batteries for the development of pure electric vehicles," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 106-128.
    11. Chiu, Chien-Chin & Tsai, Nan-Chyuan & Lin, Chun-Chi, 2014. "Near-optimal order-reduced control for A/C (air-conditioning) system of EVs (electric vehicles)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 342-353.
    12. Guo, Yabin & Li, Yuduo & Li, Weilin, 2023. "On-site fault experiment and diagnosis research of the carbon dioxide transcritical heat pump system for energy saving," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    13. Josef Taalbi & Hana Nielsen, 2021. "The role of energy infrastructure in shaping early adoption of electric and gasoline cars," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 6(10), pages 970-976, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jia, Fan & Yin, Xiang & He, Shentong & Cao, Zhijian & Fang, Jianmin & Cao, Feng & Wang, Xiaolin, 2025. "Steady-state and dynamic experimental study of an enhanced automotive thermal management system based on energy cascade utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).
    2. Jia, Fan & Yin, Xiang & Cao, Feng & Fang, Jianmin & Wang, Anci & Wang, Xixi & Yang, Lichen, 2024. "A novel control method for the automotive CO2 heat pumps under inappropriate refrigerant charge conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    3. Yang, Mengying & Chen, Ying & Zheng, Zecan & Song, Yulong & Cao, Feng & Dai, Xiangyang & Wang, Xixi, 2025. "Energetic performance and driving range comparison among CO2 and R290 in the new energy vehicle thermal management systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    4. Zhang, Zhenying & Wang, Jiayu & Feng, Xu & Chang, Li & Chen, Yanhua & Wang, Xingguo, 2018. "The solutions to electric vehicle air conditioning systems: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 443-463.
    5. Wang, Anci & Yin, Xiang & Xin, Zhicheng & Cao, Feng & Wu, Zan & Sundén, Bengt & Xiao, Di, 2023. "Performance optimization of electric vehicle battery thermal management based on the transcritical CO2 system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    6. Xu, Jiamin & Zhang, Caizhi & Wan, Zhongmin & Chen, Xi & Chan, Siew Hwa & Tu, Zhengkai, 2022. "Progress and perspectives of integrated thermal management systems in PEM fuel cell vehicles: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    7. Yu, Yuanbin & Luo, Chunqi & Jiang, Junyu & Min, Haitao & Wu, Huiduo, 2025. "A novel cabin–battery eco-cooling management scheme for extended range electric vehicle based on networking information fusion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    8. Ibrahim, Amier & Jiang, Fangming, 2021. "The electric vehicle energy management: An overview of the energy system and related modeling and simulation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Yan Wang & Qing Gao & Tianshi Zhang & Guohua Wang & Zhipeng Jiang & Yunxia Li, 2017. "Advances in Integrated Vehicle Thermal Management and Numerical Simulation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-30, October.
    10. He, Kaicheng & Song, Yulong & Xie, Hongsheng & Cao, Feng, 2025. "Winter driving range optimization of electric bus based on CO2 thermal management system and thermal energy cascade utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    11. Jiang, Ziqi & Tian, Yafen & Li, Kang & Zhao, Zhaorui & Liu, Ni & Zhang, Hua, 2024. "Research on refrigerant charge determination under different compressor speed and its effects on the performance of transcritical CO2 air-conditioning heat pump system in electric vehicle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    12. Zhang, Ce & Hou, Beiran & Li, Minxia & Dang, Chaobin & Tong, Huan & Li, Xiuming & Han, Zongwei, 2024. "Refrigerant charge estimation method based on data-physic hybrid-driven model for the fault diagnosis of transcritical CO2 heat pump system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    13. Li, Kang & Peng, Luyao & Mohtaram, Soheil & Chen, Xi & Zhang, Hua & Min, Qizhong & Li, Chao & Song, Liaokuo & He, Qize, 2025. "Refrigerant charge optimization and thermal performance evaluation of an R290-based secondary loop system for electric vehicles," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    14. Mohammed, Abubakar Gambo & Elfeky, Karem Elsayed & Wang, Qiuwang, 2022. "Recent advancement and enhanced battery performance using phase change materials based hybrid battery thermal management for electric vehicles," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    15. Zhao, Zhen & Luo, Jielin & Zou, Dexin & Yang, Kaiyin & Wang, Qin & Chen, Guangming, 2023. "Experimental investigation on the inhibition of flame retardants on the flammability of R1234ze(E)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PE).
    16. Srivastava, Raj Shekhar & Kumar, Anuruddh & Thakur, Harishchandra & Vaish, Rahul, 2022. "Solar assisted thermoelectric cooling/heating system for vehicle cabin during parking: A numerical study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 384-403.
    17. Cen, Xiao & Chen, Zengliang & Chen, Haifeng & Ding, Chen & Ding, Bo & Li, Fei & Lou, Fangwei & Zhu, Zhenyu & Zhang, Hongyu & Hong, Bingyuan, 2024. "User repurchase behavior prediction for integrated energy supply stations based on the user profiling method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    18. Du, Yanjun & Zhao, Tian & Lin, Jie & Wu, Yuting & Wang, Che & Wu, Jianhua, 2025. "An advanced moving-boundary method for the dynamic simulation of split heat pump system under start-up process," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 388(C).
    19. Yang, Kexin & Zhang, Qi & Liu, Qiqi & Liu, Jiangfeng & Jiao, Jie, 2024. "Effect mechanism and efficiency evaluation of financial support on technological innovation in the new energy vehicles’ industrial chain," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    20. Ren, Shenggang & Bao, Ruizhi & Gao, Zhengye, 2025. "Arrival of distant power: The impact of ultra-high voltage transmission projects on energy structure in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:256:y:2026:i:ph:s0960148125021597. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.