{"id":2702,"date":"2018-10-29T03:41:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T10:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.plm.automation.siemens.com\/t5\/Simcenter-Blog\/Toyota-Corolla-retrospective-of-the-world-s-most-popular-car\/ba-p\/522747"},"modified":"2026-03-26T05:55:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:55:57","slug":"toyota-corolla-retrospective-of-the-worlds-most-popular-car-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/toyota-corolla-retrospective-of-the-worlds-most-popular-car-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Corolla: retrospective of the world’s most popular car (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently went through Chris Beves’ post about Formula One aerodynamics history<\/A> and realized that simulation can do much more than predicting the future. Indeed, it’s also interesting to look at the big picture and understand past evolutions from a macroscopic perspective.<\/P><\/p>\n

If we consider the automotive industry, which car could better illustrate its trends than the all-time best-seller i.e. the Toyota Corolla<\/STRONG>?<\/P><\/p>\n

Starting in 1966, the Japanese OEM has sold more than 45 million<\/STRONG> Corolla in more than 50 years. In 2019, the 12th generation will be released and is expected to strongly contribute to the continuous sales growth of this iconic family car.<\/P><\/p>\n

\"ToyotaToyota Corolla gallery<\/span><\/span><\/P>
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Looking at these impressing numbers, I decided to build a Simcenter Amesim model and analyze the fuel economy and longitudinal performances of all the models<\/STRONG> to better understand why this car is so successful. I decided to focus on the US market, considering only the manual transmission variants (knowing that is not the preferred variant in this market, but having more data available) for the sake of simplicity.<\/P><\/p>\n

Data gathering and Simcenter Amesim model setup<\/STRONG><\/H2><\/p>\n

The first step was to gather basic data (engine max power, vehicle weight, tires dimensions, gear ratios …) about each vehicle generations, browsing the web. After some time spent on Wikipedia<\/A>, Toyota Global site<\/A> and EPA fuel economy website<\/A>, I ended up with this Excel file.<\/P><\/p>\n

\"ToyotaToyota Corolla Internet data<\/span><\/span><\/P>
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Based on these data, and to avoid building a Simcenter Amesim model from scratch, I started from an existing template model<\/STRONG> which suites well the Toyota Corolla vehicle architecture meaning a gasoline engine with manual transmission and the simulation purposes which are the fuel consumption and longitudinal performances.<\/P><\/p>\n

\"IFP-DriveSimcenter Amesim IFP-Drive library demo models (partial list)<\/span><\/span><\/P>
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The model chosen is now opened and ready to be parameterized:<\/P><\/p>\n

\"SimcenterSimcenter Amesim Toyota Corolla model<\/span><\/span><\/P>
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When focusing on the fuel consumption of a car, the core data you need is the engine fuel efficiency map (as a function of the engine speed and load). This map usually cannot be found on the web. Nevertheless, Simcenter Amesim provides a powerful App that allows rebuilding this map based on engine basic parameters: the “engine table creator”.<\/P><\/p>\n

This App requires simple inputs like max power and torque at given engine speed, type of combustion (diesel, gasoline), engine stroke, number of cylinders, fuel characteristics … The App taps into a database coming from IFPEN research institute<\/A> and generates max and min torque maps, Brake Specific Fuel Consumption map and some other maps ready to be used in IFP-Drive engine model.<\/P><\/p>\n

\"SimcenterIFP-Drive engine table creator<\/span><\/span><\/P>
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Once the maps are generated for all the engines, we come back to our Excel file and link it to the Amesim model to automatically import other parameters and generate a batch file (automatic successive runs of all the Corolla models). To do so, the Simcenter Amesim Excel Add-in<\/A> is used:<\/P><\/p>\n

\"ExcelSimcenter Amesim Excel Add-in interface<\/span><\/span>
\"ExcelLink between Excel data and model parameters<\/span><\/span>The batch run parameters file is generated from the Excel sheet and imported into Simcenter Amesim Study Manager.<\/P><\/p>\n

Simcenter Amesim simulation results analysis<\/STRONG><\/H2><\/p>\n

To compare all the 11 generations of Toyota Corolla, we used 3 different driving cycles:<\/P>
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