Electric Vehicle System Design Course—Implementing Synthesis-Oriented Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

- Can the authors clarify more explicitly how the energy transition and the mobility transition are interdependent, particularly in the context of education?

- How were the six learning goals selected, and why are they considered the most relevant for educating engineers on EV system design?

- How do the authors ensure equitable learning opportunities across students from vastly different disciplines (e.g., electrical vs civil engineering)?

- There have been many different types of important studies in this area recently. You can add depth to your article by adding these two studies.

Sustainable Thermoplastic Material Selection for Hybrid Vehicle Battery Packs in the Automotive Industry: A Comparative Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach
https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16192768

A hybrid disassembly framework for disassembly of electric vehicle batteries
https://doi.org/10.1002/er.6364

- The 2021–2022 survey had a 50% response rate. Do the authors consider this sufficient for generalizing student satisfaction or impact?

- How does the EVSD course compare with similar EV-related courses in other universities in terms of student outcomes and design outputs?

- The conclusion suggests transferability of the course setup to other fields like electric aviation. Could the authors elaborate on which specific elements are most transferable and why?

- Are there any minimum technical requirements or software guidelines imposed on student models to ensure compatibility, quality, or comparability?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback. We have carefully considered each comment and have revised the manuscript accordingly. Below, we provide detailed responses to each point raised and outline the corresponding changes made to the text.

• Can the authors clarify more explicitly how the energy transition and the mobility transition are interdependent, particularly in the context of education?
  We have extended our initial statement in the Introduction chapter (from line 34) to make this interdependence more explicit and have addressed the specific effect on education. Likewise, we offered an example of this interdependency in Chapter 2 - Course Rationale and Background (from line 65 (line 59 in the original version)). You can find the additions below (highlighted in blue text).

This shows the entwined nature of the energy transition with the mobility transition, as the shift toward renewable energy sources directly supports the electrification of transport systems, while transitioning to electrified transport reduces the reliance on fossil fuels therefore enabling a faster energy transition. In education, this interdependence highlights the need for interdisciplinary learning that equips students with skills in sustainable energy technologies, smart mobility solutions, and systems thinking to address complex, real-world challenges.

...

As stated in the Introduction, the energy transition and mobility transition are closely related. That means that in teaching one, the other should also be discussed, as their interdependence reflects the growing need for integrated approaches to sustainability. For example, understanding how renewable energy powers electric vehicles helps students grasp the broader implications of clean technologies and how changes in one sector (e.g., energy) can drive transformation across others, such as transportation, infrastructure, and urban planning.

• How were the six learning goals selected, and why are they considered the most relevant for educating engineers on EV system design?
  

We have added a short text about the logic of the learning goals (line 158 original version):

The goals have been developed starting at the overall teaching aim: enabling students to apply a systems view (#6), and create a system design in the field of electric mobility (#4). The other learning goals were added as intermediate goals to support the overall goals.

• How do the authors ensure equitable learning opportunities across students from vastly different disciplines (e.g., electrical vs civil engineering)?
  We have now addressed this challenge in the Course Rationale and Background chapter (at lines 88 and 111 (77 and 83 in the original version)) and added a note about the perception of students regarding this remark in section 5.2 - Students’ Experiences and Evaluation (line 397 (361 in original version)). You can find the additions below (highlighted in blue text).

Collateral to the integration focus is that each element of the course receives only limited attention. The broad range of programs means that almost every element is treated in more detail by at least one of the participating programs. For instance, electronic power converters are covered extensively in dedicated courses within the Electrical Engineering program. Electrical Engineering students will find that part relatively easy and should therefore be engaged by other elements, such as the treatment of mechanical transmissions. A related consideration is the need to ensure equitable learning opportunities for students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. This is addressed by explicitly including topics from all contributing fields and by forming student groups with varied academic profiles, fostering interdisciplinary and complementary learning. The challenge for the teacher(s) is to be up to date with all elements to at least be able to follow a specialist’s explanation of such an element, and to avoid presenting an element wrongly in the expert’s understanding.

[...] We build on the systems engineering (SE) approach, where problem exploration and solution definition occur in an iterative manner. In fact, having completed an introductory course on SE is mandatory for following the EVSD course. Other entrance requirements, such as basic knowledge of physics and design methods, aim to level the knowledge ground among students, ensuring a more balanced starting point for interdisciplinary collaboration.

...

As previously mentioned, ensuring equitable learning opportunities is a complex task. Fortunately, student feedback and evaluations indicate that the overall perception of the course is good (scoring 8.3 in the last evaluation). In particular, the appreciation about achievement of the course’s learning goals presented in Section 4.1 is high and there is not much variation between respondents from different programs. This shows that the course has successfully provided a balanced and inclusive learning environment. 

• There have been many different types of important studies in this area recently. You can add depth to your article by adding these two studies.
  • Sustainable Thermoplastic Material Selection for Hybrid Vehicle Battery Packs in the Automotive Industry: A Comparative Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16192768
    
  • A hybrid disassembly framework for disassembly of electric vehicle batteries. https://doi.org/10.1002/er.6364

Whilst the studies provide valuable and interesting ideas and suggestions regarding the actual design process, we deem them too specialized for the article. Similar strategies to the MCDM approach can be used by the students within their work, yet they are free to put their own interpretation to this. With regards to the second proposed paper, the complete lifecycle of the materials and battery pack is taken into account in the course material. Hence, we also deem this paper too specific to include in this article, even though its contents will be taken into account when re-evaluating the course material.

-- We have not made any addition or adjustment to the original version of our paper based on this comment --

• The 2021–2022 survey had a 50% response rate. Do the authors consider this sufficient for generalizing student satisfaction or impact?
  We have added clarification to section 5.2 - Students’ Experiences and Evaluation (line 392 (359 in original version)). You can find the additions below.

Students’ evaluations are voluntary and conducted after conclusion of the courses. Overall response rates are low (in BSc. courses at the University of Twente, for example, average response rates are below 20%). A response rate above 30% is considered good.

• How does the EVSD course compare with similar EV-related courses in other universities in terms of student outcomes and design outputs?
  To the best of our knowledge, (detailed) student outcomes and design outputs from similar courses are not publicly available in a form that would allow for meaningful comparison. While we agree that such benchmarking could offer valuable insights, the lack of accessible and standardized data led us to focus our paper solely on the internal evaluation of our course.

-- We have not made any addition or adjustment to the original version of our paper based on this comment --

• The conclusion suggests transferability of the course setup to other fields like electric aviation. Could the authors elaborate on which specific elements are most transferable and why?
  We have moved this now to the Future Work section. It has not yet cristalised how this aspect and the mentioned high-tech equipment design course will take shape.

 

• Are there any minimum technical requirements or software guidelines imposed on student models to ensure compatibility, quality, or comparability?

While definitely relevant, software compatibility, quality and comparability are not prominently dealt with. Yet, the students are supported by guidelines in two papers. One is the referenced paper on a modelling selection framework. The other is by Sargent, which we now added to the references.

We now added that we point students to {Sargent,Bonnema] as aids to ensure a minimum usefulness of the models (l.261-264).

 

We hope and expect that with these modifications and our replies, your concerns have been dealt with sufficiently.

Kind regards,
the authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors Note that this reviewer is a North American based academic. 

The peer-review considers the paper as an educational pedagogy rather than a traditional engineering "science" paper. As an engineering science paper, it is woefully inadequate in terms of technical content.  As a pedagogy paper, while generally clearly written, the biggest concern this reviewer has is "what is new?" or at least "what is different?" with the teaching approach. Section 4.2, in particular, makes it seem that the curriculum closely follows an existing design book written by a third-party author - now used in its third edition. >>>  What is novel then about the curriculum the present authors implement?  that is something this reviewer finds important.  It is not well addressed in the submitted manuscript. <<<

It seems that a 140 hours "course" in the Netherlands corresponds in North America to roughly "14-credit hours" - which would be ~40% of the entire curriculum for a M.S. degree. I would make sure to emphasize the distinction. In the US, most graduate courses are 3 to 4 credit hours per semester - so that 14 credit hours comprises the equivalent of a 4 "course" sequence

Several other questions arise from the submitted manuscript, which should be addressed in revision.

#1 - given the broad nature of the 140 hours "course," I would like to see an expansion of the writings around lines 66-78 to be more specific -  is the design project a result of student application of materials and computer tools given earlier in the course? how many tools and processes are used in a typical project which come from elsewhere in the curriculum?  CAD, FEM, thermal systems modelling, vehicle performance, weights, etc.  are all important and often need empirical surrogates for use in the design process - where do students learn this?

#2 - section 3 is o.k. for background and does not necessitate further expansion

3 - section 4.1 curriculum outcomes could be presented in a slightly more concise form
#4 - section 4.2 makes it seem that the course follows an existing book with little novation (as noted above the novation and deviation from the text needs to be highlighted)
#5 - section 5.1.3 could be rewritten to be more concise

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments and feedback. Your expertise and background as a North America academic, has provided very useful comments. We have dealt with them in the following manner:

• Note that this reviewer is a North American based academic. 
  The peer-review considers the paper as an educational pedagogy rather than a traditional engineering "science" paper. As an engineering science paper, it is woefully inadequate in terms of technical content.  As a pedagogy paper, while generally clearly written, the biggest concern this reviewer has is "what is new?" or at least "what is different?" with the teaching approach. Section 4.2, in particular, makes it seem that the curriculum closely follows an existing design book written by a third-party author - now used in its third edition. >>>  What is novel then about the curriculum the present authors implement?  that is something this reviewer finds important.  It is not well addressed in the submitted manuscript. <<<
  [4.2, Page 4-5, Line 160-180]

You are absolutely right this paper has limited engineering science content. It is indeed intended to show an – in our eyes – innovative teaching approach. The lion’s share of the innovation lies in the synthesis and integration of subjects that the students experience. The book provides the necessary foundation. Referring to the learning goals: goals 4, 5 and 6 are what we really aim for. The engineering foundation (as supported by the book) are formulated in goals 1 and 2, and somewhat 3.

To highlight this, we have rearranged section 4.2.

• It seems that a 140 hours "course" in the Netherlands corresponds in North America to roughly "14-credit hours" - which would be ~40% of the entire curriculum for a M.S. degree. I would make sure to emphasize the distinction. In the US, most graduate courses are 3 to 4 credit hours per semester - so that 14 credit hours comprises the equivalent of a 4 "course" sequence

We should have been more explicit on how the course relates to the US credit system. We found in several references (https://www.educations.com/student-resources/ects-to-us-credits-conversion, https://howtoabroad.com/ects-vs-us-credits/, https://transfercredit.arizona.edu/content/international-credit-conversion-guide-iccg) a conversion ratio where 2 ECTS is equivalent to 1 US credit. We have added this factor to footnote 2.

The course therefore should be considered a 2.5 US credit hour course, which is substantially smaller than what the comment suggests.  

• Given the broad nature of the 140 hours "course," I would like to see an expansion of the writings around lines 66-78 to be more specific -  is the design project a result of student application of materials and computer tools given earlier in the course? how many tools and processes are used in a typical project which come from elsewhere in the curriculum?  CAD, FEM, thermal systems modelling, vehicle performance, weights, etc.  are all important and often need empirical surrogates for use in the design process - where do students learn this?
  [2, Page 2, Line 66-78]

We have added information on the course entry requirements. Students need to bring design experience and physics understanding (at common engineering level) in addition to the already mentioned systems engineering basics. This has been implemented in the text in lines 107-112.

With the reviewer's previous comment in mind, the course does not facilitate detailed education on the presented models and methods. However, the course has a number of entry requirements that ensure that students have (basic engineering) knowledge regarding different methods that can be applied. Changes have been made to the article and highlighted as such in section 2. Also, we added (lines 261-264) a few words on how we support students in verification of the models, and ensuring usefulness.

• Section 3 is o.k. for background and does not necessitate further expansion

Thank you, we kept this section as is.

• Section 4.1 curriculum outcomes could be presented in a slightly more concise form
  [4.1, Page 4, Line 141-159]

We don’t see a way to present this particular section more concise without reformulating the learning goals.

• Section 4.2 makes it seem that the course follows an existing book with little novation (as noted above the novation and deviation from the text needs to be highlighted)
  [4.2, Page 4-5, Line 160-180]

The paper does not aim at providing considerable engineering science content. It is indeed intended to show an – in our eyes – innovative teaching approach. The lion’s share of the innovation lies in the synthesis and integration of subjects that the students experience. The book provides the necessary foundation. Referring to the learning goals: goals 4, 5 and 6 are what we really aim for. The engineering foundation (as supported by the book) are formulated in goals 1 and 2, and somewhat 3.

To highlight this, we have rearranged section 4.2.

• Section 5.1.3 could be rewritten to be more concise
  [5.1.3, Page 10-11, Line 347-353]

5.1.3 is already a very short paragraph, so we did not manage to make it even more concise. However, in case the reviewer intended to mention section 5.1.2, we have tried to make that a bit more compact.

 

We like to express our thanks to the reviewer. We hope (and expect) that with the modifications and replies to your valuable comments, we have succeeded in submitting an acceptable paper.

With kind regards,
the authors.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The relevant recommendations are as follows:

1. The paper mentions that the course content covers many aspects of electric vehicles. How can the depth and breadth of these contents be balanced? For example, how can some contents be explored more deeply while others are introduced briefly?
2. The paper emphasizes the multidisciplinary nature of the course. How can the integration and connection of knowledge across different disciplines be effectively managed?
3. Regarding the continuous improvement of the course, the authors mentioned making adjustments based on student feedback. Is there a regular course evaluation mechanism and feedback channel in place to identify and address issues in a timely manner?
4. The paper mentions that students have a high evaluation of the course. However, in the assessment process, have individual differences and learning styles of students been taken into account?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We thank you for your thoughtful observations. We have carefully considered each comment and have revised the manuscript accordingly. Below, we provide detailed responses to each point raised and outline the corresponding changes made to the text.

• • The paper mentions that the course content covers many aspects of electric vehicles. How can the depth and breadth of these contents be balanced? For example, how can some contents be explored more deeply while others are introduced briefly?

and:

• • The paper emphasizes the multidisciplinary nature of the course. How can the integration and connection of knowledge across different disciplines be effectively managed?
  • 
    We have now addressed this challenge in Chapter 2 - Course Rationale and Background chapter (from line 95 (80 in the original version). You can find the additions below (highlighted in blue text).

    A further challenge lies in balancing the depth and breadth of the course content. With limited time and a wide scope, not all topics can be explored equally. Some content areas are introduced only briefly to provide context, while others are explored in more detail to enable deeper learning. This requires careful lecture planning, where core topics are identified for in-depth treatment based on their relevance to the course’s learning objectives and interdisciplinary nature. At the same time, less central (yet relevant) topics are presented in a way that encourages curiosity and invites students to explore them further, either individually or in their project group. The teacher(s) of the course play(s) a key role in helping students navigate this layered structure by clarifying which topics require deeper understanding and which ones serve mainly to connect ideas across disciplines. This approach encourages students to take ownership of their learning paths while maintaining coherence across the course.

    These considerations reinforce the importance of integration as a guiding principle and such integration should be addressed explicitly. We build on the systems engineering (SE) approach, where problem exploration and solution definition occur in an iterative manner. In fact, having completed an introductory course on SE is mandatory for following this course. Furthermore, other entrance requirements, such as basic knowledge of physics and design methods, aim to level the knowledge ground among students, ensuring a more balanced starting point for interdisciplinary collaboration.

• Regarding the continuous improvement of the course, the authors mentioned making adjustments based on student feedback. Is there a regular course evaluation mechanism and feedback channel in place to identify and address issues in a timely manner?

The paper already mentioned the standard and regular university evaluation process. There is no formal mechanism to ensure follow-ups to these evaluations. However, the evaluation committee does look at previous evaluations of a course. If any feedback, advice or conclusions have not been dealt with, the teacher is asked for a reaction on that. 

On the other hand, with the motivation to deliver high quality teaching that most teachers have, comments are generally taken very seriously.

• The paper mentions that students have a high evaluation of the course. However, in the assessment process, have individual differences and learning styles of students been taken into account?
  The evaluation of the course, as reported in the paper, is based on standard institutional evaluation mechanisms, which typically do not account for individual differences or learning styles. While these factors are indeed relevant to understanding student experiences more deeply, they fall outside the scope of the current evaluation framework. To acknowledge this point in the manuscript, we have addressed this observation as a final remark of section 5.2 Students’ Experiences and Evaluation (line 423 (380 in original version)). You can find the additions below.

It is important to note that the course evaluation data presented here are based on the standard institutional surveys, which do not explicitly account for individual differences or learning styles of the students. Future research could explore how these factors influence student perceptions and outcomes to provide a more nuanced understanding of course effectiveness.

We thank the reviewer for their careful reading and valuable comments to the paper. We hope and expect that the current updated version will meet the quality standards.

With kind regards,

the authors.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed the concerns in the original review. The supplied review copy was tedious to inspect, as it did not have changes highlighted.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some of the writing is wordy.

The presentation could be made stronger with some light editorial efforts.

Examples.

p. 2, ln 41  "From a development point of view, we see that EVs could be configured can be developed by taking the  architecture of an ICEV and then replacing the internal combustion engine and transmission of an ICEV with by an electric drive train, substituting the fuel tank with a battery, and adding a charger"

p.2, ln 50, "While specialized automotive engineering programs exist, we believe that EV designing EVs is a useful to case for educateing engineers in other fields. 

p.2, ln 64, " As stated in the Introduction, the energy transition and mobility transition are closely related.

p.2, ln 66 "For example, an understanding of how renewable energy powers electric vehicles helps students...

p. 2, ln 77 "The authors are part of a group that is founded in Systems Engineering and Multidisciplinary Design; ,the integration of the various disciplines is core to our research and education.

p. 4, ln 130 The continuously increasing development of EVs, as demonstrated by the rapid global sales growth and significant market expansion [7,8], undoubtedly signals a growing need 
 for specialists in the field. 

p. 4, lin 138 " In recent years, worldwide governments worldwide have introduced policies at regional, national  and international levels..."

p. 4, lin 166, " This the EVSD course attempts to immerses students in the multidisciplinary design and synthesis processes central to electric mobility. 

p. 6, lin 222, " Therefore, students have to work in small design teams of 3-4 persons on a design case.

etc.

 

 

Author Response

Comments 1: The authors have addressed the concerns in the original review. The supplied review copy was tedious to inspect, as it did not have changes highlighted.   Response 1: Thank you for your effort. We indeed did not submit a version with changes highlighted. Sorry for that. We indeed worked hard to address your concerns.    

Comment 2: Some of the writing is wordy. The presentation could be made stronger with some light editorial efforts.

Response 2: Thank you for the feedback and suggestions on reducing wordyness. We went through the text and made many small alterations to be more concise. The updated version is further reduced and we concur with you that this way the paper has improved. We include in the attached submission a document that highlights the differences between versions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

accept.

Author Response

Thank you for your support in reviewing. Thank you for the advice to accept the paper.