The Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator (FASTSim) is an open-source vehicle powertrain simulation tool for evaluating the efficiency and performance of on-road vehicles. Developed by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), it provides fast, credible estimates of powertrain performance and energy consumption. FASTSim models powertrain technologies from conventional internal-combustion vehicles to hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery electric vehicles, and has been used to simulate light-duty passenger vehicles, two-wheelers, and a wide variety of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

FASTSim is designed for rapid analysis, making it practical to run many simulations and compare technology scenarios across vehicle classes and use cases. It occupies a practical middle ground between basic efficiency assumptions and detailed component/control models, balancing accuracy, runtime speed, and input burden for large scenario sweeps. FASTSim outputs are a core layer in other NLR tools, including:

• RouteE: an energy prediction tool and energy-aware routing engine
• T3CO: a medium- and heavy-duty vehicle total cost of ownership assessment tool
• ADOPT: a technology-driven consumer choice and vehicle market adoption model

FASTSim models conventional vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, and fuel-cell electric vehicles over a set of standard regulatory drive cycles. You can also define custom vehicles and custom drive cycles to simulate any on-road vehicle over realistic scenarios.

For detailed documentation on FASTSim, including usage, background, and modeling philosophy, see https://natlabrockies.github.io/fastsim.

For a collection of prebuilt vehicle models, see the FASTSim Vehicle Database.

Installation

FASTSim is available as a package for use in Python 3.10 through 3.15.

In an active Python environment, run:

pip install fastsim

This installs the latest FASTSim release as a Python package.

For more detailed instructions, including compilation of FASTSim from source, see the Installation page of FASTSim's documentation.

Usage

For instructions on using FASTSim to simulate on-road vehicle performance, see the User Guide section of FASTSim's documentation.