The improvement of the efficiency of vehicle energy systems promotes an active search to find innovative solutions during the design process. This requires more accurate modeling of complex systems, which offers new ways to improve the design efficiency of energy systems. The vehicle is a highly dynamic system. The size and the efficiency of the convertors are dependent on the dynamic driving profile. In order to increase the energy efficiency, using energy integration techniques, an adapted methodology is required to. choose the best points for the integrated system design. The idea is to clusterize the dynamic profile on typical multi-periods of the vehicle use. The energy system design is then optimized for these typical multi-periods. In this article a new methodology is applied on hybrid electric vehicles, in order to define the energy integrated powertrain configuration of the vehicle. The energy recovery potential of a single stage Organic Rankine Cycle for a thermal engine in combination with a hybrid electric powertrain is assessed for different drive cycles profiles and comfort situations. After the energy integration, a multi-objective optimization is applied to define the optimal design of a hybrid electric vehicle with a waste heat recovery system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.