Power electronics applications in electric/hybrid vehicles

Power electronics is an enabling technology for the development of cleaner, fuel efficient, and 42 V architecture based vehicles. In electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, the challenges are to have a high efficient, rugged, small size and low cost inverter and the associated electronics for controlling a three phase electric machine. In addition to the power electronics, the technology of the electric motor plays a major role in the dynamics of the vehicles and the type of the power converter required for the controlling the vehicle operating characteristics. The power electronic system should be efficient to improve the range and performance of the electric vehicles, and fuel economy in hybrid vehicles. This article shows the challenges of the automotive environment to overcome and new developments from device level to system level.