An Economical Light Plug-in Electric Vehicle (LPEV) with On-Board Single-Stage Battery Charging System

This work proposes an efficient configuration for light plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) with a cost-effective and compact charging system. In this work, an integrated isolated DC-DC converter is investigated for a light PEV that employs a brushless DC (BLDC) machine as a traction motor to lower the component cost of the motor drive. The designed converter has the ability to function competently in all operating situations. The proposed converter has a minimum element because of the multi-functional operation of the converter. The designed converter can function as both maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and power factor correction (PFC) converters in solar and grid charging. In propulsion and regenerative braking operations, the proposed converter has buck/boost conversion capability to adjust the DC bus voltage according to vehicle speed to lower the inverter switching power losses and the traction motor's current ripple. As an outcome, the developed charging scheme becomes condensed and effective, making it a viable alternative for industry applications of light plug-in vehicles.