Electric Vehicle-to-Vehicle Energy Transfer Using On-Board Converters

Electric vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging is a recent approach for sharing energy among electric vehicles (EVs). Existing V2V approaches with an off-board power-sharing interface add extra space and cost for EV users. Furthermore, V2V power transfer using on-board type-2 chargers reported in the literature is not efficient due to redundant conversion stages. This article proposes a new method for V2V power transfer by directly connecting the two EV batteries together for sharing energy through the type-2 ac charger input ports and switches. The active rectifiers of on-board type-2 chargers are not used for rectification during V2V charging, instead only a few switches are used as interfaces to connect the two EV batteries together, to avoid redundant power conversion and associated losses which effectively improve the overall V2V efficiency. The possible V2V charging scenarios of the proposed V2V approach are validated using a MATLAB/Simulink simulation study. Furthermore, a scaled experimental prototype is developed to validate the proposed V2V method practically.