Power Electronics

Pure electric short range trucks are rapidly becoming viable as they face much tougher local and global emissions regulations.

There is a frenzy of investment by in fully autonomous cars, some without even a steering wheel, but it is almost entirely supplier push. Virtually no private individual is interested in buying one. It is very different with fleets such as taxis where potential corporate purchasers such as Uber see many benefits including cost and space saving

The saying is, "In a gold rush, get there first, sell shovels". The "shovels" of the EV business are covered in the unique new IDTechEx report, Industrial and Commercial Electric Vehicles on Land 2016-2026.

Daniel Boston and Alyssa Werthman of Ford Motor Company, Dearborn MI have recently published a study "Plug-in Vehicle Behaviors: An analysis of charging and driving behaviour of Ford plug-in electric vehicles in the real world".

To overcome the diverse charging landscape described in Part One, Continental acknowledges that it is a clever idea to equip the EV with all the charging interfaces discussed

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed a new type of high-power integrated motor drive and battery charger for electric vehicles. Compared to today's electric vehicle chargers, the new system could shorten the charging time from eight to two hours, and to reduce the cost by around $2,000, according to the developers.

A novel axial field switched reluctance motor design is presented which intend to improve the output torque by single flux path distribution in C- core stator while exploiting the high power density of the switched reluctance technology.

An electric vehicle with three energy storage systems shows the complexity of commanding different control systems in only one vehicle. Both new systems can supply the required energy to propel the electric motor and the fuel cell system can also recharge the high-voltage battery.

This paper first presented at EVS29 Montreal Canada provides an overview of the Fiscal Years 2015-2016 Hybrid and Electric Systems research and development activities - with emphasis on its advanced electric drive research -funded by the Vehicles Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Following the trend to two or more traction motors per vehicle, the Technical University of Berlin with Infineon is merging their motor controllers and the on-board charger (OBC). Infineon now has a special chip to assist. At EVS29 in Montreal June 2016, Dr Martin Bruell of Continental AG, Germany, revealed progress on elimination of the OBC.