Engineers face a trade-off between the performance and range of modern electric vehicles (EVs). Faster acceleration and higher cruising speeds require more frequent and time-consuming recharging stops. Alternatively, longer range comes at the cost of more sedate progress. To increase range, while also offering drivers higher performance, engineers need to design drive trains that ensure as much battery energy as
possible gets transferred to the driven wheels. Just as important is the need to keep drive trains small enough to fit within the constraints of the vehicle. These twin demands require both high-efficiency and high-energy-density components. The key component in an EV drive train is the three-phase voltage source inverter (or “traction inverter”) which converts the batteries’ DC voltage into the AC
required for the vehicle’s electric motor(s). Building an efficient traction inverter is critical to lowering the trade-off between performance and range, and one of the key routes to improving efficiency is proper use of wide bandgap (WBG), silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor devices. This article describes the role of the EV traction inverter. It then explains how designing the unit with SiC
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