System Voltage for Light and Commercial Electric Vehicles

Authors

W. Wenzel - BorgWarner, G. Domingues - BorgWarner Sweden AB

Summary

Vehicle electrification has already seen numerous changes through its relatively short evolution and taken on just as many different forms. This paper focuses on electrified propulsion from a system voltage perspective. It provides a quick overview about the evolution of system voltage for battery electric vehicles (BEV) and describes the cur-rent situation for light BEVs and electric commercial vehicles (eCV) with two voltage classes 400 Volt and 800 Volt. In the main part, the drivers, and hurdles as well as the impacts and requirements for higher system voltage are discussed. Starting from an overview about the main development areas for electric vehicle propulsion systems, including direct current (DC) charging and the needs for driving operation, the impact on the electric subsystems and components including power electronics and electric motors (EM) are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, charging voltage compatibility is ad-dressed due to the need of using the available charging infrastructure. Based on the current situation, this paper will further explore the outlook, limitations, and impact on the propulsion as system voltage levels potentially increase for both, electric passenger, and commercial vehicles. A cases study is added to analyze the impact on sub-system efficiency and propulsion efficiency on vehicle level for two examples. Based on the results of the case study and the other considerations, the issues to be solved as well as benefits will be evaluated and discussed.