The challenges and opportunities for powering electric vehicles

Automotive design engineers find themselves at a very exciting confluence of technologies as we enter a new decade. 

Battery technology has reached a point where electrically-powered vehicles can be developed with meaningful amounts of energy stored to bring vehicle occupants from A to B, while offering both an exciting and familiar driving experience. In parallel, semiconductor technology provides ever increasing levels of measurement accuracy, incorporated in today’s Battery Management Systems (BMS), while next-generation switching technology is allowing us to attain the final few percentage points of efficiency improvement in power conversion systems as energy flows to the tires when driving, and battery when charging.

This ensures that more energy than ever before is contributing usefully.