Stay charged and ready to go with Elektree’s on-board battery chargers (OBC)
The EV’s on-board charger (OBC) is the life of the party, recharging the high-voltage (HV) main battery from the AC dance floor while the car’s parked. Longer driving ranges of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) are achieved by amping up the battery capacities and energy efficiencies of electric components. Typical development targets are efficient power conversion for 400 V and 800 V systems, power density, reliability, and bi-directional (instead of unidirectional) power flow to enable future use cases (V2L, V2H, and V2G). The battery voltage classes used tend to be standardized at approximately 450 V, with a trend towards higher voltages as this supports faster charging times and lighter cabling within the vehicle.
Discrete high-voltage components are the life of the party for on-board charging applications, as price pressures increasingly displace module-based solutions. The trend towards fast charging also impacts the power range demanded from OBC topologies. Therefore, new designs trend towards 11 kW or even up to 22 kW. This development, paired with a demand for high efficiency and power density at low system cost, is a strong driver for the usage of three-phase solutions.