Bruce Renouard, CEO, Pre-Switch:
The holy grail for EV designers is increased range. More range requires greater efficiency in both the inverter and the motor drive systems. In the past, switching losses were kept low in the inverter which compromised motor efficiency. Now, Pre-Switch has developed an embedded AI which for the first time enables soft switching to be employed in DC/AC inverters. The resulting SiC-based inverters have virtually no switching losses. This unleashes inverter switching speeds of 100 kHz which reduces sine wave distortion, thereby increasing motor efficiency. The main benefits are reduced size/cost of the SiC needed for an inverter, a higher efficiency inverter AND a 10x reduction motor current distortion. EV range is predicted to be increased by 5-12%. This presentation includes test data showing the near-total elimination of switching losses and three-dimensional graphs of system level inverter efficiencies of 99% at 100kHz in Pre-Switch’s 200kVA CleanWave inverter reference.
