3 ms·
It's a pretty incremental and small opportunity, but one worth seizing nonetheless. SiC devices have a better figure of merit (Qg * Rds) at high voltages than S
by zbrozek 5y ago
It's a pretty incremental and small opportunity, but one worth seizing nonetheless. SiC devices have a better figure of merit (Qg * Rds) at high voltages than Si devices. The lower gate charge (Qg) means you can switch them more quickly, spending less time transitioning between fully-on and fully-off (where the device is inefficient). And the lower drain-to-source resistance (Rds) means that when fully-on it's generating less heat as well.
In a motor controller you will probably bank that as an efficiency improvement, probably on the order of 1-2% at cruise and maybe a bit more during heavy acceleration or deceleration. In a charger you will probably change your optimization to reduce its size and weight for a given power delivery capability. In case that's on onboard charger, that means you haul around less weight and further improve vehicle efficiency a bit. That improved figure of merit also reduces the cost of having more power handling capability, which is how it might incrementally speed up charging.
To my mind, the biggest thing we can do to improve cars generally is to figure out how to reduce their weight. It's not obvious how to do that without either cutting back on passive safety or dramatically driving up the structural cost (e.g., with metallic foams for energy absorption in crashes).
- ec109685 5y agoWith Tesla Super Chargers, it delivers DC to the car, so the onboard charger is bypassed, so it doesn’t do much for saving space there.