Reliability of Power Electronic Systems for EV/HEV Applications

The electrification of the transportation sector is moving on at a fast pace. All car manufacturers have strong programs to electrify their car fleet to fulfill the demands of society and customers by offering carbon-neutral technologies to bring goods and persons from one location to another. Power electronics technology is, in this evolution, essential and also in a rapid development technology-wise. Some of the introduced technologies are quite mature, and the systems designed must have high reliability as they can be quite complicated from an electrical perspective. Therefore, this article focuses on the reliability of the used power electronic systems applied in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid EVs (HEVs). It introduces the reliability requirements and challenges given for the power electronics applied in EV/HEV applications. Then, the advances in power electronic components to address the reliability challenges are introduced as they individually contribute to the overall system reliability. The reliability-oriented design methodology is also discussed, including two examples: an EV onboard charger and the drive train inverter. Finally, an outlook in terms of research opportunities in power electronics reliability related to EV/HEVs is provided. It can be concluded that many topics are already well handled in terms of reliability, but issues related to complete new technology introduction are important to keep the focus on.