BorgWarner is the recipient of a $4.97 million DOE award for the development of a Scalable Ultra Power-dense Extended Range (SUPER) inverter. This project is one of 24 university and industry-led projects that collectively were awarded $60 million in an effort to reduce emissions from the transportation sector.

BorgWarner is leading this 39-month project and working with Infineon Technologies Americas, PolyCharge America, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Virginia Tech as partners to develop the SUPER inverter. Wolfspeed will be a key supplier.

The goal of the project is to develop an inverter that is smaller, more efficient and more cost-effective than current designs, with the intent of enabling 800 V EVs to meet or exceed the DOE solicitation target of 100 kW per liter of power density. Project plans call for a design that allows high power density with power scaling between 100 kW and 300 kW, and can be used either as a standalone device or integrated into a drive unit that includes a motor and gearbox.

During the first year of the project, which will begin in October, the group will create the concept for the entire silicon carbide-based inverter system. In the second year, the team will make all critical components that make up the inverter, including the power module and capacitor, and finalize the inverter’s design. The final year will be used for validation of the components and the SUPER inverter. Once complete, the team expects to take the technology from development to production relatively quickly.

“We will be leveraging our experience with our 800 V Viper silicon carbide-based inverter, advancing the concept with a building-block approach and increasing component integration to achieve higher performance targets and ultimately expand its commercial potential,” said Dr. Stefan Demmerle, President of BorgWarner PowerDrive Systems. “We expect the number of high-voltage EVs to sharply increase in the coming years, and this scalable, high power density inverter will help expedite adoption.”

Source: BorgWarner