Battery chargers are either very heavy or very expensive. For a pure electric vehicle the charger can be left out of the car as was the case with the EV-1 built by General Motors. The EV-1 charger was a very clever and safe design but was also extremely heavy. However, weight was not an issue as it stayed in the owners garage. A PHEV needs an on board charger that can provide the performance needed by the charging capability of the batteries. Lead acid batteries charge slowly and don’t need sophisticated control. Li-ion batteries can absorb a charge very quickly but each cell in the stack must be managed individually for safety reasons.

 

Genovation is using a sophisticated light-weight charger that has a higher cost than we would like but out of all our SCWARE factors, cost is the only factor that is compromised in this case.

 

As we progress with a custom controller design we intend to build the charger function into our design as part of the whole energy management solution.

 

A DC to DC converter is used to charge the 12V auxiliary battery from the high voltage traction pack.