Revolutionizing Electric Vehicles for Sustainable Transportation
Transportation accounts for roughly one-fifth of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. To meet our global commitment to reducing these emissions, and to reduce air pollution in general, we need to support the growth of electric vehicle technology in the coming decades.
Until now, electric vehicle uptake has been limited in Canada, mainly due to the high cost and poor performance of lithium battery systems. Most notably, the driving range of electric vehicles drops over time. It is also affected by environmental conditions, especially in Canada’s harsh climates.
Dr. Olivier Trescases, Canada Research Chair in Power Electronic Converters, is working with researchers with expertise in electrical, mechanical and aerospace engineering to demonstrate disruptive technologies and overcome key hurdles preventing the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
Trescases and his research team are developing new high-efficiency, lightweight, integrated power modules, which are an integral part of the electric vehicle on-board charger. They are also developing new semiconductor chips to measure and control the performance of the hundreds of lithium battery cells within an electric vehicle. This will allow in-depth, real-time diagnosis of battery cells over their lifetimes, providing a new “state-of-health” technology that will maximize driving range and allow more intelligent control of vehicle power.
The global race to create sustainable transportation systems is well underway and Trescases’ research could position Canada as a world leader in this field.