Great Potential of SiC Devices for Environmentally Friendly Vehicles

The automotive industry is developing a range of electrically powered environmentally friendly vehicles such as hybrid (HV), plug-in hybrid (PHV), full electric (EV), and fuel cell (FCV) vehicles to help reduce tailpipe CO2 emissions and achieve energy diversification. HVs are regarded as one of the most practical types of environmentally friendly vehicle and have already been widely accepted by the market. Toyota Motor Corporation has positioned HV systems as a core technology that can be applied to all next-generation electrically powered environmentally friendly vehicles and is currently working to enhance the performance of HV system components. Due to its low loss operation properties, silicon carbide (SiC) power devices are regarded as highly promising next generation power semiconductor devices to help reduce the size and weight of the power control unit (PCU), one of the key components of a HV system. This paper describes the SiC power devices development and the trial application of SiC devices to HVs and FC bus which features both fuel cell technology and hybrid technology.