Does Further Electrification Bring new Challenges in Power Electronics?

Electrification in automotive markets seems to stagnate with respect to the currently sold electric vehicles. Still, one basic concern to the costumer is obviously the cost efficiency of all electrified drive trains. This challenge is the core issue of this paper: the state of the art technologies for power electronics are wrapped up to extract the consequences for further improvements which are probably the enabler of further price reduction and enhancement of customer acceptance in electrified vehicles. The first part gives an overview of the achievements and improvements in automotive power electronics during the last decade and shows what further improvement could be expected in the next generation of vehicles. The following parts show why the expected improvements stay limited and what could be done to overcome the so far experienced limitations.