Drive circuitry of an electric vehicle enabling rapid heating of the battery pack at low temperatures

Yalun Li; Xinlei Gao; Yudi Qin; Jiuyu Du; Dongxu Guo; Xuning Feng; Languang Lu; Xuebing Han; Minggao Ouyang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101921

Drive circuitry of an electric vehicle enabling rapid heating of the battery pack at low temperatures

iScience. 2020 Dec 10;24(1):101921. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101921. eCollection 2021 Jan 22.

Authors

Yalun Li¹, Xinlei Gao^{1

2}, Yudi Qin¹, Jiuyu Du¹, Dongxu Guo^{1

3}, Xuning Feng¹, Languang Lu¹, Xuebing Han¹, Minggao Ouyang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
² School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 10191, China.
³ Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.

Abstract

Heating battery at low temperatures is fundamental to avoiding the range anxiety and the time-consuming charging associated with electric vehicles (EVs). One method for achieving fast and uniform battery heating is to polarize the cell under pulse currents. However, the on-board implementation of this method leads to an increase in the cost and size. Therefore, in this study, an adapted EV circuitry compatible with the existing one and an optimized operating condition are proposed to enable rapid battery heating. With this circuit, electricity transfer between the cells can be realized through a motor, leading to remarkably higher battery currents than those of the conventional circuit. The increase in the maximum heating currents (from 1.41C to 4C) resulted in a battery temperature rise of 8.6°C/min at low temperatures. This heating method exhibits low cost, high efficiency, and negligible effects on battery degradation, practical and promising on battery heating of EVs.

Keywords: Electrochemical Energy Storage; Electrochemistry; Energy Engineering; Energy Materials; Energy Systems.