42 volts - the view from today

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42 volts - the view from today

Keim, Thomas A.

A few years ago, the automobile industry agreed to adopt standards for a new voltage for the production and use of electrical power. The perception was near universal that 14 Volts was at the limits of its capability, and that 42 Volts would be adopted in a rush. The universal perception was wrong. Since then, much of the auto industry has encountered hard financial times. In a totally separate development, parts suppliers introduced innovations at 14 Volts, some of which a few years ago were thought to require 42 Volts. Today, there are 42-Volt cars and trucks for sale, but only at numbers far lower than necessary to begin to achieve economies of scale. But the factor which caused the industry to develop the 42 Volt standard, the growth of electricity use on motor vehicles, continues with no sign of letup. 42 Volts will require a cost premium, but with sound design, it is easy to imagine that that premium will be 50 or 100 Euros, not ten times that much. None of the technical challenges discussed above require an expensive new direction. The work which has been done in the past several years has identified important differences between 42 Volts and 14 Volts, which require that 42-Volt systems and their components be designed with an awareness of these differences. Further, the true technical obstacles to adoption of 42 Volts have been discovered and at least provisionally solved. The way forward to cost-effective solutions for advanced automobiles is clearer today than it was in the past.