Electrification in light and heavy vehicles and supporting infrastructure
The electric vehicle is an emerging market that reached an inflexion point in 2023. The fact that we need to preserve our planet for the next generation is becoming a reality now, and there is a road to net-zero emissions. According to IHS, one in four new passenger car sales will be electrified by 2030, while the internal combustion engine (ICE) will exit the market by 2050. Surveying the e-mobility market in general, for instance, around 30 percent of commercial vehicles will be electrified by 2030 in EMEA, at which time it is estimated that around 80 million e-bikes will be sold.
According to Strategy Analytics, an ever-increasing number of electric vehicles are being sold and on the road. If we compare the market at the beginning of 2023, for instance, there were 27 million EVs on the road; this figure is expected to increase to 100 million passenger cars by 2026 and exceed 700 million by 2040.
The three main OEMs for EVs are BYD in China, Tesla in the U.S., and Volkswagen Group in EMEA. As OEMs continue to electrify their entire fleet, we are talking about 20 new models per year with increasing performance in terms of driving range, which is already hitting 400 miles, and looking for ways to speed up charging times. Hand in hand, the growth in charging infrastructure and energy storage systems is increasing, and there is a significant transformation of the value chain within the automotive industry that is happening just right now.
Understanding the electrification ecosystem
NXP doesn’t only offer solutions for the electrification of the vehicle, it connects end-to-end energy optimisation for the electrification infrastructure, see Figure 1.
Our electricity needs used to be simple. Today, demand for power changes in real time, and our breadth of services needs to be able to flex too. Accurately modelling energy storage and smart metering will help to distribute power more efficiently. Integrating and storing renewable energy sources requires two-way communication between users and utility companies. Grid operators need real-time data on energy consumption to manage the power load.
Figure 1: NXP enables the electrification ecosystem in the electrification journey
EV charging station manufacturers need to be able to monitor equipment health status and manage hardware repairs and software updates. With secure connectivity, we could imagine that energy prices are adjusted by demand to incentivise off-peak charging or for EV owners to sell excess power stored in their batteries back to the grid.
High-voltage battery management system
NXP powers the diverse ecosystem on its electrification journey, from large OEMs with their supply partners and engineering services to regional OEMs for trucks, buses, trains, three-wheelers, drones, eVTOLs, and so on. It also includes the IDH network for sustainable trade, the gigafactory ecosystem, EV infrastructure, and the energy supply system (ESS) for the grid, buildings, and homes. The company’s high-voltage battery management system (BMS) reference design solution is already available.
The complete BMS portfolio comprises three strategic devices – the battery cell controller, the intelligent junction box to monitor the current and protect the entire BMS, and isolated communication via a daisy-chain gateway that can be used as a companion chip to ensure communication. NXP supports various types of communication; the main one is TPL, which is the isolated communication protocol for the BMS. We also support CAN-based communication, removing the need for a microcontroller (MCU), power management, and CAN software stack.
On top of the three main devices, NXP offers a complementary product portfolio that accommodates multiple BMS architectures. These include pressure sensors for thermal runaway monitoring, 3-axis low-G accelerometers to wake up the main MCU in case of a shock or roll condition being met, and an accurate, ultra-low power, automotive-grade real-time clock (RTC). NXP also provides a state-of-the-art general-purpose MCU family; the S32K3 is a scalable family based on Arm® Cortex® cores, as well as dedicated safety power management, which both support up to ASIL D functional safety.
In addition, NXP provides secure and powerful connectivity through its in-vehicle networking (IVN) portfolio, which ranges from LIN, CAN, and FlexRay to Ethernet switches and PHYs. The portfolio can be trusted to enable new vehicle architectures and extend the possibilities of existing networks to handle complex high-performance applications.
Why system solutions matter
Figure 2: NXP’s high-voltage battery management system reference design
NXP proposes scalable high voltage battery management system (HVBMS) reference designs up to 800V with an ASIL D architecture, composed of three modules: battery management unit (BMU), cell monitoring unit (CMU), and battery junction box (BJB). (See Figure 2.) In addition to the hardware, NXP provides a complete software offering for firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates, and free ISO 26262 compliant real-time drivers (RTD) for AUTOSAR® and non-AUTOSAR environments. The beauty of this offering is that all this comes with the same application programmable interface (API) that covers whatever the end application needs, whether it is automotive or non-automotive, which maximises the return on investment (ROI) in terms of hardware and software.
The HVBMS reference designs come with full functional safety analysis, up to ASIL D, which is the highest safety level, with complete system-level safety documentation. In addition, NXP is currently working on wireless BMS solutions with partners through cloud-connected battery twins, dedicated battery passports and energy information systems (EIS). As such, NXP is a trusted advisor and innovation partner supporting various players in the battery value chain globally, addressing differing levels of customer types.
Connectivity inside the vehicle
Today, there is a complete physical and logical re-architecture inside the vehicle. All carmakers are moving from a linear to ‘multi-stub’ topology, see Figure 3. Migrating to a multi-stub (green line) topology, it is clear that there is less cabling and fewer connectors, which reduces the overall weight of the harness and optimises system BOM cost. Another benefit is the option of adding more ECUs without having to build a harness variant. Importantly, in case of a signal failure, there is no loss of network.
However, stub topologies result in signal ringing on the bus lines due to the open stub and impedance mismatch – even though the data rate for CAN FD is up to 5 Mbit/s, the effects of signal ringing means that the achievable data rate is unlikely to exceed 2 Mbit/s. This is why NXP introduced its CAN signal improvement capability (SIC) technology, the TJA146x transceiver, which actively improves the signal and thus is less limited by ringing, achieving higher bit rates, which also helps OEMs avoid expensive cabling workarounds, saving weight and cost. NXP offers these devices as direct drop-in replacements for all its existing HS-CAN transceivers.
Figure 3: The CAN FD trade-off: topology and data rate
