Advantages of using supercapacitors and silicon carbide on hybrid vehicle series architecture

In recent years enormous growth has taken place in the hybrid vehicle sector; parallel architecture is the most widespread configuration regarding medium size cars. At the same time, storage systems and power electronics have experienced some important innovations. The development of supercapacitors has permitted management of high power with elevated efficiency. Moreover, the availability on the market of silicon carbide components has allowed a significant reduction of power electronic losses. These improvements may challenge the hybrid architecture used in medium size cars nowadays. On one hand, series architecture would relevantly benefit from an electric powertrain efficiency increase, on the other hand, these innovations would generate low benefits in parallel architectures. The aim of this paper is to evaluate electric component average efficiency over different road missions, in order to estimate fuel economy over various working conditions and finally to establish which hybrid configuration is most efficient in vehicle applications.