Battery charging for electric vehicles with modular multilevel traction drives

A modular multilevel converter based on MosFET half bridge modules has been recently proposed for the energy management and the drivetrain control of electric vehicles. This topology provides an active balancing of the cells in addition to the control of the propulsion motor, thus integrating into the same controller also the function of a battery management system. This paper analyses the possibilities for stationary recharge of the batteries both from a three phase and a single phase AC source. Charging operations are demonstrated by numerical simulations on a model of an electric city car.