POWERDRIVE – Power electronics optimisation for next generation electric vehicle components

ProjectPower electronics

With the purpose of transforming road transportation in Europe to zero-emission mobility, POWERDRIVE aims at developing next generation, highly efficient, cost-effective, and compact power electronics solutions that integrate a portfolio of technologies for multi-objective optimisation of electric powertrains of battery electric vehicles. These integrated solutions can be applied to both low and high-performance vehicles, and they will be suitable for diverse types of electric vehicles.

The concept of POWERDRIVE is that all the experience and expertise of the project partners in the development of electric drivetrain components will be leveraged and lead into the integration of advanced power electronics solutions for an optimised powertrain. This concept brings additional opportunities to strengthen Europe’s supply chain in electromobility for road transportation and to achieve zero-emission road mobility.

POWERDRIVE intends to implement innovative strategies to improve the efficiency and power density as well as to reduce the cost of electric powertrains while keeping performance high and reliable. The technologies developed in POWERDRIVE will accelerate the development and deployment of zero-emission road mobility which will deliver concrete benefits including improved quality of life, economic growth, and new business opportunities for all the EU member states. An optimised EV powertrain will significantly reduce transport emissions and tackle the issues of air quality and noise pollution in urban areas.

EnergyVille/KU Leuven is coordinator of the project and is in charge of improving the on-board chargers of future Electric Vehicles.

Other partners include Volvo, Tampere U., Chalmers U., SMA Magnetics, Rogers, SCIRE, Dublin U., and MathWorks

This project is part of the call HORIZON-CL5-2021-D5-01​-02​ and is being carried out with the support of the European Commission.

Kick-off meeting in mei 2022
Second General Meeting was held virtually on November 3, 2022.
General meeting hosted by Chalmers University in Sweden.
The general meeting of November 7, 2023 was also held virtually.

Wilmar Martinez

Professor in Power Electronics at EnergyVille / KU Leuven
+32 16 32 52 31