Recent Development of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

With the increasing concern of environmental protection and energy sustainability, as well as the rapid advancement of high-performance electric motors, power electronic converters, and energy storage technology, electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEVs) are perceived as the viable substitution for conventional gas-fueled automobiles. EVs were attracting wide attention in the early 1900s but failed in the competition with gas-powered cars during the following decades. The 1973 gasoline crisis sparked new interest in EVs. Later in 1976, the US Congress recommended EVs as a solution to reduce oil dependency. However, electric vehicles didn’t attract worldwide attention until the appearance of the Toyota Prius in 1997. Afterward, famous car manufacturers including Honda, Ford, Nissan, GM, BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, and Audi made great efforts in improving the performance of EVs. Among them, Tesla is the pioneer pushing the frontiers of innovation in this area. Fueled by the continuous advancement in electric motor, power electronics, and battery technology, the sales of EVs in 2021 reached a new record (U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Vehicle Technologies Office in Transportation Energy Data Book. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, https://tedb.ornl.gov/data/, 2022), as shown in Fig. 1.