­The Perfect Opportunity for Automotive Power to Move to 48V

Saving weight has become a priority for vehicle manufacturers, and a move to a 48V power delivery network will help them achieve it.

Over the last two decades, there has been a movement towards migrating the power architecture in automobiles from 12V to 48V. Due to a number of reasons, this change has never taken off, despite it being the wishes of the industry. One of the main reasons for the delay is that legacy 12V equipment works well, and that developing the same type of devices for 48V would be expensive and time consuming. However, according to Greg Green, Director of Automotive Marketing at Vicor, now is the time for change due to the introduction of electric vehicles along with the move to a zonal architecture in vehicles. In fact, it has already started with the Tesla Cybertruck already featuring a 48V power delivery network

Vicor