Sokon Industrial Group's wholly-owned subsidiary SERES announced that its first inverter based on self-encapsulated silicon carbide (SiC) devices has successfully passed the combined electric drive systems testing on November 23.

Sokon Industrial Group's wholly-owned subsidiary SERES announced that its first inverter based on self-encapsulated silicon carbide devices has successfully passed the combined testing of electric drive systems.

This marks that SERES has become the first and only in China. Among the only two globally (the other is Tesla) who can design inverter based on both single-tube parallel connection and self-developed third-generation semiconductor (silicon carbide).

In the first ten months of the year, Sokon's sales of New Energy Vehicles (NEV) reached 14,437, up 187.76% year-on-year. On October 8, 200 SERES Model 3 vehicles, a type of smart energy vehicles under this brand, were exported to Germany.

This is the first time Chongqing has exported NEV to Europe, marking that Sokon's all three product series of commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, and electric vehicles have been exported to European markets.

By virtue of excellent switching function, low conduction losses at light loads, and other advantages, SiC can significantly improve efficiency, realize longer endurance mileage at smaller power battery capacity, reduce overall vehicle cost, and satisfy other targeted needs.

Compared with traditional IGBT inverter, SiC inverter can bring a remarkable efficiency improvement throughout the operating range. Notably, the efficiency at light loads (the rotational speed is below 2,000rpm and the torque below 100Nm) is raised from 65% to 92%, and even to 99% at peak periods.

Dr. Nie Zhong, Senior Director of Power Electronics for SERES Electric Drive Systems, said: "our latest 200kW SiC inverter demonstrates that SERES is always at the cutting edge of electric vehicle technology. "

He continued, "based on our existing architecture, we can offer a product portfolio covering SiC inverters of various specifications from TO-247 encapsulated single-tube to the half-bridge power module and full-bridge power module."

According to industry insiders, it has a close relation with China's NEV policies and Sokon's NEV sales. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, NEV is ranked among China's future development priorities.

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035). Its specific targets include bringing the average power consumption of new, purely electric passenger cars down to 12 kWh/100 km, raising the proportion of new NEVs in the sales of new vehicles to about 20%, applying highly autonomous vehicles in limited commercial areas and specific commercial scenarios and greatly improving the convenience of charging and switching electricity service by 2025.

On September 2, the General Office of Chongqing Municipal People's Government issued the Incentive Measures to Support the Promotion and Application of NEVs.