Voltage

Voltage is sometimes compared to water pressure; the higher the pressure, the more water that can be transferred through a given size of pipe. Likewise, more high voltage electric power can be conducted through smaller wires. This does more than save money, weight, and space; particularly in motors, high voltage is the difference between a high-power motor that is heavy and bulky and one that is light and compact.

But a high voltage motor (800 volts) requires a high voltage system, beginning with the Battery, and requiring 800 volts for all the components in the system. In many cases, high voltage battery packs are also very high capacity and therefore large and expensive. EV Drive uses cylindrical cells and a very flexible internal architecture in the battery modules to achieve the highest voltage in the business for low kWh batteries. This is particularly important in racing or high-performance vehicles where extra weight is the difference between winning and losing.

Achieving 800 volts in a small battery is an engineering challenge and is almost impossible with the prismatic or pouch cells that are often used, as the cells themselves are relatively large and a minimum number of them must be used to achieve the desired voltage.