Control system for an electric vehicle

Abstract

A system is provided to effectively use the electric charge of a capacitor provided for an inverter in an electric vehicle when the capacitor discharges and to decrease the time required for discharge. An inverter for converting the DC electric power of a main battery into AC electric power to drive a traveling motor is provided with a smoothing capacitor to be charged through a precharge contactor. A DC/DC converter is used to charge a sub-battery using the electric power from the main battery when an electric vehicle runs. When the capacitor discharges, the electric charge of the capacitor is used to charge the sub-battery through the DC/DC converter. Because no discharge circuit is used when the capacitor discharges, it is possible to complete discharge in a short time and without the generation of heat by the discharge circuit.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.