Vehicle electrification is often discussed as though it concerns automobile engineers alone. In practice it has moved a large amount of work towards electrical, electronics and embedded disciplines, and it has changed what a mechanical engineer in the sector needs to know.

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It is not only an automobile story. The electrical and electronics content of a vehicle has grown enormously.

Where the work has moved

  • Electrical. Motors and drives, power electronics, battery systems, charging infrastructure and the grid impact of large-scale charging.
  • Electronics and embedded. Battery management systems, vehicle control units, sensors, communication between subsystems, and the software that runs on them.
  • Mechanical. Thermal management, which becomes harder rather than easier; lightweight structures; transmission and packaging around a very differently shaped powertrain.
  • Automobile. Integration of all of the above, vehicle dynamics with a different mass distribution, testing and validation.

The skill that keeps recurring

Thermal management. Batteries have a narrow temperature band in which they are safe, efficient and long-lived, and keeping them there is a hard engineering problem. It sits exactly between mechanical and electrical, which is why people who can work across both are valuable.

What to study if this interests you

At postgraduate level, power electronics and drives, embedded system technologies, and thermal engineering all lead into this work. At undergraduate level the relevant branches are electrical and electronics, electronics and communication, mechanical and automobile.

Practically: learn power electronics properly, get comfortable with embedded programming, and take thermal subjects seriously rather than treating them as something to pass.

What to take away

  • Electrification moved work towards electrical, electronics and embedded disciplines.
  • Thermal management of batteries is the recurring hard problem, and it spans mechanical and electrical.
  • Relevant PG routes: power electronics and drives, embedded systems, thermal engineering.
  • The valuable position is being able to work across the electrical and mechanical boundary.

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