Future EVs could get more range from this tiny TI sensor

Texas Instruments has built a new sensor aimed at making electric vehicles more efficient. It's designed to sit inside the "traction inverter," the part of an EV that controls how power flows from the battery to the motor. The sensor measures electric current very precisely, which lets the car deliver power to the motor more smoothly.

Current sensors force a tradeoff: ones with a magnetic core are accurate but bulky, while smaller, coreless sensors can lose accuracy when they shift slightly due to vibration while driving. TI's new sensor, called the TMCS2100-Q1, measures the magnetic field in two directions at once instead of one, which lets it correct for that vibration. TI says this makes it about 20 times more accurate than existing coreless sensors, even when it shifts position by less than half a millimeter.

For someone driving an EV, the potential payoff is smoother acceleration, a quieter motor, and better efficiency, which could mean more range from the same battery. Because the sensor is small, automakers could also use it to build lighter, more compact inverters. This is one component among many, though, so it won't translate into a guaranteed number of extra miles, and how much difference it makes will depend on how each automaker designs the rest of the vehicle. It's an early-stage development in components that go into future EVs, not a feature you'd see in a car on the lot today.