Off-Highway Vehicle Electrification Surges Ahead

September 5, 2025

Matt Wolfe

Deutronic has two different heatsinks for horizontal and vertical mounting. (Deutronic)

Thanks to the continued growth of electrified machines in the off-highway segment, DC/DC converters are rapidly becoming a crucial component in the supply chain for numerous OEMs for a wide array of applications.

Deutronic’s DVCHx3 DC/DC converter uses a single stage power supply with a flexible housing. (SAE Media)

Deutronic recently unveiled a new line of DC/DC converters intended for the mass electrification needs of today’s off-highway commercial vehicles. The converter’s design is said to be durable and compact with high power density that also offers protection from environmental factors such as vibration, shock, and high temperatures. Deutronic’s DVCHx3 converter also provides an interlock function, as well as short-circuit, overtemperature and no-load/self-protection features.

A notable feature of the unit is its contact surface cooling. Unlike liquid-cooled systems, the contact cooling system is extremely flexible in terms of packaging and mounting and also simplifies overall system integration. SAE Media spoke with Tobias Wanzke, Deutronic’s head of business development, at IVT Expo on the significance of the DVCHx3’s contact cooling package as well as the potential for growth in the high-voltage component market.

What were your main goals for this converter and what were you trying to bring to market with it?

We have the same housing across the lineup but with a lot of different input and output voltages because there’s some specific applications that need 48 volts. We’re very focused on simple and clean implementation in the vehicle, especially for construction vehicles. We’re also focusing on contact cooled systems because they’re very easy to mount on the chassis. A liquid cooled system is very expensive and harder to service. The contact cooling system is very flexible because we can offer a cold plate system or also heatsink.

What are the pros and cons of the contact cooling versus liquid cooling in terms of packaging?

According to Deutronic, the cooling plate system of the DVCHx3 maximizes packaging flexibility and minimizes component cost. (SAE Media)

Contact cooling is cheaper because you don’t need an entire electric cooling system. So contact cooling is more compact and easier to implement. You can just screw our unit onto the chassis or wherever you have place for the converter. One downside about contact cooling is some customers want to have a very regulated cooling system. If you have an application that runs in very high temperatures, for example, a cold plate may not be the best solution for you if you want to keep the system in a very specific temperature range.

What are your airflow requirements for this type of cooling or with a heatsink? Is it something that just an electronic fan can meet, or do you need additional cooling beyond that?

It depends on the application. We have two different heatsinks for horizontal and vertical mounting. We have had customers ask us if there’s enough cooling capacity for their application with no airflow with those components. So, it’s a discussion with the customer. But more often than not, we are able to meet their needs with no additional cooling.

What are the main applications you’re seeing for these products right now?

The Deutronic DVCHx3 has a single-stage power supply. (SAE Media)

Most customers are naturally from the off-highway sector, like construction equipment and other specialized machines. A lot of customers use these converters to have more power output. Some customers also have different voltages on the same chassis. For example, they have a 12- and a 24-volt system powering various aspects of the machine. This is why we wanted a design with very flexible housing. You may have a customer whose first application or the first vehicle needs a three-kilowatt unit but the next one needs a six-kilowatt one.

What is the state of the high voltage architecture market and where do you see that going over the next 10 to 15 years?

At the moment, it’s only about five to 10 percent. But we see that new components are coming for electrified vehicles that are based on 48-volt architectures because you need less wiring, so the diameter is less so it’s cheaper. It’s also easier to have high power applications like a bigger fan, for example, or air conditioning. I think in five years’ time, 48-volt will be about 25 percent of the market.

So you think it’s going to grow that much that quickly?

I hope so. We’re seeing applications where customers have a 24-volt and a small 48-volt system on the same chassis. This is a very expensive way to do this for the customer. We would like to try to have more of our clients exclusively on a 48-volt system where it makes sense to do so.

What were some of the other notable design considerations of this unit?

It uses the same housing as the first-generation unit, but that had a two-stage power supply inside. This is only a single stage. We focused a lot on flexibility within the same housing for this unit. We tried to have a standard housing but be very flexible in terms of the electronics inside.