Lightning Current Distribution in an Electric Vehicle

Recent research on vehicles has revealed that when a vehicle is struck by lightning, the lightning current flows from the body, passing through the drive unit and transmission, to reach the ground via the tire wheels. Many reports of lightning damage to vehicles have been reported, including failures and malfunctions of electrical and electronic equipment. Compared to conventional vehicles, the latest vehicles are equipped with various safety equipment such as collision prevention systems. It is speculated that the increased amount of electrical and electronic equipment makes such accidents more likely to occur. Furthermore, since electric vehicles have electrical systems not only in their control units but also in their drive units, they may be vulnerable to electromagnetic disturbances such as lightning surges. Analytical and experimental studies of lightning damage countermeasures for vehicles have not been sufficient. Moreover, effective lightning damage countermeasures have not been implemented at present. Lightning damage countermeasure technologies must be considered from the perspective of vehicle safety and equipment protection. This paper reported the results of a test to inject an impulse current into an electric vehicle to simulate a lightning strike on the electric vehicle and clarify the current distribution during the test.