Technology
A fast charger is a cabinet full of converter modules and not much else. Each module is a self-contained rectifier of a few tens of kilowatts, and the station's rating is simply how many of them are fitted. It is a merchant component market, largely Chinese, sitting inside products sold under other names.
In one sentence
A charging power module is a self-contained alternating-to-direct current converter, typically rated between twenty and eighty kilowatts, that regulates its output across the full voltage range of vehicle batteries and is combined in parallel to make a charging station.
The module rectifies three-phase supply, corrects power factor so the site does not present a distorted load to the network, and regulates a wide-range direct current output — commonly from around two hundred to a thousand volts, because it must serve both four-hundred and eight-hundred-volt vehicles. Modules are paralleled to reach a station's rating, and are hot-swappable so that a failure removes capacity rather than taking the site out of service.
The design constraints are efficiency, power density and how the module handles heat and dirt. Air-cooled modules are cheaper and pull filtered outside air through the cabinet, which is a maintenance item and a derating risk in hot climates; liquid-cooled modules cost more, are sealed against dust and salt, and hold full output where air-cooled units throttle back. Which one a station uses is usually the reason its real-world output differs from its label.
A module that only had to produce one voltage would be a straightforward converter. Holding regulation and efficiency from a nearly empty four-hundred-volt pack to a full eight-hundred-volt one means a two-stage topology and control that stays stable across the whole range, and it is the main reason charging modules cost more per kilowatt than industrial rectifiers of the same rating.
Dynamic power sharing — several vehicles drawing different amounts from one cabinet — works because modules are switched onto outputs as they are needed rather than wired to a single connector. That architecture is what lets a site serve four cars at moderate power or one at full power, and it is a property of the module and switching design rather than of the software on top.
Most of the world's charging modules are made by a small number of Chinese power electronics firms and sold into cabinets assembled elsewhere under other brands. The vertically integrated European manufacturers that design their own are the exception, and the distinction matters because a station's efficiency, failure rate and spares position are properties of a component its buyer may not have chosen.
1 of these is marked as a chokepoint: a handful of qualified suppliers, a multi-year lead time, or a single geography.
Silicon carbide switches are what allow high efficiency and power density at these voltages, and they are the largest single item in the module's bill of materials.
Silicon carbide electronicsThe output range a module must cover is set by the pack voltages in the fleet, so the move to eight-hundred-volt vehicles changed the specification of every module built after it.
High-voltage architectureNetwork operators set limits on harmonic distortion and power factor at the connection point, which is why power factor correction is inside the module rather than an option at the site.
Other pages in this map that name Power modules as something they cannot do without.
What each company supplies at this step, and — where a public figure exists — its share of this specific market — with what that share measures, the period it covers and who published it. Some rows also show the company’s own reported revenue for the segment covering this step, which is a different thing: it says how much this business matters to that company, not how much of the market it holds. Not a ranking and not a recommendation.
Supplies charging power modules to cabinet manufacturers worldwide.
Supplies charging power conversion equipment alongside its solar and storage inverters.
Supplies power conversion modules for charging and industrial equipment.
Supplies charging modules and power electronics from an uninterruptible power supply base.
Supplies charging modules at large volume to third-party cabinet builders.
Supplies liquid-cooled and air-cooled charging modules to European and Asian station makers.
Supplies charging power modules and complete conversion systems.
Designs its own power modules rather than buying them, which is unusual outside China.
Whether liquid-cooled modules displace air-cooled units as sites move to higher power.
Whether module supply outside China develops at the volumes new networks require.
Whether megawatt charging for trucks is met by paralleling these modules or by a different conversion architecture.
Each page explains one technology in plain language, states what it depends on, and names companies by what they supply at that step. Company roles are described qualitatively and deliberately carry no market shares, revenue figures or rankings — those change faster than an explainer can, and a stale number is worse than none. Ticker links point at company pages on this site and are provided for reference only.
Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast. A company named on a page about a technology is not thereby a good investment, and the chokepoints described are structural facts about supply chains rather than predictions about prices. Technology moves; where a page describes something as unresolved or in development, that was true when it was written.