Abstract
Electric vehicles are often heralded as the future: a smog-free, sustainable, and sometimes
high-performance alternate to burning fossil fuels for transportation. Electric vehicles, or EVs,
only became legitimate competitors to traditional, engine-powered vehicles through advances in
batteries, power electronics, and electric drivetrains, but their success depends on more than
technical performance alone. Beyond engineering, manufacturers, governments, infrastructure
providers, and consumers must create conditions that make it affordable, practical, and socially
acceptable. My technical project and STS research examined these dimensions of electrification
at different scales. The technical portion of my thesis focuses on developing the battery
management system for Virginia Motorsports’ Formula SAE electric race car. This project
demonstrates the cutting edge of modern EV development in high-performance applications. The
STS portion compares the political, industrial, and consumer conditions that shaped electric-
vehicle adoption in China and the United States. This STS research aims to highlight the
different paths these countries took towards reaching their states of electrification today.
Together, these sections show that the proliferation of a new technology is not only dependent on
its technical quality, but the sociopolitical factors that enable or inhibit its growth.
The technical portion of my thesis developed and refined a distributed battery
management system for a 404 volt EV race car battery pack. Battery monitoring boards based on
Texas Instruments’ BQ79616-Q1 integrated circuit measure cell voltages and temperatures,
support passive balancing, and communicate with a central high voltage controller. The original
boards mounted directly to the pouch-cell tab clamping hardware, resulting in a highly compact
design with fewer necessary components. However, testing exposed intermittent communication
failures and noisy measurements in the initial system. Electrical revisions improved grounding,
transformer isolation, signal routing, Kelvin sensing, fuse placement, and trace dimensions, but
did not eliminate every failure. Further investigation showed that the fastening system
constrained each board at numerous points and transmitted excessive mechanical force through
the PCB. Some boards recovered after removal, and controlled flexing reproduced the fault. A
revised fastening arrangement limited the force applied to the boards, while updated PCB layouts
improved communication integrity, measurement stability, balancing performance, and fault
protection. The project showed that safety-critical electronics must be validated beyond the
PCBA. Their reliability depends on how hardware, firmware, packaging, wiring, and mechanical
structures interact in the final product.
In my STS research, I compared how policy, industrial organization, and consumer
interpretation shaped EV adoption in China and the United States. China’s rapid transition
resulted from a coordinated system in which national and local governments supported battery
manufacturing, vehicle production, charging infrastructure, consumer incentives, and domestic
companies. These policies helped manufacturers gain production experience, develop supply
chains, lower battery costs, and offer EVs across more prices and market segments. The United
States also used tax incentives, emissions rules, infrastructure spending, and industrial policy, but
its approach was more fragmented across agencies, states, manufacturers, administrations.
American consumers therefore encountered higher average prices, fewer small and inexpensive
models, inconsistent charging availability, and greater policy uncertainty. Brand reputation,
including political associations with corporate leaders and perceptions of product quality, also
influenced consumers’ willingness to adopt particular EVs. Consumer demand was therefore not
independent of industrial and political systems. Governments and automakers shaped which
vehicles consumers could buy, what they cost, where they could charge, and what social
meanings came with them. China’s advantage came not from one subsidy or cultural trait, but
from mutually reinforcing policies, companies, infrastructure, and markets that made EVs
increasingly ordinary and accessible.
Each project allowed me to view the interaction between science, technology, and society
in a different way. My technical project is a safety-critical system: if it fails, my colleagues can
be killed. With such stakes, I am responsible for ensuring the proper design, operation and
implementation of the technology I develop. That responsibility includes designing for fail-safe
behavior and fault tolerance, thoroughly validating the system, and establishing procedures that
reduce the possibility of harm as far as reasonably possible. Many engineers who develop safety-
critical systems are never personally subjected to their own designs, whether their diligence
saves lives or their negligence costs them. Working on a system in which my peers and I are the
people being protected has helped me develop greater empathy and a stronger sense of
responsibility toward the people I may never meet but who will nevertheless trust their lives to
my engineering work as I begin my career. The STS research looks more broadly: despite
technical development, for new technologies to be useful, they must successfully integrate with
society. Electric vehicles must be safe and reliable, but they must also be affordable, accessible,
supported by infrastructure, and accepted by the people expected to use them. Policy, industrial
organization, consumer identity, and public trust therefore shape whether engineering advances
become socially useful. Both the technical and STS components can be viewed as a problem of
systems integration. A well-integrated system is often a well-engineered one, but the most
challenging system to integrate with could be society itself. Therefore, to do my best work, I
must look beyond my own desk, either at the people who depend on my work, or into the world I
wish to improve.
