Patent 7382102 was granted and assigned to Chrysler on June, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A circuit and method are provided for allowing self-heating of a battery used to power an AC motor by way of connection to a DC to AC inverter circuit. The inverter is selectively controlled to generate a heating mode AC current at the DC side connection to the battery, wherein the heating mode AC current is formed substantially of only a reactive AC current component and substantially no DC current component. In accordance with another aspect, the heating mode AC current is generated to fill the idle time in the operation of the battery.