Nissan claims they’ve come up with an innovation that should push Alternative Fuel Vehicles forward.

“At Nissan, the inverter is regarded as one of the key technologies in electric-powered vehicle development along with the motor and the battery,” the automaker said in a statement.

Nissan said it has kicked off tests using an X-Trail fuel-cell vehicle with the new technology, which it calls the SiC inverter.

Simply put, the SiC inverter helps to strip weight out of the vehicle and gives engineers more freedom in creating a vehicle layout. The inverter controls the electricity coming from the power source in electric-powered vehicles, which also dramatically improves reliability, Nissan says

This step should allow for greater flexibility when it comes to the design of alternative fuel vehicles.