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US can’t meet EV copper demand, study finds
(www.eenews.net)
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this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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This can be improved if all vehicles moved to a full 48v architecture. Substantially less copper that way.
@NotMyOldRedditName @Hypx I'm not against it, but I didn't think most of the copper in a modern car / EV was in the LV supply wiring, so such a change would be more in the range of a 10% reduction?
It's somewhere between 100 and 150lbs saved per car.
There's a lot of copper in the wiring harness and it's most of the weight. It's also a reduction in the plastic around the wires, the other weight contributor.
Edit: For EVs anyway, my bad. Probably less copper in non evs, but still a lot.
@NotMyOldRedditName Are power carrying wires the bulk of the wires in a car?
And by power I mean more than 5W where wire gauges start to get serious at 12V. An indicator LED is technically needing power, but not enough that wire gauge bulks up.
Wiring harnesses from traditional automotive companies are quite long. This is quote from Ford's CEO
"“We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be. We didn’t know it’s 70 pounds heavier and that that’s [cost an extra] $300 a battery,”"
4km is normal
https://q5d.com/escalating-function-dilemma/
"Some modern vehicles contain close to 40 different harnesses, comprised of roughly 700 connectors and over 3000 wires. If taken apart and put into a continuous line, these wires would exceed a length of 2.5mi (4km) and weigh approximately 132lbs (60kg). Five years ago, vehicles had 25% less circuits than today’s cars. Five years from now, that number will increase by more than 30%. "
@NotMyOldRedditName yes, but that is tangential to my point (and your original point). The total length of wires doesn't tell you if they are power or data.
Fair, but you can't do 12v ethernet like they've done with 48v. The cables would be too big
So unlocking 48v allowed the change which allowed lesser cabling.
Tesla claims it's 77% cable reduction and 50% copper.
Edit: also Teslas wiring harnesses have been smaller than industry standard for years. If others made the switch and moved to an etherloop as well, the copper savings would be even bigger than what Tesla experienced.
Also just for reference, this is what Tesla's double redundant 48v etherloop cable looks like, instead of those chonky wiring harnesses
Edit: Just to clarify here, I think I made an assumption about the double redundancy. The cable runs in a loop around the car, and if any cable gets cut, it can still reach the component via the other direction (A<->B<->C<->A). I think I just assumed the 2 wires in the image were redundant. It could be that different data is flowing over both strands and those are not for redundancy. Maybe those are for each direction as well? One cable sends data around the car clockwise, the other counter clockwise?