A mile of extra wire

[MW1515]

Ford's regen capabilities are nothing compared to others.
A lot of room for improvement there.

Couldn't some of the improvements come from updates to the regen software?

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[Xadion]

Didn't monero or someone already show us this with just the cooling module let alone the entire car

 

[Blue highway]

I have decided not to buy 1st generation EVs any longer. The learning curve is just too great.

Can't wait till there's more EVs to choose from. hopefully it'll bring down the cost. We need more competition.

I just got back from the local auto show and its clear that in 5 years when most makers are on gen 2 of their EVs things will improve, but at the minute everybody but GM and Tesla offering EVs is at gen 1 and are essentially on par with Ford. (compliance cars count for nothing)

 

[kennethjk]

So much for Ford knowing how to build a car. Rushing to market isn’t always a good thing, waiting an extra year with something better , leaner, more efficient would have been much better PR.

do I really trust Ford? A mile of extra wire? It’s not like 4 feet extra, that’s crazy. Bad corporate culture causes stuff like this .

I would add that almost all of the car companies that have pushed out EVs lately had had their share of issues.

a tough industry to make changes of this magnitude.

 

[Ride_the_lightning]

Less wire isn’t always good. There’s plenty of designs where I’ve used tons more wire than I could, because a hard wired design was deemed more secure and reliable than a networked / CAN bus type system. I don’t work in automotive technology, but just using Tesla as a baseline isn’t necessarily good. FFS, they have people who can’t roll their windows up all the way because of a software glitch. Why the he’ll is the window actuator dependent on software? It should be a motor with a switch, that I push with my finger.

Basically, Teslas have way less wire because everything is networked on the CAN bus. When it works, this is a great way to simplify wiring. When it doesn’t work, your car is possessed and you can’t open doors or close windows. And it’s all dependent on their off the shelf PC controlling it all.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Still do not see the advantage of the ugly exterior design

Coefficient of Drag. Tesla’s are quite low. And ugly.

 

[dtbaker61]

I'm wondering where this 'mile of wires' is located. He mentioned harnesses. I was thinking motor windings. Anyone privy to all this extra wire? ??

maybe all the pre-wired harness wire for ALL sensors and camera in upper trims that are not used in lower trims?

also extra wire harness for trims that have : fewer seat motors, no mirror motors, no seat heat, no steering heat?

....ie, I bet a Select wiring harness, without 'comfort package' could have 70# less wire.....

they didn't even count the extra pounds for plastic trim we don't need.....

 

[dtbaker61]

Ford's regen capabilities are nothing compared to others.
A lot of room for improvement there.

? 100kw with 1-p regen is not 'nothing'....

...can't really ask for more unless they did better with the COOLING of inverter, dc-dc, busbars, batteries

 

[HGxxx]

If a mile of extra wire is there, then ford did a decent job with their efficiency ?. But I am guessing the extra wire is there as part of their legacy systems, which I understand why they went this way

 

[Tom L]

Didn't monero or someone already show us this with just the cooling module let alone the entire car

Sandy Munro did, yes

 

[Mach-Lee]

Let me try to break down each of his claims:

"We didn’t know that our wiring harness for Mach-E was 1.6 kilometers longer than it needed to be."

Yes it could be reduced with greater use of CAN bus, but I don't think it's that excessive now. That would be the theoretical maximum savings. All of the modules and body features need to be connected. The legacy modules used would need to be hooked up like they are now. Moving to a completely integrated CPU that controls all functions like Tesla is probably in the future, but there is a high engineering and time cost to get there. Purpose-built EV modules will come that will simply things. As has been said, the engineers had to take existing off-the-shelf modules used in other vehicles and make them work together in order to save time. As a result the Mach-E has a lot of modules that are coordinated to work together in some unconventional ways.

"We didn’t know it’s 70 pounds heavier and that that’s [cost an extra] $300 a battery."

In theory that sounds like the maximum weight savings from eliminating the 1.6 km of wire, which won't have that big of an impact on range. The copper cost would likely comprise most of the $300. But I wonder why he said "battery" instead of "vehicle"? Perhaps he's referring to all the the BMS wiring in the pack. Each cell has a wire to the BECM (94x) for monitoring and balancing, a dozen wires to the HVBJB for controls, plus ten thermistors. As a result the BECM has about 140 wires going to it. Rather than being centralized with individual wires, the design could be decentralized to be a circuit board on each individual cell module that handles all those functions, and communicates back to the main BECM with a LIN bus. That could eliminate about 120 wires. Tesla uses a decentralized BMS like this in their packs.

"We didn’t know that we underinvested in braking technology to save on the battery size."

This one is difficult to decipher. He must be taking about regenerative braking. The Mach-E seems to top out around 100 kW of regenerative braking for a very short time, which is a decent amount (Model Y is 85 kW I think, but the pack is proportionally smaller). But I personally think he's talking more about the issues seen with long-duration regen going down hills causing the motor inverters and battery pack to overheat. When he says battery size, I actually think he's referring to the busbar size in the battery pack or the amperage limits on the cells themselves. I've written about this previously, but it's my opinion that the busbars and connections were designed too small inside the pack.

The busbars should have been made thicker (5mm instead of 3 mm) or wider to handle the peak current demands better without overheating. They are big enough if you are driving a constant speed on flat terrain, but lots of acceleration or going up mountains can easily overheat things. The internals just weren't made robust enough. It's also my view that the pack design predates the decision to make it a performance oriented vehicle, rather I think the pack was designed for a "compliance car" which would have limited acceleration (possibly RWD only). The creation of the GT models with dual large motors really put demands on the pack it wasn't ever designed for, hence the 5 second rule. The thin busbar also puts more stress on the high voltage contactors in the HVBJB, making them more likely to fail due to insufficient heat sinking.

In summary, there are certainly greater efficiencies that can be made with the Mach-E's design. But I think the savings numbers he's giving to investors are absolutely top end. I don't think he will be able to save as much as he tells investors without sacrificing the quality or features of the product further. The focus should be on increasing simplicity AND quality because the warranty costs are astronomical.

 

[Monke]

On the bright side, we have extra weight to increase the car momentum during an accident.

 

[Xadion]

Sandy Munro did, yes

There we are thanks!

I an a noob so forgive me.

But while on one of those videos I watched the one where they showed the evolution and changes of the model Y rear unibody.

That is what sets Tesla apart imo, no other company is showing that agility

 

[RickMachE]

So much for Ford knowing how to build a car. Rushing to market isn’t always a good thing, waiting an extra year with something better , leaner, more efficient would have been much better PR.

do I really trust Ford? A mile of extra wire? It’s not like 4 feet extra, that’s crazy. Bad corporate culture causes stuff like this .

I would add that almost all of the car companies that have pushed out EVs lately had had their share of issues.

a tough industry to make changes of this magnitude.

Couldn't disagree more. Ford did exactly the right thing with both the Mach-E and the Lightning. Beating competitors to market AND pushing an old organization to evolve is right on the money IMO. They've stated that the next generation of EVs, including the Explorer, will be nothing like current vehicles.

 

[ripperAZ]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/business/automakers-problems-catching-up-with-tesla/index.html

Sounds like Ford is learning some important lessons to apply to the next generation MME.

Most of that extra wiring is for the Stop safely now interface and the frunk opening latch

Jes sayin

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