Interesting Article on the Connection Between Wiring Harness Tech and ICE vs EV
- Thread starter LowMilesLesabre
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The global supply chain will need to adapt or become extinct. The Ev's might work for countries with a good power grid but for the rest of the world is more like an illusion.
The U.S.A. ?
JHZR2
Staff member
That's a pretty stupid article... IMO.
Bentley, supposedly a premium British car brand, cheaped out and made harnesses and their components in the Ukraine instead of the UK, then got worried over it? Cry me a river. They could have made them domestically in the UK like I thought Bentley and Rolls cars were supposed to be made.
I guess most of the folks writing these articles have no clue what a real battery looks like. Not only are there harnesses, wiring connectons from cell groups to BMS, thermistor wiring, etc. all through the battery, but there are also major size copper wiring to carry the current from the battery to the motors. Every cell group get wired to the BMS to measure voltage and balance the cell group. That wiring can get complex. Is it a set of wires to one side of an engine, then another set of wires to the opposite? No. But it still is harnesses, connectors, wires, looms, etc.
Bentley, supposedly a premium British car brand, cheaped out and made harnesses and their components in the Ukraine instead of the UK, then got worried over it? Cry me a river. They could have made them domestically in the UK like I thought Bentley and Rolls cars were supposed to be made.
I guess most of the folks writing these articles have no clue what a real battery looks like. Not only are there harnesses, wiring connectons from cell groups to BMS, thermistor wiring, etc. all through the battery, but there are also major size copper wiring to carry the current from the battery to the motors. Every cell group get wired to the BMS to measure voltage and balance the cell group. That wiring can get complex. Is it a set of wires to one side of an engine, then another set of wires to the opposite? No. But it still is harnesses, connectors, wires, looms, etc.
The majority of that article was nonsense, with maybe 5% truth sprinkled in. I'm not sure how an article could get this much wrong unless it was deliberate or only relied on Tesla marketing spin info.
I don't really want to spend hours discussing all the problems with the article, but they are basing it on ukraine making harnesses for a mere hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year? Do they have no idea how many vehicles are normally sold each year, except in recent times?
"Supply crunch could accelerate plans... to move to... new generation... machine-made...". Did they think major automakers were getting them from Geppetto in his workshop with Pinocchio as his assistant?
Rational to make the move to electric quicker, because WIRE SHORTAGE? That's the funniest thing I've read all day.
The article goes on to mention wires for seat heaters to windows, as if an ICE vehicle would need wires to do that, but Not The Magical Tesla.
There is one point to be made out of all of this. Any company that depends on supplies from an unstable region of the world is asking for shortages eventually.
Now ask yourself a question, is there more a shortage of materials to build lithium batteries, or a shortage of wire and plastic? It does not take long to set up a line to make wiring harnesses.
Whatever the authors' motives, they shouldn't be writing for reuters.
I don't really want to spend hours discussing all the problems with the article, but they are basing it on ukraine making harnesses for a mere hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year? Do they have no idea how many vehicles are normally sold each year, except in recent times?
"Supply crunch could accelerate plans... to move to... new generation... machine-made...". Did they think major automakers were getting them from Geppetto in his workshop with Pinocchio as his assistant?
Rational to make the move to electric quicker, because WIRE SHORTAGE? That's the funniest thing I've read all day.
The article goes on to mention wires for seat heaters to windows, as if an ICE vehicle would need wires to do that, but Not The Magical Tesla.
There is one point to be made out of all of this. Any company that depends on supplies from an unstable region of the world is asking for shortages eventually.
Now ask yourself a question, is there more a shortage of materials to build lithium batteries, or a shortage of wire and plastic? It does not take long to set up a line to make wiring harnesses.
Whatever the authors' motives, they shouldn't be writing for reuters.
This is yet another greenie cheerleading article trying to sway the sheeple to make them forget about the real problems in transitioning to EV's - that to go from the single digit market share of EV's today to 100% EV's in 10 years, 90% of the supply chain necessary does not currently exist (quote from Rivian's CEO), electrical generation will have to increase by 25% to replace oil based transportation energy even though the green electrical transition has us in the position that generation capacity is so tight that blackouts are now being threatened in the midwest as well as CA. And the 800 lb elephant in the room that nobody will acknowledge is there - the current residential distribution systems are totally inadequate to support an EV charging in every garage. It will all have to be upgraded. It's going to be an electrical engineering train wreck of epic proportions.
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This has been a big headache for the Euro makes. My mothers BMW X3 has been delayed over a month because of this very issue.
You guys need to stop living in denial. If an EV requires less material, it requires less material. The Model 3 has 1.5km of wiring.
So it could make economic sense to have wiring for EV's manufactured closer to the plants because it would be less labor intensive per unit. Consequently they would not have to depend on Ukrainian sourced product.
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JHZR2
Staff member
Living in denial? I am involved with far more substantial batteries than an EV pack, as a career, not a journalist or armchair commenter...
Your mention of 1.5km of wiring in the model 3 makes the case.
I suspect that they made their own vs outsourcing to a questionable country... for their hundreds of thousands of km of wires and connectors... Far different than a handful of Bentleys not getting Ukranian wiring being the death blow for IC. Convoluting these things is just silly.
This is in part media extrapolation. Nobody else can make wire?
Earlier this year the huge Ore-Ida plant in Ontario Oregon was sold. They are the main plant that produces tater tots. The media would report this as millions of school children will starve without tater tots for lunch.
A Chinese Fire Drill.
Earlier this year the huge Ore-Ida plant in Ontario Oregon was sold. They are the main plant that produces tater tots. The media would report this as millions of school children will starve without tater tots for lunch.
A Chinese Fire Drill.
Tesla took a clue from the fighter jet designers and came up with a wiring harness that literally saves miles worth of wire in each vehicle. With the price of copper, how much do you think it saves per vehicle ? And the harness can be installed using robotics.
https://evannex.com/blogs/news/tesl...ture-that-could-greatly-streamline-production
If you continue to do things the way they have been done for the last 100 years you will have problems like the situation described above
https://evannex.com/blogs/news/tesl...ture-that-could-greatly-streamline-production
If you continue to do things the way they have been done for the last 100 years you will have problems like the situation described above
Well in that case your reading comprehension skills are above average so I'll highlight some relevant pieces of the article.
I'll start with the title. "How a cheap component could help kill off combustion cars"
"The humble wire harness, a cheap component that bundles cables together, has become an unlikely scourge of the auto industry. Some predict it could hasten the downfall of combustion cars.
"The supply crunch could accelerate the plans of some legacy auto firms to switch to a new generation of lighter, machine-made harnesses designed for electric vehicles, according to interviews with more than a dozen industry players and experts."
I could go on and on. In any case the article never said that lack of wiring was the death blow for ICE but that it could accelerate the transition away from ICE.
It's not just the wire, but the connectors, the lengths, and the bundling hence the term "wiring harness".
JHZR2
Staff member
And terms like "could accelerate" are as worthless as anything. In whose opinion? The journalist's?
Again, EVs have harnesses too. Lots of wiring.
Using terms that you emphasized, yet left out key words, e.g., "could help kill off", is just ridiculous. No matter how you want to look at it.
The fact of the matter is that wiring harnesses being the reason to transition away from ICE... when EVs also have LOTS of wiring, is just a stupid claim. There are real and rational reasons why there might be a transition from ICE to EV. Some of them are man/govt made, others are just based upon physics, performance, etc. If we want to discuss those, Ill probably agree with you on them. But to say that harnesses will "kill", "hasten the downfall", etc., all terms you chose not to emphasize, is silly.
Does the cadre of "more than a dozen industry players and experts" actually have any decision authority? Or is it armchair speculation? I could come up with another dozen experts that can say why the roll to EVs is more painful and challenging than being claimed.
So true. As a sideline, I did some consulting work for a harness company that was struggling out how to design software to sell their harness products; they focused on the wire requirements. Obviously the combinations and permutations were an insurmountable challenge.
The solution was, "You don't sell wire; you sell connectors with wires in between." Starting with the connectors allowed for a simpler, elegant solution.
Less material. Yes, that's why they weigh more, right? Which is more scarce, wires or batteries? Which could be made a lot faster, a new battery factory (with no materials to use anyway), or set up shop practically anywhere to make harnesses?
However, it doesn't necessarily make economic sense to have wiring made closer, once you add Tesla to the article. Labor/environmental/etc costs in the US are quite high relative to the shipping costs, which is why so few automotive parts are made in USA today. Plus, why even mention Tesla, an American EV manufacturer, instead of a European one when this harness shortage mostly effects European automakers?
The article is garbage. It doesn't matter how many km of wire it takes if a single harness shortage, stops production. It could be 20 cm long and it's still a show stopper unless the automaker takes their fate into their own hands and gets another supplier or DIY.
The article is even utterly backwards, that the communication hubs needed to reduce wiring much, are much more in risk of longer term, short supply due to needing the ICs to build them. I could build a wiring harness in my garage. An IC fab, not so much.
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Reuters is an international news agency which is based in London. Tesla (Berlin) and the transition to EV's by legacy automakers (VW Group, BMW, Benz, etc) is big news in that area of the world due to the thousands of jobs which are at risk. Obviously the auto sector has been plagued with supply issues and the article speaks about the impact and potential consequence of once such supply constraint (i.e War in Ukraine).
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