[HN Gopher] Comparing Tesla, Ford and VW's Electrical Architectu...
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       Comparing Tesla, Ford and VW's Electrical Architectures [video]
        
       Author : ryzvonusef
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2021-05-07 14:58 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | CalChris wrote:
       | I understand Musk's point on parts not being available now (then?
       | Model 3) but I'd like to see a deep dive on 48v vs 12v.
        
         | nodesocket wrote:
         | Excuse my ignorance, but what's the advantage of 48v vs 12v? I
         | didn't hear them talk about it.
        
           | maxerickson wrote:
           | Less amps at the same power level, all the wires can be
           | smaller.
        
         | rconti wrote:
         | Yeah, me too. I've been hearing about 48v (used to be 24v) for
         | what feels like ages now. I only sort of "get it". Seems Tesla
         | had a great opportunity to jump into 48v, more so than legacy
         | automakers.
         | 
         | On the other hand, if they had done it and it caused a bunch of
         | problems, you'd have another Model X falcon doors issue. Tesla
         | just doing something "to be different", and paying the price
         | for it.
        
           | nodesocket wrote:
           | > Tesla just doing something "to be different", and paying
           | the price for it.
           | 
           | I own a Model Y, and there are absolutely things I wish they
           | just keep the status-quo.
           | 
           | - Navigation / map data here in Tennessee is frankly awful.
           | Much worse than Google Maps. Missing locations,
           | wrong/inefficient routes is common.
           | 
           | - Turn signals. Infuriating, just stay up and down when
           | engaged like every other turn signal.
           | 
           | - No windshield wiper physical control. Add it to one of the
           | stocks. Using the touchscreen to control wipers is silly.
           | 
           | - No HUD. A optional HUD that displays: gear, speed, battery
           | percent, and direction would be super useful and a missing
           | feature from a $50k+ car.
        
       | ryzvonusef wrote:
       | > In this episode Sandy Munro sits down with the gentlemen from
       | 3IS Inc. to discuss the differences between the electrical
       | architectures of the Tesla Model Y, Ford Mach-E, and Volkswagen
       | ID.4.
        
         | memorybadger wrote:
         | I am really disappointed with Sandy. While other guys are
         | professional, Sandy to me seems too much biased. He was not
         | like that. Sad.
        
           | rconti wrote:
           | Watching it now. How so?
        
             | DyslexicAtheist wrote:
             | I'm not a Tesla fanboy but I didn't think it was biased.
             | E.g.:
             | 
             | Right off the bat he talks about the number of ECU[1] of
             | Tesla compared to others. He points out that this will
             | result in inferior quality due to the number of
             | connections. A no-brainer with cascading effects which has
             | many other advantages for Tesla[2]. Spelling this out will
             | upset a lot of people because it's a valid attack that also
             | knocks the other designs into a corner that makes one
             | wonder what's the point of even continuing. (at least if
             | one expects a ranking on quality etc - then there is no
             | recovering from that).
             | 
             | The missing CAN-FD[3] bus-speed info on Tesla is
             | interesting. It seems Tesla is doing it's own thing here
             | with CAN-FD. Maybe a proprietary implementation (I couldn't
             | make sense of it)?
             | 
             | The other connections like Ethernet, LIN etc are also much
             | less and I'm assuming this can be attributed to simply
             | having such a small number of ECU's too.
             | 
             | No idea what's going on with the missing OBD-II but I'd
             | imagine if you want to roll out a proprietary after-market
             | technology that can only be serviced at a Tesla shop then
             | killing this makes sense in order to lock everyone in
             | (customers but more relevant after-sales).
             | 
             | Tesla Y has no replaceable fuses, ... and it goes on ...
             | and on ...
             | 
             | As a piston/gear-head who hates the brand, and strongly
             | dislikes Musk it's a lot to digest and put up with. I don't
             | understand though why the video is supposed to be biased or
             | not accurate. It doesn't seem they're releasing any info
             | that hasn't been floating around in various places.
             | 
             | [1] number of ECU's https://youtu.be/ZRkm6-bBk4U?t=178 and
             | critique: https://youtu.be/ZRkm6-bBk4U?t=258
             | 
             | [2] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tesla-
             | teardown-...
             | 
             | [3] https://youtu.be/ZRkm6-bBk4U?t=468
             | 
             | [4] zero replaceable fuses
             | https://youtu.be/ZRkm6-bBk4U?t=932
        
               | rconti wrote:
               | I own a Tesla, but I'm not a fan-boy. I can appreciate
               | how having fewer ECUs means, all other things being
               | equal, it would be less failure prone. (But more
               | expensive to replace a failed larger ECU than a failed
               | smaller one). Tesla starting from scratch gives them a
               | lot of advantages, not being tied to a specific legacy
               | architecture or vendors. Again, assuming they actually do
               | it right rather than bodge it :)
               | 
               | Sandy and the other experienced gentlemen in the video
               | are welcome to strong opinions about one approach being
               | better than another; it's not _necessarily_ biased. Maybe
               | you favor a  "simpler" design, or maybe you favor one
               | that's cheaper to repair, or uses a tried and true
               | architecture, or more off-the-shelf components.
               | 
               | I actually just had a steering wheel module replaced in
               | my Model 3 last week; the Park button had stopped
               | working. Of course these kinds of things are electronic
               | in virtually all modern vehicles.
        
           | new_realist wrote:
           | He owns Tesla stock. Possibly also on Tesla's payroll.
        
             | ryzvonusef wrote:
             | no he doesn't, seriously, why do people remember one thing
             | but not the other?
             | 
             | He HAD Tesla stock, and _sold_ it, he realized that Tesla
             | was, to quote WSB,  "mooning" and threw some money at it
             | and made some profit, like a LOT of people who realized
             | Tesla was going to "moon" when it was about to be added to
             | the S&P500 did.
             | 
             | He saw an absolute obvious opportunity, threw some money at
             | it, bought and sold, life goes on. It's not like he's a
             | journalist, his main income comes from his Munro business.
             | 
             | When he has actual conflict of interest(NDA) he discloses
             | and doesn't talk anymore.
        
           | bob33212 wrote:
           | You should watch some of his early Tesla reviews. He was
           | pretty negative on them. It wasn't until he dove deep to
           | really understand all of Tesla that he realized how well
           | things are going.
        
       | btbuilder wrote:
       | I think the benefit of a standardized diagnostic connector (and
       | the protocols that come with it) are well worth a few more grams.
       | 
       | Off-the-shelf data logging and diagnostic software is useful.
        
       | heisenbit wrote:
       | The most striking difference was the relay/fuse numbers on Tesla
       | side being zero and requiring half the control boxes.
        
       | Someone1234 wrote:
       | I'm about halfway through, but this is actually quite interesting
       | (the different trade-offs, both for modularity and or for
       | simplicity vs. complexity).
       | 
       | The thing I find interesting is that no matter what your opinion
       | on how things _should_ be made, different vehicles  "nail" it in
       | different areas (e.g. the ID.4 having a simple four wire audio-
       | system as opposed to an audio-network but also almost double the
       | ECUs).
       | 
       | Either way this is super nerdy and I love it.
        
         | nodesocket wrote:
         | When they were talking about pros/cons of fewer (but
         | centralized) ECU's vs more ECU's (isolated, lower cost) I
         | immediately thought of microservice architecture vs monolith.
        
         | calabroa wrote:
         | Absolutely. Love seeing these breakdowns...
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-07 23:02 UTC)