[HN Gopher] Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
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Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
Author : hardikgupta
Score : 99 points
Date : 2024-10-28 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tesla.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tesla.com)
| taylodl wrote:
| _> Tesla invites all device suppliers and vehicle manufacturers
| to join us in this initiative._
|
| This is not a standard in the sense that engineers use the term.
| Tesla is _hoping_ it will be adopted as a standard and since
| Tesla doesn 't appear to want to involve any standards bodies,
| Tesla appears to only be interested in making these connectors a
| de-facto standard.
|
| In any case, that is not a standard.
| instagraham wrote:
| Relevant xkcd, though one imagines that successful standards
| form despite the lack of choice in how standards are formed
|
| https://xkcd.com/927/
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The XKCD doesn't really apply here, since intra-vehicle 48v
| is kind of unexplored, so there aren't multiple competing
| standards for that in particular. I do agree that this isn't
| a real open and free standard however.
|
| edit: Inter to Intra.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Nitpick: _intra_ -vehicle. Inter-vehicle power would be
| pretty weird.
| toss1 wrote:
| True, but Inter-vehicle could be cool for several things.
| First is the EV equivalent of jump-start-and-bring-a-can-
| of-gasoline, an in-the-field recharge for cars that run
| out before the recharging station or home charger. It
| would also be useful as a plug for a range-extending
| spare battery pack on a small trailer. Seems like other
| potential uses too.
|
| (But no, I'm not liking that Tesla is taking the typical
| entitled-ass attitude of avoiding all the standards
| bodies, doing whatever they want, and expecting others to
| ratify their standard. If it is that good, it should be
| readily agreed to by the relevant standards bodies.)
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Inter-vehicle could be cool as the EV equivalent of
| jump-start
|
| This exists:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975736 But for
| Lucid, not Teslas. And also more generally as a use of
| V2L.
|
| > in-the-field recharge for cars that run out before the
| recharging station
|
| This exists: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-
| news/2023/06/30/elec... https://www.taxi-
| point.co.uk/post/rac-to-equip-breakdown-van...
|
| > a range-extending spare battery pack
|
| This is a real Tesla Cybertruck accessory:
| https://insideevs.com/news/706702/tesla-cybertruck-range-
| ext...
| vaillancourtmax wrote:
| I think they meant "across manufacturers".
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Inter-vehicle power would be pretty weird._
|
| Sounds like jumper cables.
| duskwuff wrote:
| You know what? You're right. That's literally jumper
| cables.
|
| But no, I don't think Tesla is doing those.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Tesla vehicles do not currently support V2L or V2G,
| although many other EV makes do.
|
| But it does seem that Tesla is planning to do those some
| time:
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/08/19/tesla-plans-to-
| adopt-bi...
|
| https://thedriven.io/2024/05/06/teslas-take-
| on-v2g-controlli...
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Honestly that would be awesome. I still dream of
| autonomous vehicles auto-convoy and link up for
| efficiency. Just quietly become a train as needed.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Inter-vehicle power would be pretty weird.
|
| That's entirely possible at present. Many electric
| vehicles can send power out to power appliances. It's
| called "Vehicle to Load" or "V2L".
|
| And electric vehicles can slow-charge off a wall power
| socket, so they could get that from V2L. It won't be a
| common use, but it would work in a pinch to get you
| enough juice to get to a better charger?
| jsight wrote:
| Lucid supports this directly too:
| https://lucidmotors.com/stories/introducing-rangexchange
|
| <10kw, so not super fast, but I bet most people are
| really close to the charging station when they run out.
| vel0city wrote:
| I agree. Is this some kind of free licensing for these
| connector standards or are they still behind the "you can use
| this but if we rip off any of your IP and you sue us we'll
| revoke your license and sue you" license?
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| like NACS ?
| elchananHaas wrote:
| There are different types of standards. Car design teams are
| big organizations; internal standards can help reduce the
| development effort. Tesla needs to coordinate with their
| suppliers, so sharing this helps even if it isn't used by other
| companies.
|
| I think we should give Tesla the benefit of the doubt for now.
| Harmful use of patents could cause issues, but this has
| potential. We will simply see if other companies are
| interested, and if they are it can go from internal standard to
| de facto standard to formalized standard.
| electriclove wrote:
| I'm not sad they didn't work with a hundred companies and take
| tens of years and still have nothing to show for it.
|
| They are doing what they need done for their business and then
| inviting others to join. And way earlier than they did with
| NACS: https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-
| charging-s...
| yegle wrote:
| Huh I noticed this section in the linked NACS post:
|
| > As NACS is now recognized in a SAE recommended practice
| (RP) under SAE J3400, we have removed the technical
| specifications and CAD from our website.
|
| So something that was previously freely available now
| requires a $300 payment to access.
|
| I'm sad to see that.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't think the SAE has the authority to remove anything
| from the public domain?
|
| It likely is still freely shareable for existing copies.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Yeah, there are advantages to the "just do it" approach to
| standardization vs design by committee. A lot of web
| technologies started out that way (arguably most of them
| actually). Both approaches are valid.
| throwaway19972 wrote:
| > I'm not sad they didn't work with a hundred companies and
| take tens of years and still have nothing to show for it.
|
| what a ridiculous counterfactual. We have plenty of wildly
| successful standards that weren't just thrown at consumers
| and called a standard.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| IDK man, when I think of standard connectors I think of
| clunky junk: CCS which was all engineering and no focus on
| human centered design with its clunky connector that also
| wiggles in ports.
|
| _all_ of the USB connectors including USB-C, with it
| mandate to support so many different edge cases that cause
| cables to not always be compatible with each other
| defeating the purpose.
|
| Bluetooth again with so many edge cases that made it
| terrible until Apple came along and cut a lot of that out
| in their solution finally made it tolerable.
|
| Hell even a lot of electrical connectors (such as the US
| outlet) suck: developed in that way due to historical
| interests, it looks terrible, is not entirely safe (ie.
| ground does not go in first) and now has stuff bolted on to
| make up for its shortfalls. (GFCI, in line fuses etc.)
|
| Now there are probably loads of terrible proprietary
| connectors but it seems like the free market eventually
| takes care of disposing of the chaff. That itself is a
| forcing function to get to a better design that users will
| like. Whereas you have no choice of a standardized
| connector because some "standards body" made up of opposing
| interests artificially keeps lousy designs around and
| forces it upon the population.
|
| Im not arguing for one or the other but its just annoying
| that standards bodies always seem to get a pass when in my
| experience they produce a lot of mediocre stuff.
| foxglacier wrote:
| It's going to be a standard within Tesla, so in that way it's a
| standard. It sounds like they anticipate benefitting from cost
| reduction themselves even if nobody else uses it.
| moralestapia wrote:
| If you want to be pedantic,
|
| What is a "standard" then? Does it need to have an ISO seal?
| hardikgupta wrote:
| That's fair. Should have said "Tesla _proposes_ new standard
| electrical connector ".
| jsight wrote:
| Don't think of it as a standard as-in SAE, but a standard as in
| "molex", "AT", or "ATX". Yeah, they aren't really "standards",
| but they aren't exactly proprietary either and they also are
| clearly useful.
|
| The goal seems to be to promote reuse of a good-enough design
| in as many places as possible. Noone's forced to use it, but
| it'd make things simpler for everyone if there is as much
| commonality as possible.
| tapoxi wrote:
| NACS is finally standardized as SAE J3400 with other vendors
| shipping those cars in the United States next year, and now
| they're introducing a new connector with no clear advantage?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| If you clicked the link/read the article, you'd realize this is
| an internal vehicle 48v connector.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Ahh thanks, I read it but In was confused why it was talking
| about 48v as if that couldn't be done by the other standards.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| > The 48V architecture is the optimal long-term choice, requiring
| 1/4 of the current to deliver the same amount of power.
|
| Is there a reason why 48V is better long term than going higher
| like 96V?
| two_handfuls wrote:
| I believe 50V is a safety limit.
| cptcobalt wrote:
| Below 50v is considered "low voltage". Higher voltage would
| require different safety considerations.
| outworlder wrote:
| And that's because of your skin resistance. Around 50V is
| when voltage starts to overcome it.
| hmottestad wrote:
| 48v is probably more common than 96v in general, so more
| components available already.
| 8note wrote:
| For which - why standardize around this connector and not
| XLR, which is the first thing that comes to mind for 48V?
|
| Too big/bulky?
| zaxomi wrote:
| The phantom power at 48 volts used with XLR connectors only
| have a current at about 10 milliampere. Enough to supply
| power to a little microphone.
|
| The connector is bulky and of metal, and designed to be
| used inside. It's also expensive compared to other
| connectors. There are a lot of cheaper, more suitable
| connectors, designed to carry power.
| matrix2003 wrote:
| As mentioned in another comment, it's also close to the
| safety limit for low voltage systems.
|
| IMO solar pioneered (in recent history) 48V DC systems, which
| is an easy multiple of 12V to stay below the 50V "high
| voltage" safety threshold.
|
| It allowed people to use smaller gauge wire and chain
| together multiple 12V batteries that are readily available.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Telephony has been using -48V as a line voltage for a very
| long time, probably > 100 years.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| At some point, safety.
|
| A short/failure at 100V is much more dangerous than at 50V.
| Both from a fire-safety perspective as well as an electrocution
| risk perspective.
| cyberax wrote:
| Other people already mentioned safety. But you can actually go
| to 96V if needed by running a cable with -48V if you need extra
| power.
|
| One another advantage of the new 48V architecture is that it
| doesn't depend on the car body for the current return path.
| This opens up possibilities of adding sensors that detect
| current leakage, to pinpoint areas with defective wiring and/or
| components.
| zaxomi wrote:
| Depending on the country you live in, the laws might allow you
| to do work on equipment that is below 50 volts, but require you
| to be a certified electrician for anything above that.
| sitkack wrote:
| They would have to 100% open this up and give it to standards
| bodies, otherwise it isn't a standard. The conformity tests and
| testing equipment designs and protocols should be freely
| available.
| duskwuff wrote:
| For that matter: who's going to be manufacturing and supplying
| these connectors? Tesla? I don't think so.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Generally a connector manufacturer would make these,
| Amphenol, Aptiv (formerly Delphi), Cinch, JAE, JST, Molex, TE
| Connectivity, Yazaki. See Mouser for some
| examples(https://www.mouser.com/c/connectors/automotive-
| connectors/#)
|
| Usually they create their own design so maybe having an open
| standard would allow you to do contract orders with any
| plastic injector that has the molds.
| FriedPickles wrote:
| > _LVCS...is available in industry-standard light blue_
|
| Is this tongue-in-cheek, or is there a reason manufacturers care
| about the color?
| Aloisius wrote:
| They tend to color-code connectors in vehicles by voltage for
| safety reasons.
|
| Light blue is used for 48V.
| dtparr wrote:
| In various industries, colors are used to differentiate between
| various voltages so it's obvious whether you're working with
| high voltage, low voltage, etc. so you can determine the
| necessary precautions for whatever you're dealing with (and
| some will also make the connectors incompatible so you can't
| accidentally join high and low voltage sets of wiring). I'm not
| super familiar with the automotive side, but I believe they use
| orange for high voltage and light blue for 48v.
| cyberax wrote:
| Tesla really deserves some kudos for pushing the 48V architecture
| and the Ethernet-based communication. It drastically simplifies
| the wiring mess that is in a typical car.
|
| And it's not even close. Just watch the teardown of Cybertruck
| and compare its wiring to something like F150.
| outworlder wrote:
| We can simplify the wire mess today by using more CAN bus
| devices.
|
| What is ethernet bringing to the picture?
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Central bus instead of many point to point connections. Look
| at how much fewer cabling the cybertruck has.
| mulmen wrote:
| Bandwidth?
| KK7NIL wrote:
| > What is ethernet bringing to the picture?
|
| Over 3 orders of magnitude faster datarates.
|
| CAN FD: up to 5Mb/s
|
| Automotive Ethernet: up to 10 Gb/s
| aeternum wrote:
| Bitrate and max devices for CAN are limited.
| cyberax wrote:
| CAN is slow. At best it's around 1Mbit, but you get into
| electrical limitations. So you have to run multiple CAN buses
| in parallel and carefully manage bandwidth limitations.
|
| My Chevy Volt had 4 different CAN buses and one additional
| LIN bus.
|
| This can all be replaced with just two Ethernet buses: for
| safety-critical and non-critical uses. And the gigabit speed
| provides plenty of bandwidth for any reasonable sensor
| traffic, even including camera feeds.
|
| The current architecture was justified in 90-s when LIN PHYs
| were an order of magnitude cheaper than even CAN PHYs. Now
| Gigabit Ethernet PHYs cost less than a dollar.
| eschneider wrote:
| It's unlikely that the multiple CAN buses are being used to
| increase speed by, say multiplexing them. In general,
| vehicles use multiple CAN buses for enhanced security. For
| example: things like diagnostic ports are often on their
| own CAN buses so data can't be directly injected into
| onboard systems.
| cyberax wrote:
| All but one CAN bus in my Volt were connected to the OBD
| port. The unconnected bus controlled the high-voltage
| battery contactors and some other critical stuff.
|
| The "main" bus was saturated with data, more than 80% of
| bandwidth utilization at 512kbs. And it kinda had a mix
| of everything, from street names to be displayed on the
| dashboard to ECU messages. The other two buses had some
| random messages, with no rhyme or reason for the split (
| https://vehicle-reverse-
| engineering.fandom.com/wiki/GM_Volt ).
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _What is ethernet bringing to the picture?_
|
| More speed and zonal architecture:
|
| * https://www.electronicdesign.com/markets/automotive/article
| /...
|
| * https://www.bosch-mobility.com/en/solutions/control-
| units/zo...
| bsder wrote:
| Larger packets and bandwidths.
|
| Bandwidth: you can't ship backup camera video or
| entertainment system audio over CAN, for example.
|
| CAN was meant for short, real-time packets. 8 bytes in
| initial configuration. CAN FD allows 64 byte packets.
|
| You spend a _LOT_ of protocol doing packet fragmentation and
| assembly using CAN--which then negates a lot of the real-time
| guarantees.
|
| CAN should be used for the short safety critical stuff.
| Ethernet should be used for everything else.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Tesla really deserves some kudos for pushing the 48V
| architecture and the Ethernet-based communication._
|
| For the record, 42V systems were experimented with in the
| 1990s:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42-volt_electrical_system
|
| In the 2011 German automakers agreed to 48V as the next step
| after 12V:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/48-volt_electrical_system
|
| BMW was the first the first with Ethernet:
|
| * https://www.marvell.com/blogs/the-right-stuff-a-past-and-
| fut...
| iknowstuff wrote:
| none of them actually shipped a mass market almost
| exclusively 48V product if you're trying to imply tesla's
| push isnt as massive as it is.
| cyberax wrote:
| This has been a real head-scratcher for me. BMW and other
| automakers could have vastly improved their cars by switching
| to 48V a decade ago, but they still keep just plodding along
| with 12V.
|
| I have no explanation for this.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Tradition, long supply chains etc.
|
| Tooling all their shit to 48V is a massive undertaking with
| pretty much zero advantages.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| You'll be sorry when this move further hamper repair efforts
| and the TCO of owning a vehicle goes up.
| porphyra wrote:
| You can say that about any new standard. With that logic we'd
| all be stuck with knob and tube wiring.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Did cars ever use knob and tube?
| porphyra wrote:
| Not that I know of --- it's a figure of speech to compare
| it to an standardized method of electrical wiring in
| buildings that eventually got replaced with better
| standards despite similar concerns at the time.
| two_handfuls wrote:
| With the appropriate grain of salt due to the source,
| standardizing those power connections would probably be a good
| thing.
|
| Also, speeding up the adoption of 48V, the industry has been
| talking about it for so long!
| zaroth wrote:
| Grain of salt due to the source? What is that supposed to mean?
|
| Tesla is so far ahead when it comes to these things (48V
| architecture), there literally is no other source in this case.
| xyst wrote:
| > Today a single vehicle typically requires over 200 connections
| --and the number of electrical
|
| I initially thought this was referring to the connector between
| the charge port on the EV and the charger base station. Had to
| think for a second and realized it's the electrical connections
| between the various components in an EV.
|
| Glad to know I don't have to carry 200+ dongles in case I buy an
| EV.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That must be only the high voltage connections, right?
| atonse wrote:
| These are talking about 48V, so my guess is it's for all the
| little bits (window motors, wipers, all the internal
| electronics, switches, turn signal lights, etc etc)
| connicpu wrote:
| (Semi-permanent) High voltage connections are usually made
| with spec-torqued bolts, not plastic connectors. These are
| for the "low voltage" (<=48V) components spread throughout
| the vehicle.
| xpe wrote:
| Just to clarify, the linked article about the LVCS connector is
| for internal electrical cabling, not for electric-vehicle
| charging. For Tesla's charging standard (SAE J3400), see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_System
| nimbius wrote:
| why not use the Chinese standard, GB/T?
|
| china has the most electric cars, the largest manufacturers, and
| the most advanced battery production on the planet. their
| experience with electric vehicles and charging would be a
| valuable leap forward.
| BrianGragg wrote:
| The GB/T is for charging and not in car connections. Tesla
| already has an arguably better connector NACS or J3400 now.
|
| As for China having the most electric cars on the planet. I
| don't feel that makes them the experts. China tends to steal /
| copy technology from other countries and has little innovation
| them self from my view point. They have the most EV's from
| heavy government subsidies. Tons of cars in graveyards over
| there.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| lmao are you a bot? this is not about charging connectors, and
| GB/T (with its two separate connectors for AC and DC) is awful
| compared to NACS.
| Aloisius wrote:
| How is this better than all the other 48V connectors out there
| (MX150, MCON, PP, etc.)?
|
| Surely it isn't just that they reduced the number of connectors
| since one could have just standardized on a subset of mass-
| produced connectors by molex, te, etc. instead.
| riskable wrote:
| I'd like to know this too. Their website claims "cost" but
| doesn't actually list the costs of the new connectors compared
| to existing ones.
|
| At least give us some comparisons!
| Animats wrote:
| Those look much like AMP automotive connectors.
|
| Using one kind of unkeyed connector in a car may be a bad idea.
| Things can be plugged in wrong during repairs. There's a lot to
| be said for making connectors not fit where they shouldn't.
| Especially in automotive, where many connectors are plugged in
| blind, by feel. This simplifies manufacturing at the cost of
| repair.
|
| If it can be plugged in wrong, it will be plugged in wrong. AAA
| put a battery in backwards in my Jeep once, and most of the
| vehicle electronics had to be replaced.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| These looked keyed to me. Aside from the bulge on the top of
| the connector where the lock attaches to it's mate there is a
| middle vane that extends 2/3 way down with a little bit of a J
| hook on it.
| Animats wrote:
| That's the latch, not a key. Keying prevents putting the
| wrong plug in a receptacle. Usually that's done with notches
| on the receptacle and ridges on the plug.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| You can use the ridge that the latch attaches to as part of
| the key structure.
|
| There is also a J-shaped structure inside the plug that
| would function as a key as well, prevents the plug from
| starting when rotated 180 degrees. ==
| ------ | | | | / | ------
| cduzz wrote:
| I think by keyed it isn't just "can't be plugged in upside
| down" but _also_ "can't be plugged into the other plug that's
| basically the same but connects to some other subsystem."
|
| Ideally a system like this would let you select some per-
| subsystem physical lockout mechanism.
| taneq wrote:
| Have they said there isn't a mechanism for individually
| keying connectors? There might be something optional, even
| if it's just blanking pins.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| That level of keying would be done at the
| harness/electrical engineer level. You shouldn't put two
| same plug ends at one termination site.
|
| You really couldn't control it at plug or part level.
| black6 wrote:
| One of my takeaways from my time as a RATELO is the thought put
| into connector design. Everything in the Army was designed to
| plug into one thing and one thing only to prevent mistakes.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| there is utility in this.
|
| the motorsports world generally has converged to exactly two
| connectors:
|
| DT series connectors and AS series connectors. The former is made
| of plastic and very robust. The latter is made of metal and is
| extremely robust.
|
| It's nice having to just have a bunch of DT parts and just be
| good to put it in everything.
| Animats wrote:
| What's the signal connection? Does this use CANbus? Ethernet?
| What?
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