Judging just by the title (and without noticing the source), I was hoping that this will be about standardisation of the vehicle metrics data via OEM sources. Last year I worked on a system that collects this data, and currently each OEM has a different method (sometimes several, for different message types) it can use to share it with the wider world.
Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
161–170 of 182 posts
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#162> 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.
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?
They have a "patent pledge" for their patented parts, at least -- they will "not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology".
https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
Why would you need 10 Gb/s speeds in a car
FSD will benefit from high-resolution (4K or above) camera feeds (for things like reading signs and detecting small obstacles). You can do this in a 10Gbps network and have tons of headroom for every other function the car will perform.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
They have a "patent pledge" for their patented parts, at least -- they will "not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology". https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...
Yeah, and they define good faith in that document as:
A party is "acting in good faith" for so long as such party and its related or affiliated companies have not:
asserted, helped others assert or had a financial stake in any assertion of
(i) any patent or other intellectual property right against Tesla or
(ii) any patent right against a third party for its use of technologies relating to electric vehicles or related equipment;
So, if another company rips off your IP but Tesla doesn't think it is a "knock-off product", you sue that other company, you're now in violation of Tesla's "patent pledge". Its an attempt to use a carrot of Tesla's patents to make all the other rightsholders essentially give up all their IP. If you sue anyone protecting your EV IP, you're in violation of this agreement and will be open to litigation by Tesla.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a classic chicken and egg economic problem. BMW doesn't make the chips/electronics that support the 48V architecture - Bosch & Continental (with NXP/TI/Infineon/Renesas as their silicon suppliers) do and they're not going to support 48V unless ALL (or a significant majority) of the automakers will. So it's a game of chicken.
The semiconductors have been available for 20 years.
Eh, yes and no.
I designed some stuff along these lines 15 years ago. At that time, 12 volt stuff was not just available, it was available with great economies of scale and a huge range of options, off the shelf. You need an automotive-qualified relay? A light? A solenoid? A DC-DC converter module? A fan? You'd have 100 choices at 12v, 30 choices at 24v and 3 choices at 48v.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the Cybertrucks electrical ethos is followed by others there’s only 48V and Ethernet. I'm looking at the electrical schematic [1] and 'eth' appears 107 times while 'CAN' appears 805 times. And if you think about it, you probably don't want your brake-by-wire system to share a bus with your sound system and your trunk latch for obvious reasons. [1] https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ElectricalReferenc...
What are the obvious reasons?
Different quality of service requirements. The infotainment system is complex and it failing is just annoying while the brake failing could mean death.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#167There are already MANY standard types of connectors that automakers don't use consistently, why add another one to the mix? What does this offer that Deutsch or Weatherpak don't?
XKCD summed this up pretty well: https://xkcd.com/927/
Besides that, I have no respect for Tesla. They can't engineer their way out of a paper bag, they are hostile to both the customer and the rest of the industry, and notoriously so in terms of repairability--why would I believe that now they suddenly care about designing a better, more universal connector? They don't even make repair parts available to the consumer!
For those reasons and many more, the absolute LAST thing I would ever do as an engineer is to buy into a standard set by Tesla, or any other company run by Elon Musk.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can be even more reliable. And they definitely _are_ expensive. > Major car components like doors or front axles are assembled in parallel And doors (and tailgates) are the biggest body component that is _sometimes_ assembled independently. Then workers manually route cables through the body. Pre-routing cables inside panels that can then just be welded together can save a lot of labor.
> And doors (and tailgates) are the biggest body component that is _sometimes_ assembled independently. Sometimes? What and when on Earth is this about? Pre-WWII? They wash and paint and dry the whole body at once _for paint consistency_, then take off doors and trunk lids and bumpers and send them into separate assembly lines. Those major parts flow parallel "threads" in sync and converge near the end, where connect…
> What do these even mean? Are you hallucinating workers crimping cables in-situ? They just clip on harnesses and plug in couplers in "the line". Never seen under a door trim?
Workers still need to pull the wiring bundles through the car body and clip them, after the body is welded together. The connectors are impractically bulky to put several of them along the cable routes.
Pre-assembled panels can have cable runs attached to them during the individual panel assembly.
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually there’s two paths: first the traditional path of different unique wiring harnesses and various signals with unique connectors, or second a common power and coms bus design. If the Cybertrucks electrical ethos is followed by others there’s only 48V and Ethernet. Ethernet doesn’t care or fry if plugged into a wrong port. Any complex wiring can be done inside a part or component as needed, but the interface is…
> If the Cybertrucks electrical ethos is followed by others there’s only 48V and Ethernet. I'm looking at the electrical schematic [1] and 'eth' appears 107 times while 'CAN' appears 805 times. And if you think about it, you probably don't want your brake-by-wire system to share a bus with your sound system and your trunk latch for obvious reasons. [1] https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ElectricalReferenc...
Cool, thanks! It looks like the cybertruck does extensively use CAN still. Tesla only talks up Ethernet.
Makes sense, though I’m a bit bummed.
> And if you think about it, you probably don't want your brake-by-wire system to share a bus with your sound system and your trunk latch for obvious reasons.
Sharing a bus for those two wouldn’t make sense. However Ethernet topology wouldn’t preclude having those on separate buses and linked via switches.
Though that’d pose problems with my view above about plugging anything in anywhere. Though it’s really more of a philosophical goal. ;)
Re: Standardizing Automotive Connectivity
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It has to be both. The plug manufacturer has to provide many, many keying options (say for a 2-pin plug, one might have variants 2A, 2B, etc... which explicitly cannot mate with each other) An engineer designing the car has to ensure all plugs with same keying options are interchangeable (2A is for power supply; 2B for door switch; etc...) If the plug manufacturer does not provide enough keying options, this will be…
You are generally not using just one plug style on a harness so most of the control is at the engineer level.
Unless you are a big player, what plugs you are using boils down to what receptacle the component that you want to attach to use.