Standardizing Automotive Connectivity

https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/standardizing-automotive-connectivity

by hardikgupta • 2 years ago

165 175 2 years ago

taylodl• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

Relevant xkcd, though one imagines that successful standards form despite the lack of choice in how standards are formed

https://xkcd.com/927/

Someone12342• 2 years ago

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.

vel0city2• 2 years ago

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?

kotaKat• 2 years ago

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...

1234letshaveatw• 2 years ago

like NACS ?

DevelopingElk• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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.

Ajedi32• 2 years ago

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.

throwaway199722• 2 years ago

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.

foxglacier• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

If you want to be pedantic,

What is a "standard" then? Does it need to have an ISO seal?

hardikgupta• 2 years ago

That's fair. Should have said "Tesla proposes new standard electrical connector".

_ea1k2• 2 years ago

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.

kortilla3• 2 years ago

Most useful standards did not originate from standards bodies. The standards bodies just formalized what already had buy-in from the significant players.

hoseja• 2 years ago

Tell us about NACS.

tapoxi2• 2 years ago

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?

Someone12342• 2 years ago

If you clicked the link/read the article, you'd realize this is an internal vehicle 48v connector.

tapoxi2• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

The 48V architecture is the optimal long-term choice, requiring ¼ 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_handfuls2• 2 years ago

I believe 50V is a safety limit.

cptcobalt• 2 years ago

Below 50v is considered "low voltage". Higher voltage would require different safety considerations.

outworlder2• 2 years ago

And that's because of your skin resistance. Around 50V is when voltage starts to overcome it.

hmottestad• 2 years ago

48v is probably more common than 96v in general, so more components available already.

8note• 2 years ago

For which - why standardize around this connector and not XLR, which is the first thing that comes to mind for 48V?

Too big/bulky?

matrix20032• 2 years ago

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.

Plasmoid• 2 years ago

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.

cyberax11• 2 years ago

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.

zaxomi2• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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.

duskwuff3• 2 years ago

For that matter: who's going to be manufacturing and supplying these connectors? Tesla? I don't think so.

themaninthedark5• 2 years ago

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.

inferiorhuman2• 2 years ago

Anyone really. If you look at the quick connect fittings commonly found on German cars they're all built to a standard (VDA not DIN in this case) but built by the NORMA Group or Parker.

FriedPickles• 2 years ago

LVCS...is available in industry-standard light blue

Is this tongue-in-cheek, or is there a reason manufacturers care about the color?

Aloisius3• 2 years ago

They tend to color-code connectors in vehicles by voltage for safety reasons.

Light blue is used for 48V.

plorg• 2 years ago

Meanwhile 12V connectors turn up in a wide variety of grey, where different colors might just mean the connector is keyed differently.

dtparr• 2 years ago

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.

7thpower2• 2 years ago

Mid voltage (~48-60) uses light blue.

Ideally you should be able to differentiate high voltage (orange, iirc), safety (yellow), mid voltage, and everything else.

cyberax11• 2 years ago

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.

outworlder2• 2 years ago

We can simplify the wire mess today by using more CAN bus devices.

What is ethernet bringing to the picture?

the_mitsuhiko2• 2 years ago

Central bus instead of many point to point connections. Look at how much fewer cabling the cybertruck has.

mulmen• 2 years ago

Bandwidth?

KK7NIL• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

Bitrate and max devices for CAN are limited.

cyberax11• 2 years ago

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.

throw0101d2• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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.

m4633• 2 years ago

I'll bet a hidden factor here is development and testing.

They can probably develop for a car ethernet lan with a desktop pc and car "peripherals".

Not that there aren't canbus cards for pcs, but still.

JoshTriplett• 2 years ago

CAN has desirable electrical properties (e.g. hardware-level prioritization) if you have life-critical devices and non-life-critical devices on the same network. But it's painful to deal with from a software point of view, compared to IP-based protocols, for anything that doesn't require the properties of CAN.

throw0101d2• 2 years ago

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...

iknowstuff2• 2 years ago

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.

cyberax11• 2 years ago

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.

MuffinFlavored• 2 years ago

BMW was the first the first with Ethernet:

BMW ENET is non-standard, DoIP is standard. :)

saturn86012• 2 years ago

You'll be sorry when this move further hamper repair efforts and the TCO of owning a vehicle goes up.

porphyra2• 2 years ago

You can say that about any new standard. With that logic we'd all be stuck with knob and tube wiring.

jeffbee• 2 years ago

How about comparing it to a teardown of a Rivian? Rivian uses 2-wire ethernet but 12V, so it seems like a more interesting comparison.

That said, it all seems like inside baseball to me. The BMW 850i pioneered the CAN bus, but that car was forgettable and although CAN bus took over the car industry that did not seem to create any durable advantages for BMW.

Ethernet seems like the inevitable replacement for CAN, in light of VW's investment in Rivian, and 48V vs. 12V for the low-voltage systems seems like a wash.

hulitu2• 2 years ago

Tesla really deserves some kudos for pushing the 48V architecture and the Ethernet-based communication.

And some schooling. They shall learn about pokayoke.

two_handfuls2• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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.

sixQuarks• 2 years ago

There is so much Elon and Tesla hate, these comments are so weird.

xyst• 2 years ago

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.

HPsquared2• 2 years ago

That must be only the high voltage connections, right?

atonse• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

(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• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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.

iknowstuff2• 2 years ago

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.

Aloisius3• 2 years ago

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• 2 years ago

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!

Animats4• 2 years ago

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.

themaninthedark5• 2 years ago

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.

Animats4• 2 years ago

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.

cduzz• 2 years ago

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.

black6• 2 years ago

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.

viraptor• 2 years ago

Using one kind of unkeyed connector in a car may be a bad idea. Things can be plugged in wrong during repairs.

I tried to lower the window in a Ford shortly after leaving the dealer. It fried the lock. Somehow they were connected together by accident. I agree dumb wires should be hard to mix up like that - both via orientation and similarity.

maxerickson4• 2 years ago

At least reverse battery protection is pretty standard these days.

Doesn't make things work when they are plugged into the wrong connector, but they should still work once the connections are straightened out.

Animats4• 2 years ago

There's no excuse for that any more, especially since the invention of the ideal diode.[1]

[1] https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slvae57b/slvae57b.pdf

elcritch5• 2 years ago

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 one of a few options.

Let’s say the window motor is plugged into the power and not the switched motor plug. As long as it’s a 48V motor it’ll just turn but not fry. You just unplug it and reconnect it.

IMHO industrial everything should become 48V Ethernet. Just like for gadgets usb-c rules the roost.

michaelt2• 2 years ago

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...

Aloisius3• 2 years ago

Even Cybertrucks aren't purely 48V and ethernet.

There's a high voltage (800V) rail for high current devices like the AC compressor. There's redundant CAN for communication with things like the motors. There's a host of 12V, 16V, 5V components (door locks, lights, seat motors, etc.).

They did switch many components to 48V, but not literally everything.

jiveturkey• 2 years ago

Nah, these look like keyed Deutsch DTM connectors. They are very obviously keyed, so not sure why you say unkeyed.

This will never take hold. These are extremely expensive vs weatherpack and other cheap connectors. Auto manufacturers care about literal pennies.

inferiorhuman2• 2 years ago

Well that's a lot to unpack. Saying AMP connectors doesn't really mean much of anything because, for starters, AMP (TE Connectivity) owns Deutsch.

In the retail space, at least, DTM's largely been superseded by the lower-cost ATM line. Weatherpack and Metripack are pretty common in the US because GM developed them and GM is a huge company. The only company that comes to mind for using DTM connectors is Caterpillar, so you'll definitely see medium duty trucks with DTM assemblies.

The two automotive companies I'm most familiar with (80s Volvos and 00s BMWs) use keyed connectors all over the place. The Volvos used off-the-shelf washing machine connectors (AMP /(junior )+(power )+timer/) that can be had with keyed connectors. BMW saved pennies by going with high density connectors and small gauge wire. Most of that stuff is off-the-shelf as well, but often with proprietary keying.

Both DTM and Weather/MetriPack are pretty bulky compared to what's available now though, and when you're talking about 100 or 200 pin connectors size probably matters more than a few pennies. And, of course, once you start adding the retention doodads to MetriPack assemblies you start getting closer in price to DTM style stuff. The simplicity of the wedgelock design means fewer parts to stock and potentially faster assembly which could easily negate the more expensive housings.

hatsunearu• 2 years ago

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.

Animats4• 2 years ago

What's the signal connection? Does this use CANbus? Ethernet? What?

sanex• 2 years ago

Someone's going to post this eventually may as well be me I guess. https://xkcd.com/927/

7thpower2• 2 years ago

Molex and others may as well get behind this. EVs are driving all the content (as you can imagine, electric vehicles are way more profitable than IC not only because they have additional connectors but also because they tend to have more advanced in vehicle entertainment).

The other reality is that all of the Chinese OEMs will generally work with the companies like Molex, TE, Amphenol, etc just long enough to let them shoulder the R&D cost and then reverse engineer and vertically integrate the part in their supply chain.

If there is a chance to leverage their scale and supply chain to compete where there is known demand, it’s worth it to be early in and then be able to help OEMs customize the reference designs as needed.

BerislavLopac• 2 years ago

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.

incorene• 2 years ago

There 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.

Standardizing Automotive Connectivity

Related Stories