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Car companies, starting with Volvo last summer, have laid out plans to electrify entire lineups of vehicles. But the fine print makes it clear that the coming decade and beyond will focus not just on massive battery packs powering electric motors, but also on adding a little extra juice to the venerable internal combustion engine.
Increasingly, that juice will arrive in the form of new electrical systems built to a 48-volt standard, instead of the 12-volt systems that have dominated since the 1950s. Simpler than Prius-type drivetrains and less expensive than Tesla-scale battery power, the new electrical architecture both satisfies the demands of cars made more power hungry by their gadget load and enables the use of lower-cost hybrid drive systems.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/electric-cars-48-volts.html
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 26 2018, @03:55AM (1 child)
It's the current that's more dangerous than the voltage though. I've been told scuffing your stocking feet across a carpet and touching the doorknob is a shock of over 10kV, but the current is so low as to be negligible. Besides which, your skin is a pretty good insulator, isn't it? Assuming the same total wattage, W = V*I, if the voltage quadruples from 12V to 48V, the current is .25 of what it was before.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @05:05AM
I hear this all the time, but it is simplifying what effects electrical currents have on the human body to the point of being devoid of any meaning.
This is not the case. The electric current from such an electrostatic discharge is measured in the hundreds of amperes. The air molecules between your finger and the doorknob are being literally ripped apart yet it barely hurts you. This releases enough energy to heat the air to thousands of degrees in a few microseconds, creating shockwaves throughout the nearby air and emitting visible light via blackbody radiation. This is what you see and hear. At the same time you feel something because some of your skin cells are burned by this plasma. (You can actually try this: hold a key and touch that to the doorknob instead of touching the doorknob directly with your finger. You won't feel anything!)
The fact is things are much more complicated than just "current kills you".