Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

To Power the Future, Carmakers Flip on 48-Volt Systems

posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 26 2018, @12:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the shocking-news dept.

PastTense writes:

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

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
To Power the Future, Carmakers Flip on 48-Volt Systems | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 127 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday February 26 2018, @03:55AM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday February 26 2018, @03:55AM (#643742)

    if you really think 14.4V is going to hurt you, you're a fucking idiot.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:24PM (1 child)

    by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:24PM (#644585)

    He's either not that old and think he sounds cool with insults like that, or he really is old, but he's incredibly stupid (smart old people know from experience how limited their knowledge is).

    Touching a 12V battery with wet hands is unlikely to cause you any more than a mild electric shock. There just isn't enough voltage there to do much; your skin resistance drops to around 1kohm when you're wet, so you'll get maybe 10-20mA of current, which isn't enough to cause any harm, but it's enough to get a noticeable shock. Wet skin + 120VAC, however, is extremely dangerous because it'll give you a shock in the 100-200mA range, which is the perfect range to cause your heart to fibrillate. 12V with dry skin, of course, is so low-current you can't even feel it. Anyway, this is why 50VDC is considered the top "safe" voltage for humans to work around without any special precautions.

    if you really think 14.4V is going to hurt you, you're a fucking idiot.

    Apparently, 9V is enough to kill. Ask the US Navy (Darwin Awards) [darwinawards.com].

    Yes, the person concerned intentionally punctured their skin, thereby bypassing the protection of the normal high resistence of dry skin.

    Some people find out that 9V is not as innocuous as it first appears by licking the poles of a 9V PP3 [wikipedia.org] battery. I do not recommend this practice. If you have dental amalgam fillings and have ever accidentally chewed a piece of aluminium foil wrapper, you'll know that parts of the body are exquisitely sensitive to even the small currents generated by the dissimilar metals involved [howstuffworks.com].

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:59PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:59PM (#644672)

      Apparently, 9V is enough to kill. Ask the US Navy (Darwin Awards) [darwinawards.com].
      Yes, the person concerned intentionally punctured their skin, thereby bypassing the protection of the normal high resistence of dry skin.

      Oh please. Almost anything can kill you if you're unlucky enough, or do something stupid enough with it. One inch of water can drown you, but it's pretty hard to actually breathe in from a 1" pool of water unless you're trying hard. Pencils aren't normally considered deadly weapons but it is possible to kill someone with one. Or how about plain old air? Think that's dangerous? Normally, no, you even need it to live. However, I can easily kill you with it, if I inject a syringe full of air into your veins. But no one sane considers air a "deadly weapon".

      In normal use, 9V is not dangerous. But as with so many things, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to stick it in your mouth.