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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 fyngyrz on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)
...converted from the 12v using the existing internal design. If the vehicle produces a usable 12v (well, 12.6...14.5 as per usual) supply, then a redesign is not required. And entertainment systems are just the tip of the iceberg. GPSs, camera systems, ham radio gear, CBs, IR systems, light bars... you get the idea. They're all 12v. Likely there will be significant pressure to keep them that way, or everyone has to redesign. Redesign costs money. Not to mention that the new 48v-only vehicle won't be compatible with 99.99% of what's out there from the start, and that's hardly a selling point.
...which again, is part of the existing internal design. Redesign costs money. New PCBs; new RF shielding or alteration to same; new FCC testing; new performance testing and validation; component validation for the extreme temperature ranges under operating conditions; component warehousing, acquisition, and assembly automation or training; complete rejiggering of manufacturing costs; marketing; etc. I did this stuff for a living for decades. There's no "it's easy" in this domain.
That's not even counting the car installer, etc., who might try to keep both kinds of systems in stock for the two types of power systems; that's quite an economic blow. I'm thinking your 48v devices are going to be a special order, assuming they want to deal with them at all.
...and now they are not. Or IOW, just as I said, 6v vehicle systems have fallen on their collective face. This is, of course, because higher voltages make for higher efficiencies for most major clients of vehicular power consumption. Which is why 48v might get in there; but I think it's still very likely that these 48v systems will generate 12-ish volts to support the huge constellation of power clients that currently require that as an input supply; and given that they do provide such a supply, there's no motivation to change anything else very quickly.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:18PM
And entertainment systems are just the tip of the iceberg. GPSs, camera systems, ham radio gear, CBs, IR systems, light bars... you get the idea. They're all 12v.
Ham radios, CDs, and light bars are not standard equipment on any passenger car. Automakers don't design their cars for aftermarket equipment. The most you're going to see is 48V-to-12V converters for lighter sockets, since people do use accessories that plug into those and will demand working lighter sockets in new vehicles. Ham radios, I believe, are too high-power to run off standard lighter sockets (which can only supply 5A/60W in many cars), so those will need some additional converter ($$). But automakers really don't care about the puny number of hams on the road. And from what I've seen of hams, they always drive shitty old cars anyway, not brand-new ones. The only people who still use CB these days are truckers.
Redesign costs money.
They're redesigning many things with every new vehicle generation anyway. They don't keep using the same infotainment system across 3 generations.
...which again, is part of the existing internal design. Redesign costs money. New PCBs; new RF shielding or alteration to same; new FCC testing; new performance testing and validation; component validation for the extreme temperature ranges under operating conditions; component warehousing, acquisition, and assembly automation or training; complete rejiggering of manufacturing costs; marketing; etc. I did this stuff for a living for decades.
And yet you seem to think they're going to keep using the same electronics design for 20 years. I don't care what you did for decades, I know full well that vehicle electronics routinely change with every vehicle generation, which is 3-6 years.
That's not even counting the car installer, etc., who might try to keep both kinds of systems in stock for the two types of power systems; that's quite an economic blow. I'm thinking your 48v devices are going to be a special order, assuming they want to deal with them at all.
Automakers do not care what "installers" do, or what anyone in the aftermarket does, for the most part. They sure as hell don't design their cars for audio enthusiasts who intend to install custom stereos. The aftermarket goes wherever the automakers go; if they switch to 48V systems, the aftermarket will be forced to follow.
Or IOW, just as I said, 6v vehicle systems have fallen on their collective face.
I'm sorry, this is just plain silly. That's like claiming that the landline telephone "fell on its face". "Fell on its face" means that something was a flop: it was attempted, but failed, such as a Hollywood movie that costs $100M and then nets $5M. Landline phones did not fail; they were enormously successful for many, many decades, until recent years where cellphones have become very popular. From what I've read, 6V cars were somewhat common at one time long ago, they simply became obsolete, just like 4-wheel drum brakes and manual-crank windows.