Ferrari and BMW are rolling out new models featuring lightweight, cost-effective aluminium wiring, accelerating a shift away from copper, the dominant material in electric wiring since the invention of the electric battery two centuries ago.
Ferrari and BMW are rolling out new models featuring lightweight, cost-effective aluminium wiring, accelerating a shift away from copper, the dominant material in electric wiring since the invention of the electric battery two centuries ago.
Aluminum wiring is totally fine, it just needs to be thicker. It’s still lighter weight and cheaper - probably a big win to be honest.
It expands and contracts and oxidizes far more readily than copper. I don’t trust corner-cutters to engineer around these potential hazards. We’re gonna see these Teslas light up like fireworks in a few years.
If it’s for general vehicle wiring it’ll be mayhem.
If it’s chunky busbars and such in the battery modules and drive motors… maybe not so much.
Yeah, would probably be fine for a bus bar. They certainly didn’t go into enough detail in the article.
Not really. It’s much more chemically reactive and less springy than copper, and more prone to fatigue. I’ve heard the newer alloys address this problem at least partially, but it was banned from most residential wiring applications for good reasons after a lot of houses burned down.
And houses are known for their “movement”. What could possibly go wrong.