Have you ever wondered how long the wire harness in a car can be? And what level is the 1500-meter length of the whole vehicle wire harness in the industry?
In traditional distributed architecture vehicles, the wire harness length can be as long as 5000 meters, and the wire harness length of common household vehicles is also about 3000 meters. Nowadays, intelligent electric vehicles with domain control architecture have successfully reduced the wire harness length to about 2000 meters.
How important is the wire harness for new energy vehicles?
The automotive wire harness is like the “nerves and blood vessels” of a car. It connects various electrical components of the car and enables them to work together. Every function command issued by the car owner depends on the wire harness for transmission. On the one hand, it must ensure the accurate transmission of the whole vehicle’s electrical signals and the stable supply of electrical energy; on the other hand, it must also guarantee the reliability of the connection circuit.
Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles have significant differences. Their interiors not only have complex and precise high-voltage components, high-voltage connectors and other high-voltage electrical components, but also low-voltage electrical appliances. The normal operation of these electrical components is inseparable from the support of a large number of high-voltage wire harnesses and low-voltage wire harnesses. It is no exaggeration to say that the length and transmission efficiency of the wire harness directly affect key aspects such as the timeliness of power response, energy consumption, and battery life. Therefore, although the wire harness is often overlooked, it is a crucial part that “affects the whole body with one move” in the entire vehicle.
How do various automakers “compete” in wire harnesses?
The shortening of wire harnesses has become an irresistible trend in the development of new energy vehicles. Behind this is the continuous evolution and progress of the automotive electronic and electrical architecture.
The evolution of the automotive electronic and electrical architecture generally goes through three stages:
- Distributed Electronic and Electrical Architecture: In early automobiles, each electronic control unit (ECU) was only responsible for controlling a single function unit. They were independent of each other and connected through CAN or LIN buses. Under this architecture, the whole vehicle wire harness was extremely long, accompanied by many disadvantages such as excessive weight, insufficient communication bandwidth, and difficult function iteration.
- Domain Control Electronic and Electrical Architecture: To overcome the disadvantages of the distributed architecture, automakers have concentrated some functions into function domain controllers, such as the autonomous driving domain, the entertainment domain, and the gateway domain. At the same time, high-speed buses such as FlexRay or Ethernet have been introduced to improve communication efficiency. As the number of ECUs decreases, the wire harness length also begins to gradually shorten.
- Central Integrated Electronic and Electrical Architecture: Focusing on realizing software-defined vehicles and the continuous update of intelligent functions, the central integrated electronic and electrical architecture has emerged. The types of power supply modes are increasingly rich to adapt to electrical modules of different power levels. Under this architecture, the wire harness can be further shortened, the computing power and communication efficiency are greatly improved, the time delay and power consumption are significantly reduced, and the coordination and stability are stronger.
Looking at the development process of these three types of electronic and electrical architectures, it is not difficult to find that the wire harness length of new energy vehicles has been reduced by about 50% compared with that of traditional vehicles.
What different driving experiences can shorter wire harnesses bring to car owners?
The most obvious benefit brought by the shortening of wire harnesses is “cost reduction and weight reduction”. Firstly, in terms of “cost reduction”, this not only means a reduction in the amount of wire harness raw materials used, but also an improvement in the assembly speed during the manufacturing process, which helps automakers expand production capacity quickly. Secondly, in terms of “weight reduction”, the weight of automotive wire harnesses usually accounts for 3 – 5% of the vehicle’s total weight. For a vehicle with a considerable “weight”, even a 1% weight reduction can significantly optimize handling and reduce energy consumption.
In addition, when the wire harness between the central supercomputer and the surrounding sensing elements, or between the regional control module and each small electronic module is shortened, it is like building convenient bridges in the mountains. The wire harness layout is no longer circuitous. The transmission distance is greatly shortened, the “communication” between various components becomes smoother, the transmission efficiency and the agility of the car machine are significantly improved, creating a more convenient and intelligent driving experience for car owners.
All in all, although the automotive wire harness is small, it contains great mysteries in the development and transformation of the automotive industry. Its continuous evolution is pushing new energy vehicles towards a better future.