Technologies developed to make hybrids and EVs high-voltage cabling safer are helping other vehicles to reduce weight and cost. Continuing just-auto’s series of interviews with major automotive component manufacturers, Matthew Beecham talked with Philip Marks, Director of Global Technology and Product Development, Systems Protection at Federal-Mogul to find out more.
How hard has it been for some EVs and hybrids to comply with safety regulations?
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One of the main challenges in protecting the occupants after a heavy crash is keeping the high voltage electrical system isolated from the rest of the vehicle. Compliance with the US safety standard, FMVSS 305, as well as ISO 6469-3, is where Federal-Mogul’s expertise is most in demand by manufacturers.
After a crash, the regulation requires the voltage in an EV or hybrid’s high-voltage unit to drop to 60V or less within five seconds. Because this is not always practical, to ensure compliance manufacturers must make sure that all cables remain electrically isolated from the vehicle’s structure.
We launched CrushShield last year that makes it easier for vehicles to comply with the regulation at the first attempt. The material uses a dual-layer textile construction to absorb energy and disperse crash force over a greater area, while remaining flexible. It also makes it possible to route wiring in new ways, while improving weight and cost.
The traditional answer is to use rigid shielding to protect cables, but it is getting harder to package, which eats a lot of programme time and its bulk adds a lot of cost to the car in terms of shipping and assembly time.
Wiring harnesses are already expensive, heavy to ship and time-consuming to integrate in final assembly. How are electric vehicles changing the way that manufacturers approach development of this key system?
Over 40 percent of a vehicle is now electrical content, so OEMs are trying to define it as early as possible in the programme. However, the wiring layout design still comes relatively late in the programme, long after exterior styling and powertrain. This makes the trade-offs between conflicting priorities such as packaging, electromagnetic compatibility and crash performance more challenging to resolve.
The result is far greater demand from vehicle manufacturers for more flexibility and lower weight from their wire harnesses. Nobody wants to have to modify system configurations or cable runs at the last minute.
How is this affecting demand for systems protection technologies?
The introduction of high voltage networks, more sensitive electronic content and more sources of electro-magnetic interference are making systems protection more important. As a result, demand is growing much faster than usual; globally across all regions and OEMs.
For CrushShield, we had just five months to launch the first application and it’s been ramping up sharply ever since. What started last year as a product available in just one size and one colour – orange for high-voltage – has become a family of solutions in a range of diameters and which we’ve also had to make available in black for low-voltage systems. Some customers are evaluating whether it can also be used to protect fuel lines and other tubing.
What is being done to improve the packaging, weight and cost of wiring?
For some time wiring has been steadily becoming bigger, heavier and more costly. That’s now starting to change with the new focus on weight reduction. Vehicle manufacturers are now much more focused on weight savings that add to CO2 emission reduction and to value for the vehicle’s entire product lifecycle. Making a wiring harness more flexible creates a virtuous circle of benefits for the company: it becomes less expensive to pack and ship and quicker to install into the vehicle, reducing line delays and stoppages.
It’s not just the premium vehicle manufacturers who see the logic in this either, however. We now also supply wire harness protection to an ultra-low cost car for emerging markets. The carmaker is much more focused on achieving lower finished vehicle costs. It was quick to recognize that the higher component cost was more than offset by savings in its wage bills and reductions in manufacturing stoppages.
