New Y Frame Process & Wiring Harness Plans: Great Stuff or Wall of Worry

[AlMason]

Recent comments and patent filings indicate Model Y production will use a new frame maufacturing technique to create a good part of the frame in one peice and also use a new wirng harness having much less wiring in the wire harnesses (100 meters vs 1,500 meters as in the Model 3). All great manufacturing improvements. What could possibly go wrong?
As the holder of a day one Model Y reservation, I'm not sure I want the privilege of owning the 1st batch of this new technology coming off the line. Particularly worrying is the wiring harness - it will have 50+ (counted from the patent application) modules powered and networked on the harness. Will one defective module be capable of shutting the whole network down? We see those failures now on the CAN busess of more modern cars. The proposed level of networking could have a defective window module shutting down the drive train. I've handled networked systems before, so I really would like to hear more details -- or maybe I should cancel and wait till the second year of production to see how this pans out.
Anyone have any futher details?

 

[reardencode]

Your concerns about the wiring harness change are completely unfounded. If anything the new harness will likely provide better isolation because it can provide more separate data paths without requiring more separate wire runs.

Edit to add: That said, I think there are real reasons to be concerned about these major manufacturing changes if they try to apply them all to the Y right off the bat. My hope is that we hear in the next month or two that Model 3 is starting to ship with either the new harness or the new frame castings, and then early next year the other. That way by the time they start producing the Y in volume late next year they will already have had months to sort out production bugs with the new processes.

 

[Saghost]

Tesla made the transition to module and transistor based isolation instead of fuses a couple years ago, for all the cars.

I believe every Model 3 and every AP2.5 or newer S and X are using the integrated power distribution modules and transistor e-fuse systems instead of traditional fuses.

I think what they're planning for the Y is just an extension and optimization of that - more distribution nodes, and shorter wires to each device from there.

 

[Watts_Up]

Recent comments and patent filings indicate Model Y production will use a new frame manufacturing technique
to create a good part of the frame in one piece and also use a new wiring harness having much less wiring in the wire harnesses

I remember Elon Musk mentioning a long time ago the future introduction of a BUS based wiring system for the Model Y.
But also EM mentioned later that such new technology had been put on hold to start early the production of the Model Y.

So this explain why it takes so long to starts the production of the Model Y:
- I was thinking that it was only a problem of production capacity, since the Model Y seems to be mostly a cosmetic variation of the Model 3.
- But it seems now that the Model 3 and Model Y will not be able to share too much of the production line,
because for the Model Y more robotisation will be even possible.

I wonder also if the Model 3 will be in the future been retrofitted to also use the BUS based wiring system,
as this would the allow to sharing the same production line?

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, currently most of the driving controls use drive-by-wire system.
I wonder in fact how much of braking and steering is still possible in case of an extreme power failure?

I only experienced getting my screen display rebooting while driving.
It was just strange not been able to check my speed or any other information.
But everything else seems working, even my turn signal was still making noise.

 

[Watts_Up]

Edit to add: That said, I think there are real reasons to be concerned about these major manufacturing changes if they try to apply them all to the Y right off the bat.

My hope is that we hear in the next month or two that
Model 3 is starting to ship with either the new harness or the new frame castings, and then early next year the other.

That way by the time they start producing the Y in volume late next year they will already have had months to sort out production bugs with the new processes.

Will there is not too much information about how much the Model 3 and Model Y will be able to share production line, however
I doubt that there will be any drastic changes to the Model 3 because they will have to stop the current production line.

 

[reardencode]

Will there is not too much information about how much the Model 3 and Model Y will be able to share production line, however
I doubt that there will be any drastic changes to the Model 3 because they will have to stop the current production line.

Given the in progress modifications at Fremont to make space for the Model Y, it's not unthinkable that they'd actually spin up a new line there, initially making 3s, use it to thoroughly vet the new processes on a product that is already shipping (eg. 3P on new line, all other 3s on old lines). Then once that new line is proven shift the other lines and trims over. Then they'd be able to setup for Y production as they freed up the existing 3 lines.

That's just one example of how they could go about this, and one of the many reasons that producing the Y in Fremont is so advantageous vs. GF1: Flexibility.

 

[StuffOfInteres]

Another option would be to introduce some of this new tech and technique at GF3 in China. Brand new lines so a good opportunity to try something that may require time to ramp up. Once the issues have been worked out, then retrofit Fremont lines.