12 ms·
CT scans of BYD car parts
- viasfo 4mo agoCT scans of BYD car components. BYD is fully vertically integrated at a level unseen since early 20th-century Ford.
- kmoser 4mo ago"You wouldn't CT scan a car!" Actually, yes, we would: https://www.kmoser.com/ctscan/ https://www.kmoser.com/ctscan/
- embedding-shape 4mo ago> This prismatic cell is NOT a Blade, but it does share the same chemistry. Kind of surprised that the part that is perhaps the most "BYD" of the entire car, isn't actually the same cell that the BYD Blade batteries use, which was what I was most excited about seeing :(
- serf 4mo agoLFP prismatics are dirt cheap, I actually thought that was cooler -- it's rare to see a car part for a specific brand that is so close to a COTS equivalent.
- Terr_ 4mo agoI wonder if they simply couldn't fit it inside the scanner? From what I can find online, the biggest blade-cell dimension is 9.6cm, but I'm having a harder time finding the size limitations for the scanners.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago> I wonder if they simply couldn't fit it inside the scanner? As far as I know, the cells they use for the Blade does look more or less to what they actually scanned, I'm guessing it's the same size as the actual cell they used. Makes sense they couldn't fit the entire Blade assembly, as it's lots of cells put together, but I don't understand why they couldn't use the real thing instead of something else...
- spiral09 4mo ago[dead]
- Animats 4mo agoNice. Those are small parts, though. The interesting part is the E-axle. BYD builds a unit with an integrated motor, differential, axle, and wheel hubs. That, plus an electronics box and battery, is the power train. This simplifies vehicles considerably. There are E-axle teardown videos. There's no big secret about how to do this. Copying this is hard for Detroit, because they have a huge investment in "engine plants". With this design, BYD doesn't need standalone engine plants. Tesla ought to be doing this, but they're into performance, not cost. They want to put two or four motors in a car. BYD does make supercars, to show off, but their volume products are reasonably good cars with E-axles and lithium iron phosphate batteries, which work fine. (It's not clear that Tesla is even into car design at all any more, but that's another issue.) Detroit ought to be doing this, but they insist on making electric cars that are modified gasoline cars. Ford has an electric Mustang, an electric F-150, and an electric Transit. Chrysler doesn't even make cars any more, just one minivan. GM has a good Bolt now, which they are killing to appease Trump.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago>This simplifies vehicles considerably. On the contrary, this much integration makes repairs nearly impossible, meaning you might have to swap the whole unit(for a lot of $$$) when something small inside it inevitably breaks. Check out the articles published by EVclinic that cover such cases. Aftermarket EV repairs are already big business due to how difficult and expensive the OEMs make it.
- HPsquared 4mo agoThe eternal conflict between "design for manufacture" and "design for maintenance".
- justinclift 4mo agoApparently both can be done together, it's just that it takes a bunch more effort so most places don't bother.
- rwmj 4mo ago
- calmbonsai 4mo agoFor those interested in EV drive-train tear-downs, Munroe Live has some wonderfully detailed videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfDuyqmsts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfDuyqmsts , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZzEg3GIcg&list=PLkiDlGyJnpre4-WM5f-m_0bCp7O9osTYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZzEg3GIcg&list=PLkiDlGyJnp...
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- zakisaad 4mo agoThis was stated about the key: "Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing." I own a BYD: this is not true. The key is not hinged; rather, the entire mechanical key pulls out when a small clip is unlatched near the top of the assembly (you can see it in the CT). I assume the circular hinge-looking mechanism in the CT is just a by product of the plastic/metal weld process. Nonetheless: very cool tech demo!
- pimlottc 4mo agoHaving a mechanical key hidden in the electronic key fob is nothing new, it’s common on many cars.
- phinnaeus 4mo agoI remember playing with my parent's VW key fob as a fidget toy in the 00s. Little spring loaded switchblade style mechanical key.
- cwbriscoe 4mo agoMy 2015 Honda had that and my new car does as well.
- zakisaad 4mo agoI guess my intent was not to point out that it has a mechanical key, rather that the description of the key on the webpage was wrong (it is not hinged). The mechanical key fallback pattern is standard across the industry for sure.
- defrost 4mo agoIt's entirely possible that the BYD key they scanned and the BYD key you possess are of different designs.
- jonathanlydall 4mo agoPossible, but I doubt it. Article says key fobs are the same across all their cars and this looks the same as mine for a Sealion 5, there is no hinge for the key you just pull it out. Likely the article authors just assumed from looking at the scan, if they’d actually tried to remove the key they would have realised their mistake.
- _3u10 4mo agoAll you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.
- kyrra 4mo agoPotentially predicated on anti-dumping rules.
- _carbyau_ 4mo agoI am torn on this. Anti-dumping is one thing, and yet disruption was an overused keyword for a long time in Silicon valley. 1. Huge scale subsidies like this are effectively a manufacturing attack. This is mean at the level of international politics and yet the world recently seems to be waking up to the idea they were handing over every practice of manufacture to China. 2. On the other hand, while the Chinese car companies are finding their footing they have not yet perfected the bullshit tiered marketing approaches that see relatively cheap to manufacture features gated to "high-equipment level" cars. For example, now even the cheapest cars can have 360 degree parking cameras. Of course, the Chinese engineering level remains to be seen but many would argue this is competition in the market.
- beloch 4mo agoIt's worse than that. Trump's tariffs have knee-capped North American auto companies right when they needed to be upping their game. The auto sector is tightly integrated across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Or was... Now there's tariff's on every part and frame that crosses a border. The American plan seems to be to put up a wall and force Americans to buy domestic while nobody else in the world buys American cars.
- _3u10 4mo agoThe lada and movkvisch of car brands with people willing to cross the wall to buy BYD in Mexico
- ShinyLeftPad 4mo ago
- delichon 4mo ago> The last company to vertically integrate a car from raw material to finished product at this scale was Ford. Today BYD’s system runs all the way from the lithium mine to the port. Both BYD and Tesla claim to produce around 75% of their components. Ford is at around 25%. Tesla is indeed smaller in scale (cars/year): BYD 4.6M Ford 4.4M Tesla 1.6M
- pimlottc 4mo agoI assumed this was referring to the early days of the Ford assembly line
- delichon 4mo agoYes, Ford claimed up to 90% in the 1930s when they were producing up to 1.4M cars and trucks per year. (Down to less than 400K in the worst of the depression.)
- kevin_thibedeau 4mo agoThey would go so far as to license components for in-source production from suppliers who couldn't meet the needed volume.
- foobarian 4mo agoI suppose it makes sense, back then you wouldn't think there would be an existing supply chain of companies like Mopar just waiting for a car manufacturer to spin up and start buying their stuff
- bryanlarsen 4mo agoThe original Ford plant to raw ore, coal & limestone as inputs. There weren't any Mopar's, but Ford didn't have to build their own steel plants...
- ElevenLathe 4mo ago
- 866-RON-0-FEZ 4mo agoThis looks like a stealth advertisement for their CT scanning business. There is nothing educational of value for the general public here. The only reason you would do this is for competitive analysis and I assure you the other car companies have already analyzed these parts.
- bendauphinee 4mo agoYes, that’s exactly what it is. On the other side of it though, so what, we get to look inside stuff with a cool scan. They’ve been doing these posts for several years now, and they’re all interesting.
- LandenLove 4mo agoThe part where they highlight the rippling in the lithium battery was interesting. They mention it can accelerate degradation over time. It's unclear if this specific example is within tolerances, but I have seen in other CT scans how dramatic the lithium rippling can become. But overall, yeah, this is mostly an advertisement. They have other videos on their YouTube where they scan random items.
- perching_aix 4mo agoIt's called content marketing, and there's nothing stealthy about it in particular.
- calvinmorrison 4mo agoThere actually is a company who does this. full tear downs, of cars top to bottom. Interesting stuff https://www.jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-cars-apart-to-find-o-1787205420/ https://www.jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-...
- gsquaredxc 4mo agoI would say that there’s quite substantial value perhaps not to the general public but to the general HN user from their reports. I was very excited to see them have a public scan of an LFP battery because the previous scans they did of batteries were very informative on which brands to trust and the level of inconsistency that can exist. Their analysis of BYD’s battery design is very useful to someone who is looking to understand LFP and the levels of quality control necessary to have safe batteries. The reports are a bit of a “How it’s Made” but written for the target audience of engineers and has similar utility.
- kazinator 4mo ago> Fourteen pins in two parallel rows carry every signal this panel produces to the rest of the vehicle. Automotive connectors are among the most common failure points in modern cars: corrosion, fretting, and thermal cycling work on these joints over years of use. One connector failure on a module this integrated takes out mirrors, windows, locks, and child safety all at once. Pack that shit full of silicone dielectric grease, check it every year or two, and it should be good for decades.
- mk_stjames 4mo agoThis sounds like copy written by someone who hasn't actually spent a lot of time with the automotive world and in trying to sound like they have. Electrical connectors on automotive harnesses are far, far more reliable now on modern cars than they ever have been in the past, even with the increase in number of such connectors. Companies like Delphi and Amphenol put immense engineering effort into the way modern connectors are designed, with weather sealing and contact plating that is way better than anything pre 1990's-ish was. Plastics really got way better after the turn of the Millenium compared to what they were before- I remember working on 1980s cars in the early 2000s (so, 20 year old cars) where connectors would ofter crumble in your hands when disconnecting them, or have completely corroded terminals, terrible sockets that yield and wouldn't keep continuity, etc. Compared that to all the cars I've worked on in the last 20 years where connectors have just not really been a worry (among the brands I've work on, at least). The electronics / sensors / modules themselves are much more likely to fail than the connectors they attach with, in my current experience. The only time connectors seem to fail is when cycled roughly/wrongly by people doing service incorrectly. Failure in place? Rare. Anyone who thinks automotive electronics were more reliable in the past, live a bit with the electrical systems of a car from the 1970's thru the mid 1990's and report back to me on how that goes. Bonus points if it's Italian or British.
- imp0cat 4mo agoI think the point is that all those "dumb" switches, terminals or cables that get worn out can be replaced relatively easily (ie you need a multimeter and some patience to find the bad one). But if something in the integrated module fails, well good luck repairing that. These things are probably designed to be replaced as a whole, which is fine if you can get a new one. But as the cars get older, this is going to be a problem. Strong old-man-yells-at-cloud vibe, I know. ;)
- londons_explore 4mo agoPrevious lumafield blog posts have been full of amazing graphics and knowledge. But this one seems to be "state the obvious" and "recant political talking points with no new evidence".
- dangus 4mo agoI want to buy a Chinese car and I am annoyed that my protectionist government won’t let me. Lowering transportation cost would be the most impactful thing to my budget. All that serves to do is ensure the American car industry falls far behind by being coddled into a lack of competition. Toyota showed the world the Toyota Production System. What Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and Chinese EVs have shown American automakers is how much vertical integration can be an asset, especially with the lower part counts of electric vehicles. The model where every part is contracted out to parts manufacturers is proving to be antiquated.
- yakbarber 4mo agoTotally agree, this protectionism killed the Australian car industry because eventually you just can’t compete.
- halapro 4mo agoProtectionism by who? By definition protectionism cannot kill your own country's car industry.
- dangus 4mo agoI’m not sure why you think protectionism (by the local government) can’t kill an industry. It happened to American steel as well: the American steel industry was “protected” while foreign steel companies innovated their production processes. The timeline goes like this: 1. Government gets pressured by industry to protect domestic industry from outside competition 2. Domestic industry stagnates as it has no reason to make competitive products 3. Time passes, quality/value gulf becomes so large that it becomes impossible to catch up to competition. It becomes impossible to export your goods and even domestic customers look elsewhere. If the USA dropped tariffs and bans against Chinese car companies, American car companies would need to improve rapidly to survive. Instead, they’re selling us $50,000 decade old dinosaur designs like the Chrysler Pacifica. This literally already happened to them with Japanese cars. And let me tell you, you don’t want to drive a Chevrolet from before Honda and Toyota sold cars in the United States. Not protectionism related, but look at the MacBook Neo competitors shown off by Dell and HP at Computex. Competition drives innovation and cost reduction for consumers. Apple forced HP and Dell to make an affordable aluminum chassis computer for the masses and consumers are the winner in the situation.
- AAYALAG 4mo ago[flagged]
- King-Aaron 4mo agoI've got a friend whos a master tech/trainer with our state automotive body, and is HV certified etc for dealing with these cars. He's currently got a BYD Shark strewn across his workshop for an autopsy. I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is. The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear. The powertrain components all look to be extremely high quality. I've poked around a few EV's with him now, and I do feel like the Chinese market cars are evolving to a really good standard faster than their Korean counterparts did back in the 80s/90s.
- yuye 4mo ago>The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear. While I think the "chinese quality bad" narrative still applies to many Chinese brands, this isn't as universal as it was in the past. I think my eyes were first opened when I bought myself a Huawei phone(before the Google ban). My first few smartphones had been Samsung, I've always felt the term "planned obsolence" was the best way to describe these phones: After just a year, the phone felt considerably slower, and after two it was almost unusable. Huawei flagship phones were similar in price to Samsung, but I felt they lasted way longer.
- HerbManic 4mo agoI have had a fairly good run with a lot of these Chinese phones. Huawei when we could still get them was great. Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell. Oppo has been brilliant in that they are built well, cheap and allow you strip out anything you don't want.
- yuye 4mo agoI had one of the last available Huawei phones, the P30 Pro, for 3 years. The only reason I had to get a new phone is because it got stolen. >Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell. I've tried Xiaomi phones in their stores a few times. I feel like they're trying to copy the look and feel of iOS in a way, and I generally don't like the iOS UX.
- latentframe 4mo agoBYD biggest innovation may be organizational more than technological
- rkagerer 4mo agoFolded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing. It reads warmer than everything else in the scan. It exists for the moment the battery dies or the RF link fails. Every BYD keyless entry system includes this fallback. It's simple things like this which incumbent manufacturers need to avoid losing sight of.
- chrisco255 4mo agoMy 2019 Ford has this as well, this is not novel.
- bdavbdav 4mo agoHuh? What keyless car doesn’t have this (except Tesla, but they’re an odd one, and I guess not an incumbent manufacturer…)
- gogusrl 4mo agoThe Volvo EX30/EX90 and Polestars 3/4/5 don't have a backup physical key or even buttons on the remote to force an unlock. That works exactly how you'd expect :)
- Etheryte 4mo agoNearly every manufacturer does this though? It's often simply done in such a sleek way that customers don't even know it's there.
- squokko 4mo agoTime to start learning Mandarin
- pch00 4mo ago> Time to start learning Mandarin Mandarin has been on the curriculum at my son's school for the past few years. Prescient planning imho.
- yanhangyhy 4mo ago[dead]
- AgentReinAi 4mo ago[dead]
- arcade79 4mo agoMy take: China is now producing cars of such good quality that companies are putting CT-scans of their cars online .. Been driving Tesla the last 9 years .. entirely possible that my next car will be a BYD.
- codedokode 4mo agoI wonder why window switch panel uses 14 pins socket. Wouldn't it be simpler to use 3-4 pins with serial protocol?
- veza 4mo agoOh, I love the 2 sides of HN... Here everybody's ready to buy a BYD and even move to China, due to the sheer quality of the product (for the money) and the integrity of the people, totally forgetting about the 'social credit system' and the data that these cars might be sending or being exposed to having the car remotely disabled. Not to mention the repairability... Just a few days ago there was a popular post taking a modem out of the RAV4. Bet you can't do even that on a BYD without rendering the car non-functional.
- pepperoni_pizza 4mo agoIt would be naive to think HN is not immune to influence operations. The people singing praises to China are not necessarily people.
- xandrius 4mo agoEven more naive to think that the HN crowd is any more immune to propaganda than the non-HN folk.
- BiteCode_dev 4mo agoThey are probably people, paid for it. The comment are too well made. But also some are just real people from HN that are the worst kind of dumb : uneducated but smart, so they think their opinion is valid. This is where the "history at schoolis useless" people show their true color.
- toasty228 4mo agolol, every single american repeating "ChInA bAd" on every single thread mentioning china like automatons, while not being able to locate it on a map or name three living Chinese people", and having the audacity to talk about being under "influence"... the irony China's living rent free in your collective mind for 50+ years while they just chug along and slowly catches and surpasses you in most aspects.
- tiagod 4mo agoIsn't the social credit system mostly a credit score, similar to the one implemented in the United States? As someone living in a European country without such a thing, I also find that one pretty dystopian. About the data sending, wasn't there a quite recent incident where an American car manufacturer was leaking the real-time position of all their clients' vehicles? Aren't US telecoms selling position data of their clients? Isn't the US filled with surveillance cameras managed by a private company keeping track of every car? Do you base your last statement on anything, or is it just a hunch?
- ramaseshanms 4mo agoGenuinely impressed with the article. We need more such articles that re-invigorate our engineering curiosity. Kudos!
- suncemoje 4mo agoBack in the days the Chinese used to copy from the German automotive industry. Now it's about time the Germans start to learn from Chinese engineering.
- nich117 4mo agoThis was a super cool article. Very well done. Thank you!
- viasfo 4mo agoThanks!
- AlfredBarnes 4mo agoCommunist revolution put China behind, but they are realllly catching up fast.
- Neil44 4mo agoI'm having a Seal delivered next week, really looking forward to it. My friend went from a M3 to a Seal. She does a lot of miles. She says they trade blows, there's things that felt better in the Tesla and things she prefers in the BYD.
- jillesvangurp 4mo agoBYD is indeed producing cars by the millions now. Any quality issues would be very apparent at this scale. Also worth noting that they are very advanced in applying robotics and automation in their factories. Anyone assuming that this is all underpaid Chinese workers doing things manually would be mistaken. And that also means they are very good at maintaining the same level of quality through their production process. So, this is not surprising. Also in general, the Chinese car market is insanely competitive right now. There's just very little room for manufacturers that deliver low quality products with lots of warranty issues.
- handle584 4mo ago[dead]