Munro Live
1 HN recommender · recommended in 6 months, 2021–2023
12:27 · 225K views · Jul 16, 2021
Munro Live's team breaks down the thermal management system of the Ford Mustang Mach-E and compares it with the Tesla Model Y. They look at parts count, coolant loops and heating approaches.
Cited as engineering evidence that Tesla's integrated thermal design is far simpler than Ford's, in EV and quality debates.
6 comments from Hacker News
Tesla's manufacturing has come a long way in the past few years. In 2018, Sandy Munro famously tore down the new Model 3 with a lot of criticism for things like their excess of parts, fasteners, and welds. They made a lot of changes, including some he suggested, and now Munro tends to rave about how well they're engineered for ease of manufacture. This is a guy who gets paid by Big 3 auto companies to help improve their manufacturing. A great visual is this video of someone snapping together much of a Model Y like legos, in ten minutes by himself: [LINK] Another fun one is Munro's comparison of the thermal management systems for a Model Y and Ford Mach-E: this video
From what I've seen from cars being put apparat by Sandy Munro company the complexity of EV cooling system maps roughly 1 to 1 with ICE. Both need cooling loops basically. There is however a staggering difference between companies. Compare cooling in Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y. Tesla just brutally crashes Ford in how much they are able to reduce number of parts, especially hoses and hose connectors. Tesla has something like 3x less hoses, 3x less parts and half the mass of the coolant in the loop (22kg vs 9 kg). Maybe part of what you are seeing is inexperience and incompetence of ICE car manufacturers. There are also other things that legacy car manufacturers are not willing to risk like megacasting. Something like 50 parts reduction in one cast, and good chunk of the factory floor for Tesla. And apparently the idea was out there long before Tesla but nobody tried it. While Musk loves taking financial risks if they can deliver significant engineering benefits. this video Not to mention that while Tesla may be not great at software engineering, ICE car companies and their supply chains are just ridiculously bad at it.
> The problem is that driving EVs in the cold costs a lot more energy. I've got a Ford Mustang Mach E Nowadays this problem isn't "EVs," it's mostly just the Mach E. The Mach E delivers heat in the most inefficient way possible: resistive heat[0]. Modern EVs from other manufacturers use heat pumps, which are much more efficient. There's still some drop in winter range (like gas cars), but it's nowhere near 35% anymore.[1] Ford's system is also Rube Goldberg[2]: they use a water-based PTC heater to warm a small isolated coolant loop (complete with its own separate reservoir!), and then they run a pump to send it through a liquid-to-air heater core. Obviously done for commonality with an ICE heater core, but the unnecessary weight and complexity shows the compromises to shoehorn an electric drivetrain into a ICE (or "flex") platform. [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] this video
It's disingenuous for the article to claim does that ICE engineers are replaced by software engineers. Now-days if you want to make a fuel efficient engine you have to use software modeling and simulation. Maybe people who are close to retirement age are still hands on but industry have switched to CAD/CAM decades ago and is not going back. Engineers who are verse in CAD/CAM can switch to designing castings, optimizing cooling and heating, and improve part integration. As Munro's Mach-E tear-down revealed - there's a lot to be optimized in their latest EV[1] [1] this video
Clearly you are not going to be convinced because you came into this conversation with a conclusion and backtracked from that just like the other poster. That is a common problem when discussing both Tesla and Apple. Both companies evoke a lot of emotion and "foaming at the mouth" type responses. Both companies have continued track records of producing stellar engineering. But for anyone else reading this try to separate your emotion for "lord elno" and just let the engineering speak for itself. [1]: this video [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK]