Sandy Munro: Ford enginners wanted 48V, as early as 1980s, but finance execs said NO.

[firsttruck]

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Cory: .. recently had dinner with some ICE auto engineers, they said everyone's known that 48v is the right voltage but these engineers said no one would ever commit ..

Sandy: In 1980s, when Sandy was a engineer at Ford, the Ford engineers wanted to go 48V but finance execs would not OK move.

Sandy: 48V wiring
save weight
save copper
reduction in lost power
thinner wiring bundles
even save space because even connectors could be smaller

Cory: GM probably realizes this (48V) makes their Utlium platform will be obsolete if everyone moves to 48v

John McElroy (host): Tesla $25k car it will be like the model T - the affordability index of current ICE cars & EVs is out of kilter

I thought the whole video was very informative.
primary 48V discussion timestamp: 32:04 - 42:45
after timestamp 42:45 is stuff about resistance to change in corporate culture.

As seems typical, finance execs, CEOs and other execs refused to be leaders when temporary reduction in profit would happen during their tenure.

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There is a good reddit post that has a more detailed timestamp breakdown of subjects discussed in video

search reddit or Internet for
"Sandy Munro & Cory Steuben On Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 - Autoline After Hours 639"

reddit forum r/teslamotors


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** I tried to cue video to start of 48V discussion.

Sandy Munro & Cory Steuben On Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 - Autoline After Hours 639
GUESTS:
- Sandy Munro, Vehicle Teardown Specialist, Munro & Associates
- Cory Steuben, President, Munro & Associates
TOPIC:
Sandy & Cory were at Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 in Austin, Texas, and share their insights on its new assembly process, its 48 volt system, its corporate philosophy and even some things they weren't supposed to see.
Streamed live on Mar 16, 2023
Autoline Network - Autoline After Hours

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[DMC-81]

As they say: " woulda, coulda, shoulda".

Meanwhile, the players in the industry were like school yard bullies to innovators like Tucker, etc.

This is a window into why vehicles have not changed much.

 

[BeastSlayer]

Huh?

I was finance dude who would sign off on those.

Seems savings which is top of mind for us.

There might be some more to the proposal for the denial. What's that temporary loss of profit? Companies live and die for that career ending quarterly results.

 

[SlegMD]

Pleasure of the share holder stymies innovation.

 

[cvalue13]

Huh?

I was finance dude who would sign off on those.

Seems savings which is top of mind for us.

There might be some more to the proposal for the denial. What's that temporary loss of profit? Companies live and die for that career ending quarterly results.

On one hand, I'm sympathetic to the idea that large companies can lack vision and guts, to their detriment.

On the other hand, I get irked by the implication that having "vision and guts" is a freebie only idiots wouldn't recognize and capitalize on.

In my company, engineers could come to me with what are objectively great ideas, I could recognize them as such, and *still* have a raft of existential crises that must take priority of time, attention, and cash. Not the least of reasons being that there may be 100s of such great ideas in line ahead of this newest one, each vying for their time in the sun.

So while Sandy's often repeated quips about e.g. "in corporate America its safer to say 'no' than say 'yes'" is no doubt true in a lot of cases, and regrettable, I can't help but think that from the perspective of eg "the engineering department" those no-man situations are often indistinguishable from the other possible explanation of "there's a bigger picture from the business perspective."

Doing the right thing can still lead to ruin; and is easiest to critique in hindsight, especially from the bowels of the e.g. engineering department.

 

[Baldey]

On one hand, I'm sympathetic to the idea that large companies can lack vision and guts, to their detriment.

On the other hand, I get irked by the implication that having "vision and guts" is a freebie only idiots wouldn't recognize and capitalize on.

In my company, engineers could come to me with what are objectively great ideas, I could recognize them as such, and *still* have a raft of existential crises that must take priority of time, attention, and cash. Not the least of reasons being that there may be 100s of such great ideas in line ahead of this newest one, each vying for their time in the sun.

So while Sandy's often repeated quips about e.g. "in corporate America its safer to say 'no' than say 'yes'" is no doubt true in a lot of cases, and regrettable, I can't help but think that from the perspective of eg "the engineering department" those no-man situations are often indistinguishable from the other possible explanation of "there's a bigger picture from the business perspective."

Doing the right thing can still lead to ruin; and is easiest to critique in hindsight, especially from the bowels of the e.g. engineering department.

Meh, I agree with Sandy wholeheartedly. In a perfect world, all good ideas would have the resources to be tried. Fail fast, fail early!

The only one that can give you a true answer, is the world through experimentation. Humans are stupid, your assumptions can only get you so far. Especially if your assumptions are being made by sales people, who only think they know what they are doing.. That is why they are so damn dangerous The only thing more dangerous than an idiot, is one that has reason to believe that they are competent. I try to avoid becoming one every day, it is a struggle.

I am SO glad to see all these legacy companies burn.. I've been waiting a long time for this.

 

[BeastSlayer]

As they say, finance is the reality check for edifice complex of engineers snd marketers last night's pie-in-the-sky dream.

 

[firsttruck]

On one hand, I'm sympathetic to the idea that large companies can lack vision and guts, to their detriment.

On the other hand, I get irked by the implication that having "vision and guts" is a freebie only idiots wouldn't recognize and capitalize on.

In my company, engineers could come to me with what are objectively great ideas, I could recognize them as such, and *still* have a raft of existential crises that must take priority of time, attention, and cash. Not the least of reasons being that there may be 100s of such great ideas in line ahead of this newest one, each vying for their time in the sun.

So while Sandy's often repeated quips about e.g. "in corporate America its safer to say 'no' than say 'yes'" is no doubt true in a lot of cases, and regrettable, I can't help but think that from the perspective of eg "the engineering department" those no-man situations are often indistinguishable from the other possible explanation of "there's a bigger picture from the business perspective."

Doing the right thing can still lead to ruin; and is easiest to critique in hindsight, especially from the bowels of the e.g. engineering department.

Based on Sandy's description it sounded like engineering management and other groups all approved of the move to 48V except financial management (& must assume CEOs).

This delay of a needed change was not a one-off or short time but for over 30 years and multiple management tenures and probably multiple companies (wouldn't other engineers reach same conclusions at GM, Chrysler, VW, Toyota, etc).

There were other similar situations.

Mass market EVs were possible as early as late 1990s with NiMH battery tech.
EV1 was never improved on a the time despite high satisfaction of lessees & huge investment by government.

J. B. Straubel said he was disappointment that even after Tesla's Model S proved that good EV was possible with 2010s battery tech was feasible for desirable EV, even then the legacy auto makers did nothing.

 

[scottf200]

Cory: GM probably realizes this (48V) makes their Utlium platform will be obsolete if everyone moves to 48v

This makes no sense as the Ultium platform is about the HV/high voltage system and not the LV/low voltage 12v/48v systems.

 

[cvalue13]

This delay of a needed change was not a one-off or short time but for over 30 years and multiple management tenures and probably multiple companies (wouldn't other engineers reach same conclusions at GM, Chrysler, VW, Toyota, etc).

all im saying is, based on these same facts, you can arrive at two opposite conclusions regarding the relative *need* for the change: everyone was dumb, or everyone agreed it wasn't a *need* in an all-things-considered sum

relevant facts then, aren't necessarily the same as facts now.

Mass market EVs were possible as early as late 1990s with NiMH battery tech.

all depends on what you mean by 'possible'

and that's sort of the point

the only thing we know now is 'possible' is that a scrappy start-up aspiring for even a sliver of market share was willing to take large risks, nearly go extinct, and through talent and brute force manage to thread the needle

to expect those incentives to generalize to all companies in the same business seems a bit naive

i understand there are documentaries, etc., out there, that trade on painting the world as complicated and nefarious place

but i see those and arrive instead at merely: "so you're telling me that corporations are corporations? I thought that understanding was basic table stakes."

the company behind "Beyond Meat" has certain incentives to proliferate the spread of meat-alternative burger patties; McDonalds, does not.

I just don't know what it means to then say it was "possible" for McDonalds to develop and sell its own "Beyond Meat" product 30 years ago

 

[CyberGus]

Change is hard.

 

[Diehard]

We all know the advantages of innovation and have been the beneficiary of it but someone has to play the devil's advocate. "Fail fast, fail often" sounds cool if you are a tanager experimenting with scraps you got for free in your basement. Not quite the same when you are planning to disrupt the entire supply chain.

There is value in doing the same old thing. Something that has been around for 30 years has allowed hundreds of companies to come to existence to support it and to compete around that technology. That provides stable jobs, cheap parts and accessories. If every 5 years you moved from 6V to 12V to 24V to 48V to 96V, it would cost more to build the cars for companies that buy parts from a monopoly and would cost more to replace the parts on those cars. In other words, we have to judge innovation in context; which is the ratio of Positive impact of it to the negative impact.

It is easy for consumers to say manufacturers should be brave and innovative and take more risk but how many of those consumers will pay 20% more for a 2% more efficient product? For CEOs, like for our politicians, taking short term risks for potential long term benefits is hard to justify.

Elon seem to live for long term and have a high risk tolerance. I can only demand that from other leaders if I have the stomach for it myself (I don't). We can sit on the sidelines and question the rate of the innovation for GM and Ford but if they constantly made bad financial decisions, they would not be around as long as they have. I think all of them recognized they need innovation to survive since their inception. The struggle is figuring out how much innovation they can afford.

 

[cvalue13]

Change is hard.

make money hard

 

[CyberGus]

make money hard

make money easy

keep money hard

 

[FutureBoy]

"there's a bigger picture from the business perspective."

Doing the right thing can still lead to ruin; and is easiest to critique in hindsight, especially from the bowels of the e.g. engineering department.

Interesting how you write describe the "bigger picture" as something that engineering isn't aware of and then describe them as being from the "bowels".

So much for team work, shared experience/understanding, and utilizing all the strengths available.

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