Tesla Inc. has contacted the executives of several major American car companies with documents describing the specific 48V electric powertrain technologies and their implementation in the Cybertruck pickup. Ford CEO Jim Farly has already confirmed receipt and said thanks, InsideEVs reports.
Elon Musk’s electric car company believes that automakers all around the world can benefit greatly from switching to 48V electric internals. Most of the low-power devices currently found in cars and EVs use 12 volts instead of 48. Tesla claims that upgrading the voltage will enable using much thinner wires, reducing curb weights and production costs while minimizing power transmission losses and leverage the voltage better across dozens of devices on board.
There are multiple hurdles on the way of the 48V tech becoming mainstream. For one, all third-party car part suppliers will have to adopt the same standard simultaneously with the automaker. For another, the existing electrical systems will have to be redesigned from scratch. By mailing their know-hows to the other players in the industry, Tesla engineers apparently want to speed up the technology adoption times (as opposed to patenting it and stalling progress).
This wouldn’t be the first time Tesla tried to give the rest of the automotive world a master class in industrial design. A few years ago, the company dumped a large number of patents into the public domain space, and later disclosed the complete design documentation of its Roadster EV.
