Tesla Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill just lately shared some insights on the electrical automobile maker’s deep integration and distinctive strategy to automotive design in a current submit on social media platform X. As could possibly be seen within the engineer’s submit, it’s Tesla’s intense consideration to element that finally makes the corporate’s automobiles as disruptive as they’re right now.
Anybody knowledgeable who appears to be like on the Tesla Cybertruck would know that the automobile is a symphony of automotive engineering. Tesla, nevertheless, took a while earlier than it reached this level. As per Morrill in his submit, Tesla in its early days utilized totally different groups with collaborative targets in automobile design. Adopting this method allowed the corporate to make nice automobiles, however the designs of the automobiles themselves weren’t optimum.
“A well-known instance – early days of Tesla there was a battery crew and individually a automobile constructions crew. Buildings crew designed their automobile physique to satisfy given necessities of power, crashworthiness, torsional stiffness, and so on. Likewise, the battery crew designed their half to be self contained, it may survive sturdiness, by chance being dropped, being hit in a crash, and so on.
Good evaluation – that is what occurs when groups work collectively to make the most effective product. https://t.co/XAXf70k3jc
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 14, 2024
“Consequently, we ended up with was an excellent dense battery in a robust field like construction, which was then Put in into the automobile which had a pleasant area for it to mate into. There have been no points with integration, every little thing match collectively completely and met all product targets. It achieved one of many highest crash security rankings measured on the time.
“However we had a field stuffed with battery cells that was put in into one other empty field formed receptacle on the physique. A field in a field. Once you simplify it down that far it sounds clearly fallacious. The 2 organizations had achieved their targets, labored collectively with out friction, and the product met its general targets. But the product ended up with a transparent lack of optimization because of the organizational boundaries of the 2 groups working in isolation. Nothing was fallacious, however it wasn’t optimum,” Morrill wrote.
The Cybertruck Lead Engineer famous that Tesla discovered from these experiences, and the corporate tailored. That is how improvements such because the structural battery pack—which is now being simulated by electrical automotive makers in China—took place. Morrill said, nevertheless, that such modifications might require massive organizational modifications, and there needs to be a drive to make the most effective product no matter ego.
Have you ever heard of Conway’s Legislation? It is an attention-grabbing commentary in regards to the root reason for why massive organizations normally make merchandise worse.
In 1967 Melvin Conway wrote “Organizations which design techniques are constrained to provide designs that are copies of the communication… pic.twitter.com/SetWd6OfTe
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 14, 2024
“Earlier than the subsequent product was designed, the battery crew gave duty of the battery constructions additionally to the automobile constructions crew. On this iteration, we ended up with the structural battery, which is an integral a part of the physique and crash construction. With out it, the automobile physique won’t work. It’s the literal ground for the automobile. However the redundancy is gone and the design is extra environment friendly consequently. This automobile additionally achieved one of many highest crash security rankings measured on the time.
“This can be a tremendous apparent instance (looking back) and solved with a reasonably large organizational change however you may also see this occur in small technical selections and doesn’t require structural change to repair. Somebody simply must query if there’s a higher resolution in a crew open to criticism. This mindset to work collectively to make the most effective product no matter ego is the place you find yourself with essentially the most revolutionary merchandise.
“Some smaller examples have been seen when inspecting Cybertruck design. The chassis air suspension which is used to pressurize the battery pack to forestall water ingress. The subwoofer which makes use of the air quantity of the physique aspect as an alternative of creating the enclosure bigger. Centralized zonal automobile controllers as an alternative of many small distributed controllers. Doorways which use the outside floor as a crash intrusion beam. The pedestrian warning system used as a horn. The checklist goes on. The thrill and motivation by everybody concerned to work throughout boundaries and actively break down Conway’s Legislation is among the many causes I really like working at Tesla,” Morrill wrote.
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