[joekitch]

Those ultium packs have a completely wireless BMS in them, meaning all the modules have a BMS slave with a 2.4ghz connection to a master unit which does all the calculations.

I assumed this was all super proprietary stuff and we wouldn't be able to touch it till Hummer EVs star crashing but now I'm not so sure....

It seems Ti has.... something? It keeps coming up in videos of theirs and they have a demo unit. I'm guessing they don't sell to consumers, although there's a dev kit supposedly? Interesting stuff

Sure as hell would simplify packaging, this makes splitting packs a lot more feasible and battery boxes don't need to size for wire looms all over

 

[joekitch]

I would also be skeptical of the hurdles if this wasn't like, a major calling card of GM's new battery architecture they're going to be using for the next N years, and Ti didn't have a product they're showing off. So presumably the more obvious problems like internal radio reflectance are solved, at least I hope.

But yes this would all be inside the battery box, with the master unit being the only wired thing on the outside (likely sitting on the CANbus)

I'm actually down to try out this Ti dev kit BUT I'm not sure if it's an all on one locked BMS, or if it's just a data relay and you need a proper BMS doing the thinking (like an Orion)

 

[joekitch]

So, no...not ghetto.

I meant ghetto more like it's a diy solution rather than taken from a wrecked car

 

[joekitch]

Standardization and reduction of manufacture. You'd be shocked how much a lot of BMS wires cost in terms of production when you're at hyper mega massive scale. Not just the wire raw cost but the cost of making all those looms and the time cost of installing and running and plugging in all those connectors on the factory floor

Wireless also likes you standardize like crazy. Got 6 modules instead of 12?
With wiring, uh oh! Time to redesign your harness and make a new part number, change your manufacturing flow a little which means slightly different training for people on the line etc etc.
With wireless bms? Ok, change a line in the BMS master configurator, you just stamp out Ultium modules like nuts and literally don't care where they end up in.

basically all that annoying shit in an EV conversion? annoying shit at 20k cars a year is a lot of wasted money and time

Logistics, baby!

 

[joekitch]

Well damn ok that answers one of my big questions, they all discharge balance instead of charge balance, sounds fine to me tbh

 

[joekitch]

Uh, I think Ti was reading this thread because they just dropped this promo video 7 hours ago, good timing

 

[joekitch]

Did a lil chat with Ti support. Looks like it's coming soon (tm)

 

[joekitch]

No tinfoil hat needed, the chip crunch has well known causes and exacerbations

Also, GM's solution isn't the same as Ti's, I imagine that $1200 is a projected cost of a consumer kit or something wich would roll in dev cost. Then again maybe it ends up way cheaper in the end.

My build was going to use the master/slave BMS setup for aem's VCUs so I'm already not too concerned about material cost or wiring complexity as such, this just seems like the way to go for the future and wanna get in on it

 

[joekitch]

Its more like factory shutdowns early covid sent a shockwave through the entire industry, at basically the same time the demand for electronics went through the roof as people stayed at home much more. Those two things combined had numerous downstream effects.

What we're experiencing is a reckoning for the just in time manufacturing model, nobody stockpiles anything, everything is outsourced, makes for brittle supply chains indeed