[yc-kraln]

The electrical wiring in cars is Conway's law manifest in copper.

For those unfamiliar with Conway's law, I am arguing that how the car companies have organized themselves--and their budgets--ends up being directly reflected in the number of ECUs as well as how they're connected with each other. I imagine that by measuring the amount of excess copper, you´d have a pretty good measure for the overhead involved in the project management from the manufacturers' side.

(I previously worked for Daimler)

[mensetmanusman]

Would be funny to have a ‘mm Cu / FTE’ scaling law.

[westurner]

The ohm*meter^3 is the unit of electrical resistance.

Electrical resistivity and conductivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_con...

Is there a name for Wh/m or W/m (of Cu or C) of loss? Just % signal loss?

"Copper Mining and Vehicle Electrification" (2024) https://www.ief.org/focus/ief-reports/copper-mining-and-vehi... .. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40542826

There's already conductive graphene 3d printing filament (and far less conductive graphene). Looks like 0.8ohm*cm may be the least resistive graphene filament available: https://www.google.com/search?q=graphene+3d+printer+filament...

Are there yet CNT or TWCNT Twisted Carbon Nanotube substitutes for copper wiring?

[westurner]

* far less conductive graphite; another form of carbon

FWIU recent developments in graphene semiconductors for example on silicon carbide are undercapitalized.

Can industry undo its unsustainable copper dependency by replacing power wires and data cabling with TWCNT cabling?

[throwaway48476]

Complexity is a function of the number and depth of suppliers.