YouTuber Ingineerix got his hands on Tesla’s latest motor and drive unit, and made a humble contribution to the world of technology lovers by tearing it down on camera.
Embedded above, the 13-minute long video reveals how Tesla has refined and improved the design of the unit that’s apparently being fitted on the rear axle of the current Model Y electric crossover.
The YouTuber reveals that the whole thing weighs 194 pounds (88 kilograms) and that it’s an evolution of the previous drive unit released by Tesla in 2017 for the Model 3, with an all-new design for the inverter that’s much more compact than before and features an all-new chiller assembly.
Overall, the layout is the same as with the previous iteration, but it’s been optimized in a lot of areas to make it easier to manufacture and maybe even prolong its life.
However, there is one potential problem with this new design and that’s the cartridge oil filter is no longer user-serviceable, but as Ingineerix puts it, it should easily last the whole lifetime of the vehicle without needing to replace it.
A smart update is the breather has been moved at the top of the casing, so if water ever gets to the drive unit, it can’t go inside the gearbox (unless it goes over the breather, of course).
After opening up the casing, the YouTuber reveals a lot of similarities with the previous model, with the same basic resolver design and the same basic design of the rotor itself. But with this being said, there is something new inside, and that’s the hairpin-style stator, which is more efficient than before and much easier to manufacture.
The housing itself is more elegant, with fewer ribs and less material used overall, which effectively leads to lower production costs.
Getting back to the new inverter, it has a much more compact Printed Circuit Board (PCB) but uses much of the same components as before, with the same Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and the same gate drivers, but there is a new addition in the form of an unidentified safety controller, which could be Tesla’s own silicon.
What’s interesting is that Tesla switched from thermistors to infrared sensors to measure the temperature and it seems that the board was designed to house three IR units but it only has two in place.
It’s a really interesting teardown video, especially if you like technical stuff, so go to the top of this article to check it out. Then, maybe you can tell us what you think in the comments section below.
