EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

Ethernet drive

Happy new year, dear readers - welcome to the future! One vision of the future is the ‘connected car’, and many drivers seem to want that. As consumer demand for in-vehicle connectivity continues to grow, automotive manufacturers are under pressure to deliver competitive, innovative features while minimizing cost. A major stumbling block is cabling - it’s heavy, difficult to design and expensive.

Williams with Renault back on track

Between 1989 and 1997, the original partnership of Renault and Williams yielded four drivers’ and five constructors’ titles as well as 63 race wins. Now, the Formula 1 experts join up again and announced a long-term chassis-engine partnership.

Approved CAN bus coupler

In order to ensure reliable operation of motor vehicles on the road, German law requires a motor vehicle type approval (Allgemeine Betriebs-Erlaubnis, ABE) – also referred to as »e1« approval – for all components that are connected to the vehicle's electrical system. This is required even for the most unspectacular components.

Student racer

While Students owning racehorses is a cliché reserved for Oxford and Cambridge (maybe slightly outdated, P.G. Wodehouse has been dead for some time), students with their own car racing team are not quite as common.

Measuring LIN

While LIN is the PHY- and protocol-wise the simplest of the currently used bus systems in cars, more often than not analysing systems know more about CAN , Flexray or even MOST than about the uncomplicated two-wire connection.

Divide et metire

Isolation voltages up to 1000 V in the electrical wiring of hybrid or electrical cars require new approaches toward measurement. A fully isolated high voltage divider may facilitate measurements on automotive batteries and DC power circuits.