美国推进柔性电路汽车线束本地化生产

FPC（柔性电路板，Flexible Printed Circuit）替代传统线束的速度越来越快。尤其是电池行业。集成，无线始终看好。随着以技术驱动为核心的产业重塑和以新生代不断涌入、新思潮的不断涌现，汽车工业和汽车作为消费品的内延和外延正发生着巨大而深刻的变化,面对汽车电动化，智能化，网联化的快速发展，汽车线束系统的设计策略是低碳节能、轻量小型、智能集成，FPC柔性扁平线束具有体积小、重量轻、结构柔软的特点，适用于线束在狭小空间的布线，如汽车顶棚、车门、车灯等区域。一台车选用FPC柔性扁平线束代替传统线束，线束整体重量降低约50%，体积下降约60%；另外把电子模块、开关和FPC线束集成一体化，能减少连接器和附件的使用，降低成本。所以FPC线束的应用能更好的优化空间、降低能耗，实现整车绿色出行。目前FPC在新能源汽车上开始大量应用替换传统的电池采样线，日前，美国能源部表示支持美国制造，它打算向加州初创公司 CelLink 提供 3.62 亿美元贷款，以帮助资助美国制造工厂的建设，以改进关键的汽车线束组件。政府先进技术汽车制造贷款计划的有条件承诺是为汽车和其他行业开发更轻、更高效的柔性电路线束。该部门表示，一旦全面投入运营，得克萨斯州乔治城的工厂预计将生产柔性线束，每年支持约 270 万辆电动汽车。

CelLink成立于2011年，总部位于加利福尼亚州圣卡洛斯，自2019年以来一直在扩大其轻型柔性电路的生产。由于与传统线束组装相关的复杂过程，目前美国市场的大多数线束生产发生在劳动力成本低的国家。CelLink的柔性线束解决了这一缺点，并通过一种新的专有技术帮助美国制造这些组件。CelLink flex线束的扁平设计可以减轻车辆重量，提供更好的散热，提高推进系统效率，并降低车辆制造成本。CelLink已经在路上的100多万辆汽车上安装了产品，目前在加利福尼亚州的圣卡洛斯经营着一家制造厂。然而，该公司正在增加产能，以满足不断增长的需求。一旦完工，新的德克萨斯州工厂将容纳多达25条生产线，这些生产线将在未来几年内根据客户需求分阶段投产.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment to CelLink Corporation (CelLink) for a $362 million loan to help finance the construction of a domestic manufacturing facility to develop lighter and more efficient flexible circuit wiring harnesses for automotive and other industries. Wiring harnesses, key components of cars, are sets of wires and related equipment that relay information and carry electricity throughout vehicles. CelLink’s flexible circuit wiring harnesses, called “flex harnesses,” are lighter, smaller, faster to produce, and can be less expensive than conventional wiring harnesses. Once fully operational, the facility located in Georgetown, Texas, is expected to produce flex harnesses to support approximately 2.7 million electric vehicles (EVs) per year and displace an estimated 7.7 million gallons of gasoline annually due to weight and space savings of the flex harnesses. When fully operational, the project is expected to create 165 construction jobs and more than 1,200 permanent jobs.

This effort supports President Biden’s Investing in Americ agenda to onshore and re-shore domestic manufacturing of technologies that are critical to reaching the clean energy and transportation future.  LPO, leveraging additional loan authority provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, is spurring billions in public-private sector investments that will boost the nation’s competitiveness, strengthen supply chains, and create good-paying jobs to power the clean energy economy.

Most wire harness production for the U.S. market currently occurs in countries with low labor costs due to the complex processes associated with traditional wire harness assembly. CelLink’s flex harnesses address this shortcoming and help enable U.S. manufacturing of these components through a new proprietary technology. The flat design of CelLink’s flex harnesses can reduce vehicle weight and provide better heat dissipation for improved propulsion system efficiency, as well as lowering vehicle manufacturing costs.

CelLink, which already has products installed in more than a million vehicles on the road, currently operates a manufacturing facility in San Carlos, California. However, the company is building additional capacity to keep pace with rising demand. Once completed, the new Texas facility will hold up to 25 manufacturing lines that will be commissioned in stages over the next several years based on customer demand.

Georgetown, Texas, and nearby communities are DOE-identified disadvantaged communities (DACs). The project’s support for overburdened and underserved communities and their workers aligns with the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 initiative to ensure at least 40% of the benefits of federal clean energy investments flow to DACs.

To recruit for operations jobs, CelLink plans to develop partnerships with nearby Fort Hood, Austin Regional Manufacturing Association, community High Schools, the Texas State Technical College, Austin Community College, and others. CelLink plans to provide competitive wages, health benefits, and company stock to full-time hires.

CelLink’s technology, now in demand in the EV and general automotive markets, has applications across numerous other industries, including aviation, space, consumer electronics, and appliances. Notably, CelLink originally developed the flex harness for use in solar panels. Early support for CelLink’s applied research and development for the manufacturing of its innovative high conductance flexible circuits came from DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office nearly a decade ago.

The loan would be offered through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, which provides loans to support U.S. manufacturing of advanced technology vehicles, qualifying components, and materials that improve fuel economy. With several recent ATVM projects in the last year, LPO is helping to achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal that half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 are zero-emissions vehicles.

While this conditional commitment demonstrates the Department’s intent to finance the project, several steps remain for the project to reach critical milestones, and certain conditions must be satisfied before the Department issues a final loan.

全球汽车线束市场预计到2025年将达到915.3亿美元的价值，由于市场导向的趋势，大家都想分一杯羹，各线束大厂都在研究用其它材质替代现有的铜材质，达到整车轻量化的目标；轻量化要求，在航空航天上也是一个越来越大的挑战。早期几大线束配套厂商TE,Sumitomo,Furukawa,Yazaki等公司都对使用铝或者铝合金替代铜作为导电和信号传输的材质，也提出了一些可行性比较高，操作性比较强的方案。（这些技术性的文章，有的公开的，有的是保密性的，如果有心，都可以获得。）因为使用铝会比铜减重20%-40%，而且在成本上有优势，同时在可能受水影响的区域使用这种耐腐蚀的材质，不需要做单独的耐腐蚀处理。当然还有其他替代选项，最终目标都是取代笨重的铜电缆，但是，各种相关方案目前都是应用上没有得到普及。“多年来，人们曾多次预测铜的内在衰落，但先进芯片技术与信号完整性设计方面的改进结合在一起，使工程师们能够找到扩展铜实际带宽的方法。”包括英国Trackwise开发的柔性线路板的线束技术（IHT），该技术有助于制造任何长度的柔性印刷电路。其公司制造了世界上第一个，最长的26米FPC，无需额外的线束即可支持电力和通信信号的控制和传输由于其轻量级优势，该技术已在航天器中使用，并且可以在汽车中采用以实现同等优势，但是业界认为未来的线束将被设计为系统优化和可制造性，希望它你能更简单和更小更轻，汽车线束市场轻量化仍然是未来发展的主基调，但是任重道远，冰冻三尺非一日之寒，暂时还没办法快速达到我们的期望！2021上海车展电动汽车的智能化发展是未来汽车科技发展的一个趋势, 电动汽车的产品应用的广阔性已经创造出更多汽车相关的新技术应用，从而赋予汽车更多的社会性，目前电动汽车以特斯拉为代表的开启FPC动力电池FPCFPC方案替代传统铜线束已经彻底得到市场认可，因为其除可大幅减重实现轻量化并提升空间利用率外，还可实现自动装配、添加熔断电流保护设计提升安全性等等优，随着FPC方案在电动汽车主流车型上普遍被采用，将FPC方案推动成动力电池信号传输的主流方案。