I do not know about cars but using electrical tape on aircraft is absolutely not allowed. Unlike in most electronics vehicles deal with vibration, improper wire routing will cause chafing against any surface it touches over time causing exposed wires and shorts in the best case. Zip ties are obviously not allowed because they would cause chafing themselves, electrical tape will likely come come undone after some years. I have seen cheap electrical tape do so before with age. I can't imagine cars do not deal with a level of vibration that would cause this.
I know the internet really loves muh aerospace standards but there's reasons vehicles that travel in two dimensions don't need to abide by those standards. It would be prohibitively expensive and overkill most of the time. There's tons of stuff that isn't allowed on aircraft and a lot of it traces back to being able to verify/inspect what was done and allowing a chain of custody so problems can be traced to the source. This isn't as necessary for two dimensional vehicles that only last 20yr.
Zip ties are mostly not allowed for QC reasons. Some people will crank them tight and some won't. They won't really cause much chafing if properly installed because the wires shouldn't be moving enough to chafe. There's tons and tons and tons of aftermarket wiring in work trucks out there that's been installed with zip ties and it's not any less reliable than OEM wiring.
All but the worst electrical tape will take 20+yr to come apart even in an automotive environment. It should take longer on an EV that isn't going to have as many sources of oil leaks in old age. I still wouldn't want to use it for anything other than bundling wires though.
As an aside, I've worked on aircraft (GA) and on cars and your average car sees more vibration but obviously if things fall apart in the air it's a bigger deal.
20 years? I've seen what happens to walmart electrical tape in a single summer in a car in the sun. And its been pointed out that the tape doesn't actually hold the "triple-cam" in place, just the wire connectors (implying this is less of problem?).
If it were my car, (and its so unimportant) than I'd vastly prefer nothing over Walmart tape. The tape is not going to do anything and its going to make a sticky mess. Tesla apologetics aside, this is not ok and I'm sticking to that.
> It would be prohibitively expensive and overkill most of the time.
I don't think purchasing a spool of spot tie costs much more than electrical tape and neither does heat shrink.
> Zip ties are mostly not allowed for QC reasons.
Collateral duty inspectors (and QA) ensure quality work so this is not the case. All work done is always inspected by someone who is an expert and did not participate in the maintenance.
> All but the worst electrical tape will take 20+yr to come apart
I have seen electrical tape come apart in just a few years.
> if things fall apart in the air it's a bigger deal.
If an autopilot system receives incorrect input it could kill someone.
As an aside, I've worked on military aircraft (Avionics), and I have seen what happens when a wire is loose and in contact with a vibrating surface.
>I don't think purchasing a spool of spot tie costs much more than electrical tape and neither does heat shrink.
No it doesn't but Tesla doesn't exactly have a mature vehicle manufacturing operation.
>Collateral duty inspectors (and QA) ensure quality work so this is not the case. All work done is always inspected by someone who is an expert and did not participate in the maintenance.
This is usually not the case in general aviation. Its my understanding that this also not the case for a lot of commercial operators, especially the smaller ones with thinner margins, but my knowledge may be out of date.
>I have seen electrical tape come apart in just a few years.
Yeah, 20yr is probably an exaggeration for tape applied by rushed assembly line workers but I've seen a heck of a lot of 20yo tape (usually used to bundle wires) on commercial vehicles. Most older wiring harnesses use "harness tape" (which is basically just electrical tape with some cloth fibers in it) to keep the wire from falling out of split loom and some use electrical tape to bundle wires in some places.
>If an autopilot system receives incorrect input it could kill someone.
You could say that about a lot of things. Technology is mostly at a point where it takes a cascading failure to kill anybody. The autopilot algorithms are far more suspect then even the most lazily assembled hardware.
>military aircraft
In the military they have tons of bodies to throw at things so everything gets triple checked. This is not the case in the commercial world.
I've seen plenty of factory installed electrical tape in engine bays of cars. It's not uncommon.
That being said the circumstances around the usage in the article are very different and just because electrical tape can be safe when used properly doesn't mean its safe in the case reported used at Tesla.
No, the article says "this photo shows tape applied to a segment of a white plastic housing where it holds “triple cam” connections in place". It's a wiring harness, not a camera mount.
The article says that they used electrical tape from Walmart on a bracket that holds the cameras for Autopilot.
I've used some Walmart etape... that's a big deal.