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A comment on Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with nearly 200-mile range. Parent comment

Re:Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with near... by donquichotte on Friday December 28, 2018 @10:46AM (#18777360)
The motors yes, but the power electronics components in motor controllers, MOSFETs and IGBTs, have a notoriously short life, especially if heavy power cycling with short t_on and t_off occurs.
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Re:Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with near... by magduf on Friday December 28, 2018 @11:14AM (#18777573)
Those things are pretty easy to replace with a hot-air soldering station.
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Re:Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with near... by bdonlan on Friday December 28, 2018 @12:06PM (#18777941)
Unless they're conformally coated.
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Re:Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with near... by magduf on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @10:36AM (#18806793)
Why would they do such a thing? Conformal coating is good for harsh environments if the electronics are actually exposed to the environment (like liquids), but in a car that's not the case, it's protected in a box and usually put inside the cabin too.

Also, conformal coatings are very, very bad for heat transfer. Power MOSFETs usually need to be heatsinked; conformally coating them would work against that.

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