Innovative Connector Solutions for the Smart Electric Integration Era
Strategic Layout and Innovation Achievements in the Smart Electric Transformation
In the context of the global automotive industry’s acceleration toward electrification and intelligence, connectors and harness systems have become the frontline of a new round of technological innovation.
As a global industry technology enterprise, TE Connectivity’s Automotive Business Unit unveiled new products and presented detailed technical content at the 2025 Munich Shanghai Electronics Exhibition. Their innovations include the latest advancements in key areas such as 0.19mm² multi-win composite wires, aluminum conductors replacing copper, CSJFLX series fast charging connectors, high-frequency high-speed communication interfaces, and miniaturized high-performance connectors.
This analysis delves into six core technological achievements, deeply examining the engineering challenges and solutions behind them, demonstrating how TE creates dual pathways of “micro-connections” and “strong support” through localized R&D, full-chain quality management, and industrial chain collaboration, while exploring its leading value in next-generation automotive electronic and electrical architecture.
Core Technological Innovations Addressing Industry Challenges
0.19mm² Multi-Win Composite Wire: Ultimate Cost Reduction and Lightweight Breakthrough
Traditional small-diameter copper wires, despite their cost and weight advantages, face challenges in automotive applications due to mechanical performance limitations such as creep and insufficient pull-out strength.
Through material innovation and structural design, TE developed the “multi-win composite wire,” maintaining stable conductivity and mechanical strength at a mere 0.19mm² wire diameter, balancing system safety and economics. To address copper-aluminum electrochemical corrosion issues, TE collaborated with material suppliers to optimize wire coatings and metal ratios, ultimately forming a composite conductor structure suitable for mass production.
More notably, this solution achieved significant breakthroughs in full industrial chain collaboration—by promoting the universal upgrade of automated production equipment, helping harness manufacturers reduce transformation costs and one-time investment burdens.
This not only facilitated product implementation but also provided a paradigm for industry-standard lightweight trends. Currently, this technology has been adopted by many automakers and is expected to be implemented in over 10 vehicle models within the year, achieving hundreds of yuan in cost savings per vehicle.
Aluminum Conductor Technology: Material Transformation Toward Low-Voltage System Innovation
High copper prices and resource constraints have pushed the automotive industry to explore more cost-effective conductor materials. However, aluminum wires generally have poor creep properties, are easily oxidized, and have lower conductivity—especially in low-voltage vehicle systems with stringent performance requirements and dense interfaces, making direct replacement of copper wires difficult.
TE uses a “copper-clad aluminum” structure as an entry point to achieve a balance of corrosion resistance, creep resistance, and stable conductivity in low-voltage scenarios.
To address aluminum’s electrochemical stability issues, TE effectively avoided copper-aluminum contact interface corrosion through connector material upgrades and structural isolation design.
In high-voltage scenarios, aluminum rods and strips are used as conductors, with reinforced structures, strengthened insulation layers, and optimized heat-resistant adhesives to introduce the CSJ series, achieving stable application of aluminum materials in architectures of 800V and above.
This technology also shows great potential in 48V mild hybrid systems and is expected to become one of the mainstream electrical system routes in the future.
FLX Series Connectors: A Platform Ready for Megawatt-Level Charging
Electric vehicle fast charging is entering the “megawatt era,” with currents of 800A-1000A and system voltages of 1000V posing strict challenges for connectors.
TE’s CSJFLX series represents a response to this trend: the product supports multiple conductor forms (aluminum wire, aluminum rod, aluminum plate), meeting the flexible deployment needs of different vehicle manufacturers and platforms, and supporting different EMC levels through non-shielded and shielded versions to adapt to vehicle EMI complexity.
Particularly in thermal management, TE optimizes connector heat dissipation structures based on multi-physical field simulation, effectively controlling contact point temperature rise through heat dissipation channel layout and contact material improvements, enabling the entire system to operate stably in extreme scenarios of 10C (one minute of charging for 200 kilometers of range).
Liquid-Cooled Fast Charging Connectors: Structural and Thermal Design Resonance Under Extreme Power
Facing the upcoming trend of liquid-cooled fast charging, TE has completed relevant connector system research and technical reserves.
In structural design, precise allocation of coolant flow velocity and resistance is achieved through dual-layer liquid cooling channels and zoned heat dissipation paths.
In material selection, composite materials with high thermal conductivity and electrical insulation are used to avoid safety hazards from condensation or short circuits.
While these products are not yet commercialized, their technical maturity has reached a state of rapid deployment.
High-Frequency High-Speed Connectors: Communication Assurance for the “Neural Pathways” of Intelligent Driving
In intelligent driving environments, cameras, millimeter-wave radars, lidars, and central computing platforms need to interconnect with high speed and low latency. TE has introduced end-to-end connector solutions for high-speed signal integrity issues, supporting speeds of 10Gbps and above, covering multiple levels including FPC, cables, and connectors.
To enhance signal stability, TE has optimized connector contact layout and impedance matching structures, and adopted multiple grounding solutions in shield layer design to ensure anti-interference performance.
Automated processing platforms have been introduced to solve failure risks caused by manual welding of high-frequency connectors, improving consistency and yield.
Connector Miniaturization and High Performance: System Integration Trends for Centralized EE Architecture
As automotive electrical architecture gradually transitions from “distributed” to “centralized, domain control,” connector systems need to achieve higher integration and reliability in space-constrained situations.
TE continues to delve into miniaturized products, with the HVA-280pro connector 30% smaller than its predecessor while still supporting high-voltage, high-current loads and improving core performance such as heat resistance, corrosion resistance, and mechanical strength.
These connectors not only serve 800V platforms but also have space to evolve to higher voltages, providing solid interface support for next-generation high-power electric drive systems.
Strategies and Challenges in Responding to Industry Transformation
TE’s technological innovation doesn’t evolve in isolation but highly depends on its coordination mechanisms and organizational efficiency with upstream and downstream industrial chains, including the engineering systems behind rapid delivery capabilities. TE currently has a local team of 1,100 engineers in China, with 160 invention patents and hundreds of utility model patents, building a data-driven, platform-based engineering system.
In a certain intelligent driving project, TE completed adaptation work for multiple vehicle models in two months, successfully delivering 350 different part numbers, demonstrating extremely strong response capabilities and engineering organizational efficiency.
Behind this is TE’s high emphasis on product platformization and management system digitalization. Through standardized interfaces and modular design, new products can be quickly adapted to different platforms, greatly shortening development cycles and reducing collaboration costs.
Integration into China’s ecosystem is essential, and ecosystem building is key in the automotive industry.
When promoting products such as “multi-win composite wires,” TE still faces practical challenges: automakers have difficulty highlighting harness cost reduction points in configuration tables, leading to insufficient acceptance.
Secondly, harness manufacturers need substantial investment to upgrade automated production lines, with unclear short-term ROI.
In response, TE is dissolving resistance through joint development and industrial chain co-construction—providing complete system solutions and toolchains in advance to reduce supply chain learning costs and promoting relevant standard establishment to enhance industry consensus. This “self-research + joint” promotion method is gradually building an industrial ecosystem with TE as the technical core.
