In some ways, it's better: lower weight relative to the current-carrying capacity. If I understand correctly, the main issue with aluminum is getting the connections right so that oxidation isn't an issue. If engineered correctly it shouldn't be a problem.
Aluminum-wound motors are apparently also a thing, though (like with aluminum power cables) they tend to be physically larger than copper-wound motors for the equivalent amount of power.
Yeah, it's great for long haul like high tension wires, not so great for houses and electromechanical contrivances. Prone to oxidation/corrosion, so you have to usually use special lugs, or wire nuts filled with this goop.
I could be mis-remembering but I also feel like it's more prone to whiskers/pest when soldered to boards, especially lead-free mixes. Either way, ends have to be crimped, so that's more steps.
Just generally more annoying and expensive to work with than copper.
Yes but if not properly installed it's far more prone to overheating from oxidation. Heat can often = fires.
I would never buy a house with aluminum wiring for anything other than service cable or wiring to 220V appliances. I've seen too many homes with aluminum wiring where plugs, light switches or fixtures were swapped out for fixtures that were not rated for use with aluminum wiring. I picked up a FLIR camera that attached to my iPhone - was at a friends house that had aluminum wiring. Was screwing around with the camera and noticed some hot spots on some walls - looked closer and they were outlets. Felt the outlet and it was warm to the touch. Killed power to the circuit, popped the outlet out of the wall and the terminals were crispy critters! Freaked my friend out a little - swept the rest of the house and ended up replacing a dozen outlets, a handful of switches and checking every ceiling and wall mounted fixture. What a nightmare - many of the hot products showed obvious signs of overheating.
If handled properly aluminum wiring can be effective. The problem is it's often not handled correctly :(
Oh yup, that was tin pest and tin whiskers that I think I was thinking of.
My understanding is that Al wiring can be cheaper, but specifically in the housing domain, because virtually every fixture is copper based, it ends up being a huge PITA.
For household wiring it's not so decent as it creeps, which causes arcing and fires. For other uses, wherever aluminium could be substituted, it already was, such as underground power wiring.
However, there is development in carbon nanotubes, in the lab they already make wires on par with aluminium, so hopefully that will work out.
Carbon nanotubes while wonderous are not only expensive to manufacture but also seem to have issues with being asbestos-like despite their wonderous properties. I think automobiles may be a wrong application there although not as bad as break pads of the stuff.
The asbestos fear only applies to powder/chopped CNTs. But in typical fiber form (yarns and such), it’s not a hazard. It doesn’t exfoliate easily like asbestos does and so has no more risk than carbon fiber or fiberglass. The cost for good CNTs is insane, though.
The Model 3 actually uses aluminum cabling in some places (I think the main cable between the battery and the motor/controller assembly). In certain applications where weight is at a greater premium than volume, it can actually be superior to copper as its resistivity divided by density is lower than copper. (BTW, lithium is even slightly better on that metric than aluminum, although it oxidizes extremely rapidly so has to be carefully protected, making it impractical).
Extremely long-term, sufficiently high quality graphene or carbon nanotubes can theoretically have higher mass-specific resistivity than copper or even aluminum. But in practice, CNTs and graphene have much worse electrical conductivity due to defects and the need to conduct between tubes/crystal regions/bundles.
