"So figuring out where the problem was, finally, one of us was under the vehicle, and we’re just going step by step every single box that was hanging off the high voltage system. And there’s also this water heater. A lot of people don’t realize that, in EVs, a lot of times they will use the high-voltage system to drive some of the environmental controls because it needs so much more cooling power.
And somebody actually asked, “Well, that’s metal. Right?” And then they knocked, and it was plastic. We’re like, no! This can’t because a high-voltage system, everything’s housed in metal and you’ve got point-to-point shielding, like a continuous shield until you hit this plastic box.
And it was painted black so everyone just assumed it was metal until somebody knocked on it and just had that hollow plastic sound, and our hearts just sank. And it even looked like it had a ground point on it that wasn’t actually connected to anything.
So we found the problem."
Watch Karen Burnham talk EMC and EMI in Trace Talks EP 4.