Ferrari and BMW switch to aluminum wiring in new car modelsNew models from Ferrari and BMW will feature aluminum electrical wiring, the latest sign of an industrywide retreat from copper, Reuters reported.Aluminum power cables made their debut in the Ferrari lineup on the 296 hybrid sports car last year, and the technology has since spread to additional vehicles, among them the Luce, the brand's first EV. Ferrari said the switch reduces a vehicle's wiring weight by as much as 20%. According to Ferrari communications executive Dario Esposito, performance rather than price drove the decision — even as aluminum, at around $3,100 per metric ton, costs roughly a quarter of what copper fetches on the market.BMW traced its use of aluminum conductors back to the subcompact 1 Series in 2011, with adoption gradually widening to cover hybrid and battery-electric models. The rollout of BMW's sixth-generation eDrive platform last year brought aluminum cabling into both the high- and low-voltage portions of the electrical system, according to the company.AdvertisementAdvertisementTesla preceded both automakers in making the switch, having wired its Model Y with aluminum starting in 2019 and carrying the approach forward into the Cybertruck. Among Chinese EV manufacturers, AVATR, XPeng, and Xiaomi are now sourcing aluminum wiring for new vehicles, based on findings from U.S. engineering consultancy Caresoft Global.A person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Stellantis, ranked fourth globally by vehicle sales, has quietly moved toward aluminum in place of copper for wiring. The company offered no comment when approached by Reuters.The substitution is being driven in part by elevated copper prices. At roughly 4.2, the current copper-to-aluminum price ratio sits comfortably above the 3.5-to-4.0 range that industry sources identify as the point at which substitution starts to look attractive. Copper prices peaked close to $15,000 per metric ton in late January.Swapping in aluminum is not without engineering trade-offs: the metal's conductivity reaches only 61% of copper's, so wires must be sized roughly 1.6 times larger to move the same amount of current, according to Reuters. Weight is the other side of the equation: aluminum is roughly a third as heavy as copper, a meaningful advantage for EV manufacturers whose customers gain range from every kilogram shed.AdvertisementAdvertisementAutomakers are not alone in this move: cable producers, air-conditioning manufacturers, and electrical grid operators are all rethinking their reliance on copper. JPMorgan puts this year's copper displacement from aluminum substitution at roughly 2% of worldwide demand.