Why use AutoCAD Electrical?
As I understand it, AutoCAD Electrical is normal AutoCAD, but with some features that support electrical designers. In this context, 'electrical designers' means people designing low-voltage motor control centres, industrial plant, control cubicles, and so on.

Note the distinction between electrical design and electronics design. Electrical design is concerned with switchboards, 200 metre long cables, motor control contactors, junction boxes, and so on. That is the audience AutoCAD Electrical is intended for.

We use AutoCAD Electrical to draw power single line diagrams, motor control circuit schematics, switchboard general arrangements, and so on.



In industrial contexts, all wires and terminals need to be individually numbered. A feature I am aware of is that AutoCAD Electrical can automatically track wire numbers (ferrule numbers) and terminal numbers, making sure these numbers are all unique and sequential. I would have really appreciated this on the last electrical design job I did, where we numbered all the wires and terminals by hand, with frequent mistakes.





If you aren't designing something like what's shown above, AutoCAD Electrical probably isn't for you.