
Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW - mlacks
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tesla-teardown-finds-electronics-6-years-ahead-of-Toyota-and-VW2
======
KaiserPro
This is grand, apart from the build quality of the mechanics is ~10 years
behind.

Go to a tesla showroom, Look at the doors of the model three. Note that they
don't line up.

Look at the paint job, notice that there are bumps and chips, especailly on
the edges of the doors. This is on a _demo_ car, stuck in a showroom. these
should be perfect.

Even a budget Kia has better build quality than this.

Its not the isolated parts of a car that makes it good, its the whole package.
(yes that works both ways. )

~~~
dontdoitpls
The power of marketing is incredible.

No one else could get away with Tesla quality at luxury pricing, but they sell
vehicles.

~~~
pmorici
The Chevy Bolt is priced the same as the Tesla Model 3 and has less 'luxary'
features. For example if you want leather in the Bolt that's extra where as it
is standard on the 3. Other things the Bolt doesn't have at that price are
Autopilot, DC Fast Charging, etc...

~~~
xvf22
The leather is tied to the range in the model 3.

~~~
pmorici
False, you cannot buy a Model 3, or any Tesla for that matter that doesn't
have leather. There was a planed cloth seat for the model 3 but they scrapped
that.

~~~
ilikehurdles
Is it real animal skin? As someone who opts out of leather interiors in cars,
and knowing that Tesla sells well to the SV crowd, I'm surprised that there'd
be no way to buy a tesla without killing some cattle.

~~~
shakestheclown
3 and Y are vegan leather. The others had a cloth option, but for the new ones
the leather will be vegan.

~~~
deadbunny
"vegan leather"

So, plastic.

~~~
Kirby64
Yes, polyurethane, which according to testing, performs better than real
leather in the rubbing/scratching tests. Durability in general is superior on
actual 'premium' leatherette/vegan leather offerings.

Sure, you can make crap leatherette material that is way too hot and sticky
and feels like cheap vinyl, but that's not what this is.

------
soygul
Article praises Tesla's custom AI chip. It is something many criticize as a
waste of development resources, while they could have used off-the-shelf
components for the same task.

Tesla's real advantage is their battery production. No one else can compete
with them on battery price or production volume at a similar quality:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/10/teslas-competitors-play-
catc...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/10/teslas-competitors-play-catch-up-on-
electric-batteries.html)

~~~
wil421
Battery production seems like a problem that can be solved right now with
money. VW and Toyota could partner with a 3rd party (like Tesla and Panasonic)
and build factories.

Custom silicon seems like a much harder problem for VM/Toyota. Unless a
supplier can build something for them I don’t see either company innovating
like Tesla. Basically Tesla’s secret sauce is the Tech not the EV components.

~~~
SEJeff
It isn't just production, but is also the chemistry. Tesla has the lowest
amount of cobalt and nickel in their batteries of any battery manufacturer in
the world. It makes their batteries cheaper, but also use less rare earth
minerals (which are difficult to get ahold of at their scales). Tesla isn't
sharing their chemistry, which is demonstrably better than anything LG Chem or
Samsung, etc has been able to come up with. As a result, their batteries are
actually better.

You can scale up manufacturing of inferior batteries, but you still will have
an inferior product.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> Tesla isn't sharing their chemistry

Isn't it Panasonic that manufactures the batteries and sells them to Tesla?
Can't they sell the same batteries to everyone else too?

~~~
AtlasBarfed
And right now Tesla / Panasonic is maxed out in their battery production
(still a scale that all other manufacturers fundamentally don't have the
ability to do, much less profitably).

If/when Tesla increases battery production beyond its storage and car/semi
lines of business, they will probably acquire/merge other car companies on the
cheap.

The only thing that can eliminate Tesla's advantage is a catch-up solid
battery tech that everyone has access to, and even then Tesla will have lots
of infrastructure advantages.

~~~
SEJeff
That’s not true. Panasonic disagreed with you in their latest earnings call.
They’re ramping up for more production. I think Elon has stated they can ramp
up 30-50% with the existing space.

------
swiley
6 years ahead electronics here means AI ASICs.

I thought that was weird, I know Toyota cars have radar and I’m not sure about
Teslas. IMO as an armchair observer the sensor array is far more interesting
than any of this.

Personally, if I were to buy another car (and hopefully I don’t have to any
time soon) I’d want the processing electronics to be off the shelf not weird
custom stuff that’s going to have all kinds of corporate social crap attached
to it.

Edit: to make it clear, I’m not saying one manufacturer is better than the
other. I’m upset about this because it’s (IMO) more of a marketing thing (and
maybe a way to have some leverage over 3rd party repair shops) and not really
a technical improvement. There’s been a lot of weird social stuff masquerading
as technological advancements everywhere. these have resulted in some small
groups of people abusing computers to manipulate everyone else and once you
recognize that pattern you get very cynical with articles like op.

~~~
aguyfromnb
> _I’m upset about this because it’s (IMO) more of a marketing thing (and
> maybe a way to have some leverage over 3rd party repair shops) and not
> really a technical improvement._

The number of "tech people" that think Tesla has some chip building advantage
over the likes of companies like NVIDIA is astonishing.

Tesla's marketing compares their chip to older NVIDIA boards. NVIDIA has
better tech available off-the-shelf:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-fires-back-at-
tesla-c...](https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-fires-back-at-tesla-
claiming-worlds-best-self-driving-car-chip-2019-4)

~~~
SEJeff
Where you're defining better as faster, however, it uses enormously more
energy, which impacts overall driving range. It doesn't need to be faster past
a certain point. They've already got enough bandwidth to run the entire set of
self driving neural networks in duplicate at production speed on the current
FSD hardware version 3 computer. There is a point of diminishing returns wrt
speed and I think we're quickly approaching if not already surpassing it. Now
it is down to efficiency, which the Nvidia solution gets utterly spanked by
Tesla's computer on. Ever ran CUDA simulations? GPUs always use enormous
amounts of power to do anything, but they're incredible at floating point
math.

~~~
usrusr
It that just enormously more energy if it was running in a portable device or
is that actually enormously more energy when running off half a metric ton of
traction battery? Nvidia has plenty of experience in scaling their chips down
to a wide range of performance/energy tradeoffs.

~~~
SEJeff
And nvidia’s faster neural network solution they say is faster than Tesla’s
Chip still uses loads more power than Tesla’s chip does.

------
bovermyer
Note that the "we cannot do it" quote is not referring to the technology
itself, but rather to the fact that to adopt Tesla's pattern, the legacy auto
companies would need to ditch their supply chains. That's not something they
can do without pissing off a _lot_ of people.

~~~
James_Henry
The answer to this, I would think, would be to have a small part of the
company whose soul purpose is to disrupt the larger company. Then Toyota and
VW might have built Tesla in house without supply chain worries. When their
in-house Tesla-like company proved a success, they could reasonably afford to
upend their old supply chain: self-disruption.

~~~
earthboundkid
When companies try to do this, the other divisions attempt to smoother the new
division in the crib and typically succeed. If you had good internal politics,
they wouldn't do this, but if you had good internal politics, you wouldn't
need a new division either.

~~~
James_Henry
> but if you had good internal politics, you wouldn't need a new division
> either.

I don't know if I agree with this unless you mean to define "good internal
politics" as internal politics that drives a company to self-disrupt.

As shown by the article, self-disruption isn't possible as a big company
because the friction of changing things like supply chains and other capital.
You really need to start another company that, in a sense, competes (and
sometimes at least for a time complements) the larger company. Good internal
politics would help to not squash internal competition, but it isn't, I think,
enough to purposefully set up that competition.

------
t0mas88
This feels very much like a marketing fluff piece pushed by Tesla PR.

Take this gem: "Young companies like Tesla, on the other hand, are not
shackled to suppliers and are free to pursue the best technologies available."

Try the automated windscreen wipers on any big car brand, they're mostly made
by Bosch and they work, even on a 15 year old car. Then Tesla came along with
their own approach, guess what, they didn't work for more than a year on any
second generation model S because they switched from buying a working module
to creating their own in software.

After having driven a model S for a while I'm very much a Tesla sceptic.
Because I noticed I was accepting a lot of things from them that I would never
have from BMW or Audi. When the "this is a cool innovation" feeling goes away,
you're looking at a very mediocre car that can't compete in the price range
that it's in.

~~~
NoPicklez
I don't think it is, there was an article a year or so ago where a famous
detroit car expert, that specialised in tearing down cars and inspecting them
did so for the Tesla.

What he said was that the electronics were light years ahead anything he had
seen before, but he wasn't surprised given its a silicon valley car. The
chassis on the other hand was way behind the likes of Toyoda.

I can understand that your mileage may have varied but this was through
visually inspecting the electronics, not using them in action.

~~~
t0mas88
I don't disagree that they've put much more advanced chips in their car, the
point I disagree with is that it's "ahead by 6 years" and "others can't keep
up due to supply chains" because Tesla's super advanced chips couldn't get
something as simple as my automatic windscreen wipers to work while every
other brand has them working fine.

The difference is that everyone just buys a simple moisture sensor and Tesla
decided to go with a needlessly complex setup based on their cameras. Sure
that requires a way more advanced image processing chip, an impressive
software achievement in image processing etc.

However, from the consumer perspective (that matters much more if you sell
millions of cars to the masses instead of a few hundred thousand to
enthusiasts): They had no working automatic windscreen wipers, that puts them
15 to 20 years behind the others. Not 6 years ahead.

They really need to get better at the basics of car making quickly, before the
likes of Ford, BMW, Volkswagen etc get good at building electric cars. I guess
they have several years left to do it because the big guys move slow, but in
their current state they're going to be in trouble no matter how advanced
their CPU is.

------
JohnJamesRambo
This is the industry that took years to adopt the CD player, it’s not that
hard to be technologically ahead of them. Whether that actually translates
into more sales of cars is a different question.

~~~
ghaff
Assuming that was the case, it wouldn't surprise me that might have something
to do with the reliability of early CDs across a wide range of temperature
conditions and use given vibrations, potholes, etc.

~~~
millzlane
Yea ESP didn't come about until the 90's
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_skip_protection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_skip_protection)

~~~
flukus
Even then it could be horrible on bad roads where it doesn't get a chance to
skip ahead.

It's also a lot harder to change a CD while you're driving than a tape. And
until CD burners were around you couldn't do mixed tapes for road trips on
CDs.

------
notlukesky
Software with a battery pack (and no headache of a drivetrain).

Luckily for Tesla, most of the other car companies disdain software
engineering and see it beneath them and mechanical engineering. My friend had
sold his software company to BMW in 2008 and they didn’t even ask him to join
BMW. Even more shocking they used the same software for over ten years with NO
upgrades and updates.

~~~
rurban
You are misleaded. VW sees itself as mainly software company now. They don't
do engines nor drivetrains, but they do heavy SW. This way they think they can
control the technicians.

~~~
weregiraffe
> VW sees itself as mainly software company now.

Emission-cheating software?

~~~
rurban
You are forgotting that the emission cheating SW came from Bosch and was
implemented and distributed by Bosch.

No, really, VW sees itself as mainly SW company. Told directly from one of its
outsourced development houses.

------
cozzyd
In other words, Tesla teardown finds remote bricking capability 6 years ahead
of Toyota and VW.

In seriousness, it's no surprise that older vendors will incrementally upgrade
their hardware and work with suppliers rather than starting from scratch and
obsoleting all suppliers. Likewise, I assume $startup_du_jour has a tech stack
"6 years ahead" (whatever that means) of more established players.

edit: s/de jure/du jour. Thanks lorenzhs

~~~
lorenzhs
I agree, the article focuses on the "they built their own AI chip" thing a bit
too much for my taste. It also doesn't explain why reducing the number of ECUs
would upset supply chains to the degree claimed, there is a lot of other stuff
that goes into making a car.

Off-topic, but I think you meant "du jour" (of the day) instead of "de jure"
(by law) :)

~~~
cozzyd
I did mean du jour. This is what I get for writing comments before I drink
enough coffee :)

------
lisk1
I'm perplexed by this article what so special about tesla hardware except some
custom ASICs , few days ago there was article disusing the software side of
Tesla cars didnt took traction on HN , its just Ubuntu based linux with fail
save boot feature, a bunch of shell scripts and QT based user interface. The
interesting questions is, is it viable someone to make fully open source linux
distro for tesla cars and how legal is it to install alternative software for
Tesla cars , just like a PC, customer buys the hardware but have a choice to
install what ever software he wants.

~~~
Shivetya
What stands out from this article for me; I own a model 3; is that they are
suggesting that suppliers may hold back some manufacturers who do not wish to
damage their relationship with those suppliers by wholesale changing up how
cars are done.

one area they suffer not highlighted is that each supplier maintains its own
code base and while I bet they are obligated to share that with the automobile
manufacturer it is still a separate team that does not integrate with other
suppliers, all this meaning that since Tesla codes all their own ECU and
everything feeds up they have a much easier time adapting to new tech and also
fixing issues as they come along

OTA alone is a major headache for any traditional manufacturer to implement
because they don't make all the electronics so they have to rely on the
suppliers coming on board. Worse they also have to convince the dealer network
this is a good change because it will take work from them. BMW just recently
demonstrated their ability to OTA with some improvements sent up which allow
customization of non driving related functions. We know that Audi supports
limited OTA for eTron and the Chevrolet Bolt while it has the ability no one
seems to report it being use.

for the most part the article is a bit too fanboi for me, after all Tesla
riding this edge is just as likely to have issues with hardware that does not
stand up to the abuse an automobile can give it

------
ilikehurdles
While I don't expect the results to be that much different, I feel like Tesla
teardown should be compared to a BMW, Audi, or Lexus teardown. The cutting
edge electronics stuff is usually tried first on the luxury brands before it
trickles down into economy models.

A brand like Toyota or VW has to ship at magnitudes greater scale and at much
lower price points. Manufacturers have much less breathing room for component
failure on a Golf or Corolla, so they choose battle-tested parts or either
from prior generations or whatever they've found works well on their luxury
brands.

~~~
nickik
At least in comparison to the i3 the Tesla was way more advanced. Its all in
the Munro teardown, and the i3 was billions of $ investment for BMW.

~~~
ilikehurdles
I agree! But newer BMWs have some hands-free driving and driverless parking
features along with traffic jam and lane keep assist plus a good chunk of
interior and drivetrain/suspension tech, things you won't find to that extent
in a ~$20k-ish range vehicle.

I expect that they're behind Tesla on most electronics, but my complaint was
that comparing an economy brand like Toyota or VW with Tesla isn't an apples-
to-apples comparison for a lot of reasons.

------
jaclaz
The doubt is whether stopping reading the article at:

>It could end the auto industry supply chain as we know it.

or just on pargraph later at:

>One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer
and declared, "We cannot do it."

~~~
erikpukinskis
Care to share what about those sentences caused you to lose focus?

~~~
jaclaz
Sure, no problem.

The first sentence is apodictical and catastrophic.

The second one is meaningless and sensationalistic.

No need to read further an article that is clearly a "plug" and that - besides
and as per comments here on HN - is also factually inaccurate.

------
blacklion
> The computer powers the cars' self-driving capabilities as well as their
> advanced in-car "infotainment" system.

Now I'm scared. I hope it is mistake of Nikkei and these two subsystems
doesn't have anything in common, including power supplies.

~~~
tyfon
No, the "self driving computer" is independent and it actually runs itself in
parallel for redundancy and error checking.

The infotainment system runs a custom linux distribution running on ARM (MCU1)
or intel atom (MCU2).

They talk to each other but they are independent.

~~~
blacklion
Question is, how do they talk? For example, if they have shared memory on same
bus, it is BAAAAAD.

~~~
tyfon
They talk over the CAN afaik.

------
ciconia
I'd really like to see a _simple_ EV for a change. No screens, no AI, no
Autopilot, just a 5-seat vehicle with a reasonable range (400+ km) and AC.

~~~
Kirby64
What advantages are you looking to get for a super stripped down EV? Less
potential maintenance cost? Cheaper?

It's pretty clear for more car buyers the market has spoken and folks want
more infotainment/screens/AI/whatever, so it seems that type of vehicle is
definitely going to become less and less common.

~~~
crocodiletears
I don't think there are any strict advantages to such an EV with respect to
day-to-day use. In fact, there are probably some disadvantages

Mantainability is a plus. But the big feature would be not worrying about your
car getting remotely bricked for some arbitrary reason, or losing some
essential function because your OEM's servers are down.

If a company is capable of constantly monitoring your machine, and updating it
OTA, I don't doubt that their liability with respect to whatever you do to
your car increases significantly.

Depending on how you like to drive, and where you drive, not fighting the
smart driver 'assist' features of vehicles could be a feature as well. I read
a commenter on HN some time ago about GPS-assisted headlamps preventing them
from providing much needed illumination to something (wrecked vehicle, iirc)
off the side of the road.

Personally, I've played enough Assassin's Creed and GTA to know I wouldn't
trust a smart system to predict my intent in a life/death scenario.

~~~
Kirby64
If you really want to remove the 'big corp spying on you' aspect of Teslas,
you can always pull the SIM card or ask for the non-SIM version.

It's apparently an off-menu option, but you can request one without a SIM
card, so effectively all the cell network stuff is disabled. Then, if you are
worried about updates bricking something... just don't update it and never
connect it to the WiFi? Seems like that gets you most of the way there.

~~~
crocodiletears
I think it's less a privacy concern, and more a durability concern.

By way of example, I once found myself stranded at 3am about 45 miles from
anyone I could get help from with a cracked radiator, no radiator cap, a gimp
alternator, and no cell reception. I was too poor to afford a tow, had work
the next day, and was in no position to get the vehicle properly fixed in a
timely manner.

The answer to the problem was a soda can, an oil rag, a backup battery, a few
rolls of duct-tape, and periodic stops to replenish my watered-down coolant
whenever the engine began to redline.

Doubtless there was a more elegant solution to my problem. But that's what I
came up with, and that's what I used in spite of my check engine light's
protests.

A smarter vehicle might well have noted how much damage I was doing to it, and
refused to even start for me.

The problem itself probably wouldn't turn up in an EV. But knowing with
confidence that I can jury rig my car with 'incompatible' but available parts,
or limp it home without triggering a safety mechanism that can only be reset
by an authorized mechanic has become important to me, even if my commutes are
broadly limited to city limits anymore, and I can afford a mechanic now.

Similarly, it's important to know that your car can be worked on by unlicensed
mechanics in a pinch. Part of that is being confident that you won't lose that
option in an OTA update, and that your car won't actively look for open WiFi
hotspots in order to check for that (smart TV's are rumored to do this, I
would assume a car is at least that advanced).

There are also issues of trust to be had around cameras replacing mirrors
without offering a good fallback to the driver.

The market has spoken, it doesn't really care about these things, so
ultimately I don't think a dumb car'll be an option going forward. But those
are what I believe to be reasons to want one.

~~~
Kirby64
Pretty sure most vehicles (even Tesla's) will let you drive them in some sort
of limp mode even with coolant or battery issues. Not sure how that's any
different.

Anything beyond that (e.g. motor or battery problems) aren't going to be fixed
like that no matter what EV you buy. Also, those pretty much all can't be hot-
serviced on the side of the road anyways on modern cars since everything is
more compact, less accessible, etc.

------
pacaro
It feels to me like there is a symmetry of arrogance here.

Traditional car companies are finding that making an _electric_ car is hard
(emphasis on electric)

Tesla is finding that making an electric _car_ is hard (emphasis on car)

~~~
threeseed
Car companies aren't finding making an electric car hard at all.

Taycan is by most reviews the best EV car out there. And we have EVs from BMW,
Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Volvo, VW etc already being sold today in pretty
sizeable numbers.

The problem is (a) getting enough battery supply, (b) convincing consumers to
buy them, (c) getting the costs down and (d) the somewhat lacklustre growth in
EV demand.

~~~
xedeon
> Taycan is by most reviews the best EV car out there

Citation needed.

------
tyingq
I thought there was, though, previous discussion of Tesla using non-automotive
grade electronics in places. Using stuff that's rated for the heat, moisture,
vibration, etc, implies lag time as opposed to "latest/greatest".

~~~
CrazyStat
The big screen is the common example of this, as they couldn't source an
automative-grade screen that big. It's suffered several issues due to heat and
UV exposure.

~~~
xedeon
The screen is automotive grade. The yellow discoloration has been traced back
to a supplier changing the adhesive chemistry on the LCD panel to save cost.

[https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/yellow-borders-on-
ma...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/yellow-borders-on-main-screen-
a-new-fix.137529/page-2)

[https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/mcu-touch-screen-
yello...](https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/mcu-touch-screen-yellow-
border-dealer-update)

~~~
CrazyStat
The screen is not automotive grade [1].

If the adhesive that holds the screen together is not automotive grade then
the whole unit is not automotive grade.

[1] [https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-
shows...](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows-why-
automotive-grade-matters)

------
systemtest
Everyone is good at something. Tesla is good at electronics, Toyota is good at
manufacturing and quality control. A collaboration would be beneficial for
both.

~~~
sjwright
A Toyota-Tesla collaboration would never happen, except that it did. We live
in a truly strange world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV#Second_generati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV#Second_generation)

------
jupake
Tesla fans regualrly speak about how the company doesnt advertise at all.

After articles like this, I remain unconvinced.

~~~
erikpukinskis
By definition, advertising is paid for.

You’re thinking of PR, which by definition is unpaid.

------
tim333
They didn't really need to tear down a model 3 to see the HW3 computer, they
could have just watched last years Tesla presentation. Also I don't know how
they calculate 6 years - Nvidia will probably have something comparable they
can buy within a year or so.

~~~
aguyfromnb
> _Nvidia will probably have something comparable they can buy within a year
> or so._

NVIDIA already did, at the time the Tesla chip was publicized:

 _It’s not useful to compare the performance of Tesla’s two-chip Full Self
Driving computer against NVIDIA’s single-chip driver assistance system.
Tesla’s two-chip FSD computer at 144 TOPs would compare against the NVIDIA
DRIVE AGX Pegasus computer which runs at 320 TOPS for AI perception,
localization and path planning._

And more in the pipe...

[https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self-
driving/](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self-driving/)

------
iamphilrae
My brand new Toyota C-HR comes with an entertainment screen that is not Retina
display. Technology that has been out for half a decade and is found in the
dirt cheapest of smart phones. It honestly doesn’t surprise me that the rest
of their tech is so far behind.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Automotive grade components have to survive greater temperature extremes and
vibration for 10+ years. Disposable consumer products don't operate in the
same sphere. Tesla has been burned by using consumer grade screens.

~~~
iamphilrae
Seriously... it’s just some extra pixels?! The have picked cheap components,
plain and simple.

~~~
magicalhippo
I tried looking for automotive grade LCDs with high DPI. Couldn't find all
that much, but came across this press release from Mitsubishi[1], indicating
they released something that starts to approach retina only last summer.

As mentioned, in a car you really want automotive grade components, at least
due to the heat and vibration it needs to sustain.

[1]:
[https://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2019/0423-b.html](https://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2019/0423-b.html)

------
celerrimus
But also is probably 6 years ahead in problems and issues related to bugs in
design and software. Ie, recent news about wearing SSD that is causing already
and will brick every Tesla model available, problems with updates, etc. Also,
security risks have to be considered with such vehicle.

It's not that Toyota or VW can't afford in software/hardware research -
because they have more than enough resources for this. Those are the biggest
car manufacturers in the world. They simply price more reliability. Especially
Toyota is good example for that, their models are usually 3-5 years in
"gadgets" behind VW group or Korean makers, but their cars offer solid
reliability and usually they simply drive for years without much troubles.

Another example of how Tesla is ahead:
[https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30361800/tesla-
model-3-lo...](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30361800/tesla-model-3-long-
term-failure-stranded-while-parked/) >Not only is this the first time we've
ever had a long-term car suffer a catastrophic failure while parked, it's also
an extraordinarily rare case of any car leaving us stranded, something
unacceptable for any new vehicle, particularly one that costs $57,690 and with
merely 5286 miles on the odometer. Even our problem-prone Alfa Romeo Giulia
Quadrifoglio was at least able to limp to the dealer following each one of its
numerous issues.

~~~
moduspol
> recent news about wearing SSD that is causing already and will brick every
> Tesla model available

Unless you're describing something else, that issue is limited to older
Teslas:

[https://www.tomshardware.com/news/flash-memory-wear-
killing-...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/flash-memory-wear-killing-
older-teslas-due-to-excessive-data-logging-report)

> Not only is this the first time we've ever had a long-term car suffer a
> catastrophic failure while parked

Any other car "being parked and then later failing to start" is not
newsworthy. It was interesting in this case because it was detected and the
owner notified via push notification that it occurred.

Obviously it shouldn't have happened, especially since it's a newer car. But
it's the push notification that made it newsworthy. "My car wouldn't start and
had to be towed to a dealer to get fixed for an incredibly rare issue that
happened to me" could be written for any car, and nobody would care.

------
LoSboccacc
> Industry insiders expect such technology to take hold around 2025 at the
> earliest.

there's many interpretations. the most obvious is that industry insiders were
wrong about their expectations, since the technology has reached the market
this early. the other is that the 6 years estimate is way too generous, given
production units exists, and late adoption cycle is usually two years. the
third is this is a "my darling tesla" advertisement.

somehow I am more inclined to sit between position one and two, especially
since the productization of ai chips is already in the works[1], but still.

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613305/this-chip-was-
demo...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613305/this-chip-was-demoed-at-
jeff-bezoss-secretive-tech-conference-it-could-be-key-to-the-future/)

------
RaceWon
So Toyota and VW are concerned about the other companies, which currently
supply their ECU's, having to lay off staff if they (Toyota and VW) switched
over to Teslaesque style control modules. REALLY?! I find that laughable on
its face.

~~~
ishi
It might be related to the fact that Toyota championed "Just-in-time
manufacturing" which requires tight control over the supply chain. You have to
be able to trust your suppliers to deliver what you need on time and in high
quality. So you must cultivate close relations with your suppliers over many
years. They almost become your partners. You can't just stop working with one
supplier and switch to another on a whim.

"Toyota believes in developing mutually beneficial, long-term relationships
based on mutual trust with all suppliers. To foster that trust, we pursue
close and wide-ranging communication to share our business knowledge to
enhance our business relationship." ([https://www.toyotauk.com/toyota-in-the-
uk/supplier-relations...](https://www.toyotauk.com/toyota-in-the-uk/supplier-
relations.html))

------
bestnameever
I think the real meat of this story is down towards the bottom.

> The real reason for holding off? Automakers worry that computers like
> Tesla's will render obsolete the parts supply chains they have cultivated
> over decades, the engineer said.

------
emiliobumachar
Duplicate discussion with far more comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22347806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22347806)

------
blattimwind
>
> [https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-ap-
> northeast-1.amazonaws.com%2Fpsh-ex-
> ftnikkei-3937bb4%2Fimages%2F_aliases%2Farticleimage%2F2%2F6%2F0%2F4%2F24974062-1-eng-
> GB%2F20200213-TeslaPix-img.png?source=nar-cms)

Strikes me as a typical low-reliability design. Would be surprised if this
unit lasts ten (or even five) years.

~~~
Causality1
They are already breaking. The flash chips are wearing out because teslas
obsessively log everything you do.

~~~
SEJeff
And that's been fixed in newer firwmare versions, per the hacker who fixes
those in the first place.

------
imtringued
I think the unwillingness of ICE companies to get involved in the production
of batteries is the biggest problem.

Right now everyone is worrying that batteries will become a commodity market
soon and all the investments in building a battery factory will become
worthless. However, the reality is that existing car manufacturers get left
behind without access to batteries. Tesla is building Gigafactories everywhere
and doesn't suffer from this major problem.

------
solotronics
I actually like having discrete control units for different components in
cars. Recently I upgraded the suspension control computer in my sports car to
a much more advanced aftermarket one that calculates and controls each shock
absorber dynamically. This wouldn't be possible with a "monolithic" control
unit like the Tesla has.

------
alkonaut
Oh it’s about self driving and computers. When it comes to car electronics I
care more about how the parking sensors and power windows will work in 10
years than how many watts of outdated neural processor it has.

On an electric car I _do_ care about battery management electronics though.
That’s where I thought Tesla had the important edge over the competition.

------
oftenwrong
I am a bit skeptical. Remember when Tesla ventured outside of the typical
automotive supply chain to obtain large screens in their cars?

[https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-
shows...](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows-why-
automotive-grade-matters)

~~~
yellowapple
Exactly. And unlike this AI module thingamabob, a touchscreen doesn't have the
power to fatally slam me into a wall at 70MPH going down the 101.

I'd rather wait for the likes of Toyota to do things right with automotive-
grade components and automotive-grade programming and automotive-grade testing
than trust my life to whatever hackery Tesla wants to brogrammer into its
ASICs.

The article's probably right about some Japanese engineer saying "I can't do
this". Not because that engineer doesn't know how to do it, or because of some
relationship with component manufacturers, but because doing so would be
ethically questionable at best.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You'd rather wait for Toyota of all people? Toyota is infamous for the bad
quality of their software/firmware. Not that I'd expect much better from other
established car makers.

~~~
yellowapple
> You'd rather wait for Toyota of all people?

Even Toyota has a better track record than Tesla here.

------
rcMgD2BwE72F
>One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer
and declared, "We cannot do it."

Ouch

~~~
radu_floricica
Read further. It roughly translates to "we can't do it because we already
invested in a different supply chain strategy that comes with considerable
advantages".

Latecomer advantages.

------
marsokod
The big question for me is whether they reused it for SpaceX Starlink. The
satellites are in low enough orbit that common COTS should work without any
issue, and the automotive grade HW is usually well suited in these
environment. And they would benefit from volumes.

------
jshowa3
I fail to see how a custom AI computer will "invalidate the supply chain".

It's not like Tesla manufactured the chips and components in house unless I'm
not aware that Tesla now has its own PCBA and component factory.

------
bengale
Tight control of the hardware and software reminds me of Apple.

~~~
almost_usual
With Larry Ellison on the board it reminds me of Oracle.

~~~
ginko
Wait, Ellison is on the board of Tesla? That's one good reason to hate the
company I guess.

~~~
almost_usual
Yes, he’s also donating millions of dollars to a well known climate change
denier.

[https://ir.tesla.com/board-directors/larry-
ellison](https://ir.tesla.com/board-directors/larry-ellison)

[https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-15/larry-
elli...](https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-15/larry-ellison-
trump)

------
jerome-jh
Hum that is "information" for investors, nothing technical, except that oh
wait they use an ASIC!!! How great ...

------
jryan49
So all the electronics in the car are more centralized? Doesn't that mean
there's only one point of failure now?

------
k__
Companies like that are basically work creation schemes.

------
coob
Does anyone know if Tesla are using SiFive[1] for their custom silicon design?

[1] [https://www.sifive.com](https://www.sifive.com)

------
gdrift
Meanwhile, my 2019 Volvo runs windows CE.

------
hansdieter1337
Those “AI chips” are produced by NVIDIA... (NVIDIA PX2) So, any car
manufacturer could get the same in a short amount of time. Src: Working in
that field

~~~
vardump
Not true for Tesla HW3, since April 2019.

------
danmg
It's easy to get ahead when you're not concerned with lifing and having
automotive grade components that will last 20 years.

------
onetimemanytime
I am reading this on my 8 year old computer

------
mrtweetyhack
They haven't beaten anyone by 6 years when you can't even use that feature.

~~~
erikpukinskis
They have if you need to collect 6 years of “fleet scale” data before you can
get the feature certified.

------
nottorp
Is Tesla still controlled just from one tablet-like surface in the center?

Meaning you can't adjust anything while driving?

~~~
nottorp
Please downmod more:

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-
aut...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-
disabled-remotely-used-car-update)

Looks like we're talking about the same Tesla that disables features remotely
on your car.

It doesn't even matter who was in the right on that incident, looks like a
dangerous car to me. And I did used to envy the US for having it available...

------
Invictus0
Seems like these components were authorized at the height of the self driving
hype cycle as a way of future proofing the cars--that is, the owner could
download a self-driving software update and the hardware would already be
ready for it. In retrospect, this looks foolish: doing self driving without a
LIDAR is borderline unethical.

I wouldn't be surprised if newer models do away with these ASICs until the
software is further along.

~~~
ec109685
Huh? Even without full level 5 self-driving, these chips allow Tesla to
control steering and breaking in many situations.

Humans don’t have lidar and we are able to navigate the world. If the windows
of the car was replaced by a low latency screen, showing exactly what we’d see
if we looked out the window, we could drive just fine, so cameras do provide
enough data to self drive. You just need a smart processor.

~~~
Invictus0
The bar is not "being able to navigate the world". The bar is doing so 10x
more safely than a human, and currently the human deaths-in-car-crash rate is
something like 1.2 per 100 million miles driven [0]. For scale, that is the
same distance from the Earth to the sun, and equivalent to 4000 trips around
the equator. I understand it is theoretically possible to beat this without a
LIDAR but you are seriously understating the difficulty of this task when you
say you _just_ need a smart processor.

[0]: [https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
statistics/detail/state...](https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
statistics/detail/state-by-state)

~~~
ec109685
Injury rate / accident rate is a good proxy for deaths, so you don’t need as
much data as 1.2 in 100M would imply.

Also, given humans drive a lot, even with those astronomical odds, if you
drove 15k a year for 60 years, you’d have an almost 1% chance of dying in an
auto accident.

------
claudeganon
Realistically though, Tesla will got bought out by one of these larger
companies, so they can integrate (while undoubtedly making worse) the
underlying tech.

Tesla hasn’t show any capacity to deliver quality cars at scale, nor provide
service to them, whatever their ambitions. Combined with all their SEC
problems, it’s reminiscent of Preston Tucker’s car company:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Tucker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Tucker)

~~~
codeulike
Tesla sold 367,500 cars in 2019

(as of mid-January) Tesla's market capitalization is $93 billion, compared to
$50 billion for General Motors and $37 billion for Ford

No other car company is going to be buying them out unless they crash very
very badly

~~~
jshowa3
A result of the cancer that is continuously floating silicon valley companies
in perpetuity despite them not making a profit for years. Tesla is overvalued
simply by name. Same with Apple. Autonomous driving is still years out and
their custom AI chip apparently doesn't do much in the way of helping that
yet.

~~~
dmode
Apple is an undervalued stock. Their Price / Revenue ration is <5x

~~~
jshowa3
And most of their products are overpriced and poorly engineered. They only
really make money on phones and branding. I can't think of single reason to
buy any of their laptops or desktops.

