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Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#101

Post by kenips »

codingmess wrote: post #68
KaiserPro wrote: post #48

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…

Even 10 years ago, normal cars had doors that line up, and proper paint jobs.

What is your time estimate for a company to fix their assembly alignment and paint issues versus the technologies being years behind in a car? That’s the point here.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#102

Post by rebelde »

soygul wrote: post #18

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...

Oh, the article gives numbers!

Tesla: $158/kWh Competitors: "more than" $200/kWh

Model 3 SR+ has a 54 kWh battery.

Tesla advantage = (200 - 158) * 54 = $2268 per car.

Yes, an advantage today, but not too bad.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#103

Post by pmorici »

KaiserPro wrote: post #48

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…

Total non-sense; this might have been true about the first ones off the line 2 years ago but hasn't been the case for some time. They also seem to be selling them faster than they can make them so even if true which it isn't the market doesn't seem to care.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#104

Post by close04 »

radu_floricica wrote: post #49
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This used to be a good excuse, but somehow it starts to ring hollow. Ipads are as near indestructible as any hardware I've seen - drop'em, scratch'em, give'em to toddlers to play with. By comparison a car screen kinda lives a sheltered life.

A car screen will take hundreds of thousands of kilometers worth of vibration over the expected decade+ of use, lots of direct sunlight exposure, wildly varying humidity, temperatures of anywhere between -35C and +80C and it will work just the same. What you're describing is nothing compared to that.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#105

Post by ec109685 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #32

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 i…

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.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#106

Post by drcross »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #89
swiley wrote: post #12

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…

> 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:…

Perhaps that's the case but Nvidia can't compete in thermal efficiency.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#107

Post by eloisant »

kenips wrote: post #101
codingmess wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even 10 years ago, normal cars had doors that line up, and proper paint jobs.

What is your time estimate for a company to fix their assembly alignment and paint issues versus the technologies being years behind in a car? That’s the point here.

I don't know much about cars manufacturing, but it sounds easier to source powerful/recent chips than ensuring all of your factories produce high quality mechanical parts.

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#108

Post by sailingparrot »

dontdoitpls wrote: post #69
KaiserPro wrote: post #48

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…

The power of marketing is incredible. No one else could get away with Tesla quality at luxury pricing, but they sell vehicles.

Save for the small detail that 33k USD for an electric vehicle is not luxury pricing at all.

* Nissan Leaf: 31k

* Kia Soule EV: 33k

* Chevrolet Bolt: 38k

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#109

Post by pmorici »

dontdoitpls wrote: post #69
KaiserPro wrote: post #48

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…

The power of marketing is incredible. No one else could get away with Tesla quality at luxury pricing, but they sell vehicles.

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...

Re: Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW

#110

Post by wolfgke »

londons_explore wrote: post #95
KaiserPro wrote: post #48

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…

Yet most cars you buy today don't even have Wifi - a technology that's been around for over 20 years. There's no API for controlling them apart from a CAN bus which is barely documented, not wireless, not routable over networks, can't even deliver video feeds, and dates from 1986. It feels like car technology stopped when the generation of those born in the 40's retired. Ever since then, younger generations have been…

> There's no API for controlling them apart from a CAN bus which is barely documented, not wireless,

The fact that the CAN bus is not wireless is rather a feature in terms of safety.

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