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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

#111

Post by onepremise »

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...

> they could have used off-the-shelf components for the same task.

They did use off-the-shelf components. They performed poorly and they resulted to developing a custom die with the right components to handle the task of computer vision. They explicitly stated this in multiple interviews. The off-the-shelf solution was crap.

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

#112

Post by bcrosby95 »

norswap wrote: post #63
James_Henry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering how much money went into the making of the real Tesla, is that really something these big auto-makers could have afforded?

Most of that money went into things the big auto makers already had rather than anything particularly unique to Tesla.

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

#113

Post by aguyfromnb »

tim333 wrote: post #75

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.

>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/

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

#115

Post by nickpeterson »

neuronic wrote: post #86
latortuga wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a brand new car company that has built manufacturing from scratch. 10 years ago, car companies had been manufacturing cars for decades. This stuff doesn't happen overnight.

Ah ok, this justifies luxury prices then. I mean early adopter surcharges.

I don’t plan on buying a Tesla anytime soon, but the amount of critics that seem to hate everything they do is stunning to me. They are producing an electric car you can buy. They basically forced other companies to produce electric cars you can buy. It’s awesome. Be a little kid again for just a minute...

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

#116

Post by xvf22 »

xxpor wrote: post #67
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…

When was the last time you went and looked? Build quality has improved substantially since first Model 3 deliveries.

Just saw a 2020 top spec model 3 that still has a few misaligned gaps and bunching seals in the doors. The leather around the back where it was punched out is creased. It's a great car, but the for and finish sadly still has a ways to go.

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

#117

Post by iamphilrae »

iamatworknow wrote: post #65
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.

Why would someone need an incredibly pixel dense infotainment display in their car anyway? Does it show all the information I need? Does it have an easy to navigate UI? Will it last a long time and be inexpensive to repair or replace if needed? That's all I really care about for a screen that I look at maybe 5% of the time I'm in my car, because for the most part I'm looking at, y'know, the road and cars around me.

When using the screen for navigation, clarity and contrast of the map being shown is of upt-most importance, especially with the "glancing" nature one would view the map. A high-density screen could help aid this.

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

#118

Post by Vesuvium »

rebelde wrote: post #102
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.

Sounds like a lot of money for such a competitive market

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

#119

Post by earthboundkid »

James_Henry wrote: post #42
bovermyer wrote: post #24

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.

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.

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.

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

#120

Post by soygul »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #76
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...

> Tesla's real advantage is their battery production Battery pack production. Tesla purchases batteries from Panasonic and LG (and thus is susceptible to that supply).

They also produce the cells (though it might be Panasonic's tech): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Nevada

> the production rate of battery cells in the Gigafactory had reached 3.5 million '2170' cells per day.

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