Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

nickpeterson wrote: post #115

neuronic wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"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..."

This seems like a proverbial "reality distortion field" to me. The Tesla model 3 came out about 7 years after the Nissan Leaf, didn't it? And given a reasonable budget, it's arguably still not an example of a car "you can buy".

Yes, there were Teslas before the model 3, but there were also electric cars from other manufacturers for many years.

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

#232

Post by usrusr » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #149

aguyfromnb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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:…

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 app…

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.

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

#233

Post by SEJeff » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #227

SEJeff wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> 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?

Tesla develops the chemistry and has Panasonic manufacture the cells. Tesla builds the battery packs from Panasonic cells.

The intellectual property for the chemistry is 100% Tesla’s and can not be reused by Panasonic for other manufacturers. In places where Panasonic builds batteries for other manufacturers, they use more traditional chemistry that includes more rare earth metals. Tesla’s chemistry is patented and can’t be duplicated. It is one of their several “moats”.

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

#234

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

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’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."

Off the shelf electronics are mutually exclusive of "all kinds of corporate social crap"? I would think the former is the most expedient way to deliver the latter.

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

#235

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #175

SEJeff wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of this very moment, the market caps of both are as follows: Toyota: 228.41 Billion Tesla: 144.2 Billion That's time and a half, but not more than twice. I find it stretching credibility to think Toyota could afford to buy a company with such a high market cap knowing the stock would rocket up on any rumor of an acquisition.

That Tesla’s market cap is anywhere close to Toyota’s should give you pause, given the difference in scale and market penetration of the two companies. Look, I’m a firm believer in the “market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent” and especially in our post-2008, QE money printing, Saudi sovereign wealth fund, unmoored-from-reality present. So honestly, who knows how it will all pan out. Maybe we no…

[deleted]

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

#236

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

rusticpenn wrote: post #25

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…

automotive electronics has a different set of requirements from normal electronics. Most ecus are designed by Bosch, Delphi or some big company in the field.

Only if you want them to last 20 years - if that's not the expectation of your customers, there is a massive opportunity.

Figuring out new ways to eliminate uneconomic quality is an ongoing revolution everywhere.

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

#237

Post by perl4ever » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #157

aguyfromnb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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:…

Yeah, tesla is dancing at to many marriages. AI chips, self-driving, automation. Instead of focusing on mass-producing EVs. had they done just that, developing a top notch EV (which they did) and leverage centuries worth of automotive massproduction for everything not purely EV related we would never have had any discussion about short sellers. But they didn't, so the jury is still out on it if ask me.

I have no idea what they should do/should have done, but if your advice was correct, then it seems like existing manufacturers could have done the same. If so, then how would Tesla compete? If they couldn't, as they seem to have struggled, why would Tesla be different?

Maybe the secret is marketing, and the extra engineering is kind of like a MacGuffin. Essential, but the details don't matter.

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

#238

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

Ambele wrote: post #218

BurningFrog wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they could easily piss off a lot of people, if it was important for the company. What they can't do is become another kind of organization. If new nimble competitors working in a new way appear, old companies, with vastly more money but a settled bureaucracy, just slowly die, rather than adapt.

They're not going to want to piss people off because it's viewed as an inherently destructive act. Instead they'd look for more positive resolutions. I can only speak for one Big Japanese Car Company having worked in their corporate office in the decision-making department. - They'll use Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft OneDrive for file and document management, not because they're better products but because Micro…

That's very interesting, but I think it says more about Japan than about big companies.

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

#239

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

jshowa3 wrote: post #163

codeulike wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

[deleted]

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

#240

Post by rblatz » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

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.

Turns out that the average consumer of $40k+ EVs doesn’t give a shit about minor cosmetic issues if the rest of the car is years ahead of the competition. Maybe there is a lesson in there about always questioning priorities to ensure they are inline with the market.