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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

#301

Post by matahwoosh »

clouddrover wrote: post #160
rebelde wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Volkswagen is paying less than $100 per kWh for their MEB cars: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/business/volkswagen-trade...

I don't know if it's true. People tend to conflate the price for cells with those of modules and entire battery packs. IIRC, the holy grail is < $100/kWh for a battery pack.

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

#302

Post by sliken »

C14L wrote: post #170
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…

And yet, Tesla costumers constantly poll as the most satisfied of all new car owners. Maybe there are more important things than bumps in the paint? Just guessing, I don't own a car.

Indeed. Great headlights (without paying for the upgrade that much of the competition requires), great safety, great acceleration, great stereo, great nav, great handling, etc.

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

#303

Post by deadbunny »

shakestheclown wrote: post #253
ilikehurdles wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

"vegan leather"

So, plastic.

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

#304

Post by Kirby64 »

Tilian wrote: post #296
Kirby64 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

It's still a big pile of black-box systems where it's unclear what kind of data they collect and where they send it to whenever you connect it to a network. Never connecting it at all does defeat most of the points people like about Teslas.

Sure, but OP was asking about a stripped down EV without any of that stuff.

Also, besides traffic navigation and streaming stuff, what do you actually miss by not connecting it to the internet?

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

#306

Post by threeseed »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #185
SEJeff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the tech in the Tesla vehicles is truly innovative. Look at the seemingly simple cooling bottle they use, which is the best in the entire automotive industry (and patented by them): https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e... I keep hearing people talk about fit and finish problems with Tesla vehicles, but I simply don't see it. I was so paranoid when I took delivery of mine that I litera…

Agreed, I have a 2019 Model 3. My car does have a few panel gaps that are not the exact same width from one side of the car to the other, but you are literally talking about a millimeter or two here or there, no one would ever notice. I've never heard of anyone complaining about the paint job on a Tesla, the paint on ours looks perfect. The interior seats are super comfortable, probably the most comfortable car seats…

> Overall Tesla's customer satisfaction is really, really high

That's because most of the owners have new cars.

Wait until they need to have their car serviced by Tesla or until their batteries degrade and are subject to a forced OTA "upgrade" that removes capacity i.e. Model S.

https://electrek.co/2019/10/04/tesla-software-updat-battery-...

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

#307

Post by rjsw »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #122
londons_explore wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Yet most cars you buy today don't even have Wifi (...). 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. On the one hand - and thank God; routing car controls over networks by default sounds like a tremendously bad idea. On the other hand - while a lucky accident in case of cars, modern…

I do remember talking about routing CAN messages over wireless in automotive standards meetings about 20 years ago. You would need to do something like this if we wanted to increase traffic density by creating linked "road trains" of cars that would all brake together. There was also the feeling that California might require a wireless connection to be able to do continuous emissions monitoring.

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

#308

Post by threeseed »

jungturk wrote: post #202
CrazyStat wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like they made a calculated tradeoff here to sacrifice some reliability in further-toward-the-fringe conditions (extremes of heat & humidity) in order to get some wow factor with the screen.

They did make a calculated tradeoff.

They also made a calculated decision not to recall the device nor properly replace the screens for those affected. Forums are littered with stories of people who suffer from the yellowing and are forced to live with it.

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

#309

Post by primrose »

matzab wrote: post #166
dontdoitpls wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you think "build quality" has achieved its apparent importance (to some) without marketing? For many drivers other issues take precedence.

I don't care about minor paint and panel spacing errors. It takes all of 5 minutes to get scratches after driving off the lot.

I personally hate cars but still have to drive, like the environment, want less pollution and hate car maintenance even though I can do it.

When other car's can recognize stop lights the panel spacing might be a factor.

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

#310

Post by threeseed »

pacaro wrote: post #131

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)

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.

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