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

#451

Post by cultofmetatron » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

psadri wrote: post #183

dghughes wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at the doors of the model three. Note that they don't line up. I'm not in the US but people in my region comment how all US vehicles have poor panel quality. I've spoken to paint shop employees and garage mechanics who say the panels of US cars have gaps that are embarrassingly large. In the mind of a buyer that makes you question overall quality. And never buy a white car either they rust because the panels d…

I had never heard this about white cars! This must apply to any car maker and maybe other light colors?

anytime I go to a tropical country, almost all the cars are white for precisely this reason

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

#452

Post by natch » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #109

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.

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...

There’s no leather in the Model 3. But the seat material (“vegan leather”) is very nice.

I don’t think of the money spent as buying luxury. What it’s buying are the other amazing aspects of the car. Performance, range, efficiency, connectivity, updates, safety, etc. which may have some overlap with features of luxury cars, but it’s better to think of it as a next generation car where you are paying for that new tech, and any luxury touches you may get, while not measuring up to a teak wood console in some other car, are bonuses. Instead of the teak wood and alligator leather cigar holder or whatever, you are getting AWD that beats the pants off Subaru, Audi quattro, or anyone else, and all the other amazing things Tesla gives you.

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

#453

Post by philwelch » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

sliken wrote: post #447

philwelch wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Camry costs around $24,000. $16,000 worth of gas, at $2.4 per gallon, times the EPA 34mpg combined gas mileage of the 2020 Camry, is good for over 200,000 miles. And that's assuming that the power to charge your car is completely free--it isn't, even though it's less than the price of gas on a per-mile basis.

Around $24k, good luck finding one of those on the lot. At toyota.com the Camry pictured is $35,555. Over 200k miles How much will you spend on brake pads? Brake Discs? Gas? How about the scheduled 40 Oil changes? How about things outside of the regular maintenance? Belts? Catalytic converts? Timing chain? Engine mounts? Head gaskets? Spark plugs? Clutch? How many miles will you burn driving to/from gas stations? How…

And the Model 3 can run up to almost $60k so let’s be fair and talk about the base model for each, okay? We’re talking about a price difference of $16,000 over a $24,000 car, and if you think a Toyota of all brands is going to require $16,000 worth of maintenance more than the Model 3, I would really like to know what that number is based upon.

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

#454

Post by sliken » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #453

sliken wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around $24k, good luck finding one of those on the lot. At toyota.com the Camry pictured is $35,555. Over 200k miles How much will you spend on brake pads? Brake Discs? Gas? How about the scheduled 40 Oil changes? How about things outside of the regular maintenance? Belts? Catalytic converts? Timing chain? Engine mounts? Head gaskets? Spark plugs? Clutch? How many miles will you burn driving to/from gas stations? How…

And the Model 3 can run up to almost $60k so let’s be fair and talk about the base model for each, okay? We’re talking about a price difference of $16,000 over a $24,000 car, and if you think a Toyota of all brands is going to require $16,000 worth of maintenance more than the Model 3, I would really like to know what that number is based upon.

So ignore performance, leather, safety, nav, 15" screen, and related improvements? Doesn't seem fair, the model 3 is a crazy more capable car, but ok. Maybe at least the hybrid ($28,430)? Or at least add some of the safety stuff like blind spot monitoring and cross-traffic alert? Keyless? Upgraded backup camera? v6 to get the 0-60 close to the Tesla?

Also ignoring the federal, state, PG&E, and similar incentives?

Even ignoring all the above I think the Tesla is still cheaper to own.

AAA claims that the average car costs $0.592 per mile. For above mentioned 200,000 miles that's $118k. Not sure there's a more "average" car than a camry. No oil changes, brake changes, gas, engine mounts, timing chain, belts, etc is going to significantly decrease that number for the Tesla. Sure electricity isn't free, but it is way cheaper than gas. There's a target I visit often in my town that allows 2 hours of free charging per visit, and where I work charging cost $10 per month. I could easily spend less than $200 per year for the Telsa electricity. Since June 2019 I've spent a total of $30.00 (5 visits) at superchargers despite numerous road trips to Stanford, Reno, SF, Napa, Tahoe, Downieville, etc.

Additionally it's looking like Tesla's last a fair bit longer than the equivalent ICE car. So at 200k miles you could just keep the model 3, or sell it for a non-trivial amount of money. Already hearing reports of Model S's making it to 1M km and the taxi service is switching to model 3's. Should have an ideal how well the model 3 does near 1M km soon.

Speaking of resale value: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/18/tesla-model-3-has-least...

So the $40k model 3 lost 5.5% after 1 year ($2,200). Presumably the camry is worse than the honda fit (#5 on the list). So it lost at least $3,000 in value in the first year. Amusingly the worst depreciation numbers are many of the Tesla competition (BMW, Audi, Jaguar, and Volvo).

So yes, I think keeping a Tesla for 200k miles will be cheaper than a Camry. More fun to drive, safer, and cheaper. Doubly so if you count wasting an hour or two on weekend for an oil change.... 40 times.

Having had ICE cars over 10 years old and over 100k miles I can say first hand that the maintenance costs can add up quickly.

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

#455

Post by lacker » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

abc_lisper wrote: post #334

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…

I was skeptical of Tesla, I didn't buy it when all my friends got it. The car seemed bland inside, devoid of any fashion/art/decor etc. The panel gaps .. ughh.. I test drove it 3 times. Hated it the first time in 2018. Late 2019, I used auto-pilot on 880 and 101. I was sold. There isn't a car available now that can drive on Autopilot with that confidence. I don't let it drive on auto over 30mph, and under it is where…

It does annoy me that my Mazda takes forever to go from turning the car on to Spotify playing via CarPlay. There’s even a pointless popup warning you not to get distracted that you have to click through.

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

#456

Post by natch » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #415

abc_lisper wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The wipers could be better. I haven’t encountered the unlocking problem though. What did Tesla say?

I haven't bothered asking Tesla to explain the unreliable unlocking, since it seems to happen to almost everyone else periodically, and some people quite a lot. I just take the phone out of my pocket and hold the door handle open for a while until it figures it out. After 10 or 15 seconds I usually just take out my wallet and use the RFID. I also started using sentry mode even in my garage, which helps tremendously,…

Usually for me it's unreliable only when line of sight from phone to car is blocked. That's with an iPhone. I hear Android devices have more issues.

Edit: And the new fob is awesome. Different tech from the old one as you've probably heard, with different security/convenience tradeoffs. (With the old one being more secure, but to an insane level, and the new one being ever so slightly less secure but still very good in my admittedly fuzzy understanding of it). No issues whatsoever since getting that.

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

#457

Post by natch » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

abc_lisper wrote: post #434

rootusrootus wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't bothered asking Tesla to explain the unreliable unlocking, since it seems to happen to almost everyone else periodically, and some people quite a lot. I just take the phone out of my pocket and hold the door handle open for a while until it figures it out. After 10 or 15 seconds I usually just take out my wallet and use the RFID. I also started using sentry mode even in my garage, which helps tremendously,…

Do you kill the Tesla app on the phone regularly? It takes a bit for it to unlock the phone in that case. Did you try changing your phone? (Not to be offensive, just curious)

Yes this is a good point too. It makes sense that there might be some delay added when the OS has to start the app in the background to respond to an event the app has registered for (...didRangeBeacons...) and maybe one of the reasons they recommend against killing the app!

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

#458

Post by philwelch » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

sliken wrote: post #454

philwelch wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Model 3 can run up to almost $60k so let’s be fair and talk about the base model for each, okay? We’re talking about a price difference of $16,000 over a $24,000 car, and if you think a Toyota of all brands is going to require $16,000 worth of maintenance more than the Model 3, I would really like to know what that number is based upon.

So ignore performance, leather, safety, nav, 15" screen, and related improvements? Doesn't seem fair, the model 3 is a crazy more capable car, but ok. Maybe at least the hybrid ($28,430)? Or at least add some of the safety stuff like blind spot monitoring and cross-traffic alert? Keyless? Upgraded backup camera? v6 to get the 0-60 close to the Tesla? Also ignoring the federal, state, PG&E, and similar incentives? Eve…

> So ignore performance, leather, safety, nav, 15" screen, and related improvements?

I’m not. Those are all reasons the Model 3 is still an entry-level luxury car, as is the price.

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

#459

Post by bengale » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:00 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #20

bengale wrote: post #13

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

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

Are some of the board seats allocated by people trying to counterbalance Elon though?

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

#460

Post by CrazyStat » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

xedeon wrote: post #442

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.

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://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/mcu-touch-screen-yello...

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...