Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

jalopnik.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 335 posts

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#41

Post by im_down_w_otp »

echelon wrote: post #31
schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

Why did car companies allow themselves to make such a strategic mistake? Shouldn't they be on a standard microcontroller architecture? Why not even use ARM, X86, etc? It'd save them money at this point. And there wouldn't be a supply risk.

Tier 1 suppliers have an incredible amount of influence in that ecosystem, and Tier 1 suppliers have an incentive to not be easily replaceable. That'd be my guess.

I mean, it's an entire MASSIVE industry that's comprised almost entirely of truly commodity technology, and so you get all the perverse outcomes that happen when trying to "differentiate" despite being commodity by inventing ways to be "special" to drive lock-in. Interoperability only really benefits the OEM, and the OEM isn't the only part of the chain.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#42

Post by [deleted] »

baybal2 wrote: post #16
dboreham wrote: post #11

Admittedly it was a long time ago, but I worked in the semi industry and this isn't how things were done. We manufactured batches of totally obsolete EOLed devices for various customers when they had sufficient volume. Devices that are in volume production (e.g. for cars) are carefully managed by people who do nothing but ensure that they're available in the right place at the right time in the right volume. In order…

What an irony. Car makers with their volumes can buy decades worth of these STM32s for the price of a single car...

[deleted]

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#43

Post by SkyPuncher »

baybal2 wrote: post #34
01100011 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Tesla plays fast and loose, treating their product like a manufacturer of consumer electronics and not a manufacturer of a dangerous and durable good. That obviously allows them to out-compete other auto manufacturers who are more aware of things like product liability. See the Toyota accelerator-gate lawsuits. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehic... : > However, on…

It is very troubling development when doing something so trivial even requires a computer. That's a matter readily solved by a PID controller made of a few dozen 74XXX parts. Possibly made n-times redundant. Even a more fancy LP solver probably wouldn't need a fully fledged computer.

It's really easy to over react because of the silicone shortage, but in many cars these chips are replacing physically manufactured parts or significantly increasing efficiency in a way that isn't possible with physical based components.

Electronic fuel injection is a _great_ example. Much of modern fuel efficiency stems from the fact that an engine can accurately control fuel in the cylinder based on a bunch of factors. Not only does this system require physically fewer materials, it uses less gas (in turn saving production effort).

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#44

Post by avianlyric »

baybal2 wrote: post #34
01100011 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Tesla plays fast and loose, treating their product like a manufacturer of consumer electronics and not a manufacturer of a dangerous and durable good. That obviously allows them to out-compete other auto manufacturers who are more aware of things like product liability. See the Toyota accelerator-gate lawsuits. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehic... : > However, on…

It is very troubling development when doing something so trivial even requires a computer. That's a matter readily solved by a PID controller made of a few dozen 74XXX parts. Possibly made n-times redundant. Even a more fancy LP solver probably wouldn't need a fully fledged computer.

There’s nothing trivial about a modern internal combustion engine. The throttle control system is doing quite a bit more work than just opening and closing a physical throttle valve.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#45

Post by clairity »

echelon wrote: post #31
schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

Why did car companies allow themselves to make such a strategic mistake? Shouldn't they be on a standard microcontroller architecture? Why not even use ARM, X86, etc? It'd save them money at this point. And there wouldn't be a supply risk.

i'd guess adding an abstraction layer (between a general purpose microcontroller and the custom interfaces it needs to support) is likely not worth the added complexity (and bugs), since cars are on development cycles of many years anyway (for the benefit of simpler software development, and the risk reduction of being able to swap out the microcontroller if need be).

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#46

Post by baybal2 »

wcunning wrote: post #33
baybal2 wrote: post #4

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28709481 > The aspect of the problem not talked about is that a lot of automotive chips are really, really old. > And they are old, because of many certification requirements set partially by the industry, and a few odd governments. > In reality, most of them are both less reliable, and harder to work with in comparison to open market parts. > The only two things I seen chips with…

Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators. Why not put those smarts in one big module, say the Body Control Module which is always huge and already g…

> Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators.

All of this is achieved with a single <$1 part, fixed torque clutch... But who in the world wants to intentionally choke somebody with a power window? This add to the long list of absurd product liability regulations in the spirit of one demanding "do not operate the appliance with your genitals" to be printed on every stove.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#47

Post by jillesvangurp »

schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

Tesla is much better at writing software than most of their competitors. That's how they can adapt so quickly.

They also do a lot more in house than their competitors. That means they can optimize their development processes, and align with chip suppliers across different components. If you have to work with a multitude of suppliers that each ship their own hardware and software, life is a lot more complicated. Changes take years in such an environment. Even a simple thing such as over the air updates to software is still science fiction in a large part of the industry. VW famously struggled with doing that for the ID.3 only managing their first updates fairly recently.

Of course, Tesla is still affected by supply issues as well. They can't switch suppliers every quarter.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#48

Post by legulere »

baybal2 wrote: post #14
schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

ARM M family cores can run each other's code more or less. Only the libraries for I/O need to be rewritten. In some cases, there are drop in replacements (Gigadevices STM32 clones)

That relies on I/O being written as replaceable units of code and not sprinkled throughout all of the code.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#49

Post by P24L »

lucidguppy wrote: post #5

This feels like lack of planning. The semiconductor industry was a known entity for many years before this level of integration came to vehicles. They should have known this would happen. Ultimately the industry will have to maintain their own production for consistent silicon.

These “low-tech” fabs are e.g. in Malaysia and they are often closed due to Covid..

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#50

Post by dharmab »

baybal2 wrote: post #34
01100011 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Tesla plays fast and loose, treating their product like a manufacturer of consumer electronics and not a manufacturer of a dangerous and durable good. That obviously allows them to out-compete other auto manufacturers who are more aware of things like product liability. See the Toyota accelerator-gate lawsuits. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehic... : > However, on…

It is very troubling development when doing something so trivial even requires a computer. That's a matter readily solved by a PID controller made of a few dozen 74XXX parts. Possibly made n-times redundant. Even a more fancy LP solver probably wouldn't need a fully fledged computer.

ECUs are simpler to build than the mechanical components they replaced and do things impossible to do mechanically (given the space and weight limits of a car).

Jadon Cammisa has a great series on this stuff. Here's just one episode on one topic, drive by wire throttle control: https://youtu.be/gKsCHx5NOMM

Post reply on HN