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Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

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Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#91

Post by phkahler »

Give me a microcontroller with between 32K and 2MB of onboard flash, some eeprom, multiple CAN peripherals, ADC, SPI, good timers, and some specialized peripherals - synched PWMs with dead time for driving power electronics, and some other special things. Dual-core lockstep for safety critical things (like the fronk latch). Some combination of all that at a price starting under a dollar.

Oh, and a temperature range of -40 to +125C ambient.

Can Intel do that on their obsolete 16nm multipatterning process for anywhere near the price target? Didnt think so.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#92

Post by pokerhobo »

01100011 wrote: post #29
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...

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…

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5c5KzpamiM by someone who worked for a number of auto OEMs including Tesla where he explains how Tesla does agile hardware

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#93

Post by filoleg »

IshKebab wrote: post #75
jillesvangurp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Chang…

Are they better at writing software or do they just care less about how safety critical it is?

It isn’t that their engineers are inherently better at writing software. The parent comment explained exactly why their organizational and supply chain structure allows them to be more agile and better at writing software and delivering it.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#94

Post by mpyne »

radicalbyte wrote: post #88
shiftpgdn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota accelerator-gate is largely a farce. Almost all of the people involved with Toyota unintended acceleration were over the age of 65 and had the poorly designed loose floor mats in their cars. Even if they had perfect readable John Carmack tier coding they still would have lost.

It literally took me years to understand it - how can you accelerate by accident? Until someone mentioned that all of these cars were automatics. But every automatic I've ever driven (not many - I prefer a clutch) moves forward unless you're pushing the break in. In the rest state, it's in motion. The problem isn't Toyota, the problem is a broken system.

That's a mechanical side effect of the torque converter used in automatics, which even at engine idle with no acceleration input is able to transfer power to the drivetrain.

The Toyota case was an instance of the car's engine control software unexpectedly commanding acceleration not requested by the user.

In principle it could happen on a manual car as well, but most of Toyota's vehicles in the U.S. are automatics.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#95

Post by jowday »

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...

I mean they also just dropped certain feature, like radar on autopilot.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#96

Post by Ekaros »

cma wrote: post #69
OliverJones wrote: post #23

Vehicle electronics have some real environmental challenges as well. They have to function correctly * after they've been parked outdoors in Death Valley all day. * after they've been parked at -40 degrees for a long time. * when doused with slush containing road salt. * when their wiring harnesses deteriorate after a couple of decades of hard use. * at least for a few seconds after a catastrophic crash. It takes the…

> risk-taking guts that Tesla exhibits to push new, better, electronic parts into test and production. After their delaminationg non-automotive grade screens I'd be wary. Their solution to it was to make the air conditioner always run in the sun when parked and promote it as a feature, wasting untold megawatt hours of electricity.

That sounds like possible death trap. Drive Tesla to some place without range, stay out there for week. Then come back an notice car is dead and you can't reach next charging station.

Maybe this is why Musk is making Starlink...

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#97

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

somehnguy wrote: post #85
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those processors aren't made on high reliability processes. You don't want your ECU built with the same media processor as the infotainment system.

Maybe I do! I've seen both fail just the same so it's not like ECUs are failure-proof or something.

Your radio dying won't kill you.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#98

Post by gedy »

radicalbyte wrote: post #88
shiftpgdn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota accelerator-gate is largely a farce. Almost all of the people involved with Toyota unintended acceleration were over the age of 65 and had the poorly designed loose floor mats in their cars. Even if they had perfect readable John Carmack tier coding they still would have lost.

It literally took me years to understand it - how can you accelerate by accident? Until someone mentioned that all of these cars were automatics. But every automatic I've ever driven (not many - I prefer a clutch) moves forward unless you're pushing the break in. In the rest state, it's in motion. The problem isn't Toyota, the problem is a broken system.

People panic and jam the wrong (or both) pedals. (There are quite a few people who use two feet to drive automatics, one foot for break, other for gas..)

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#99

Post by finnh »

rectang wrote: post #58
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…

From earlier discussions here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551 "10,000 global variables"), Toyota's conservative, arguably antiquated approach to software architecture wouldn't necessarily prove reliable as that software evolves. Trying to assess whether thousands of global variables are still playing nice during a major rewrite to accommodate a new chip would be definitely be difficult and time consumi…

10K global variables sounds insane, until i realize "oh, huh, we have that too, we just call it _config_".

Almost every place we would have a constant (tuning parameters, etc) we instead have a configurable value with the likely default declared in code, but all overridable in config. Managing config can be a hassle, but the number of times we've merely had to tweak a value rather than roll a new build pays for itself every day.

We have thousands of such "global variables"... of course they are read-only, so aren't used to share state.

If Toyota is doing that: nbd. If they are using them to share state ... god have mercy on their souls.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#100

Post by agumonkey »

01100011 wrote: post #29
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...

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…

> That obviously allows them to out-compete other auto manufacturers who are more aware of things like product liability

A lot of this era comes down to this. You have a legacy industry with tons of regulations, then a new guy comes up, steps on all the lines, and convinces people they're smarter for doing more for less. (up until regulations come back in the equation).

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