Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#161

Post by hulitu » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #30

TaylorPhebillo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Cortex-R chips are more targeted here- I think the V8-R chips are designed specifically for automotive use, so I assume they have appropriate ratings.

There are very lazy car companies which simply specify "automotive certified" car chips for everything, including MCUs running window switches. So, don't be surprised $20 ARM-R based MCUs being used to do something trivial like driving window motor. I seen a few dashboard where there is an STM32 sitting connected to a single button, whose only duty is to register a key press, and burp something on the CanBus in respo…

Every component ( resistors, transistors, microcontrollers, etc ) must be Automotive qualified (AEC-Q ). That's how you have a minimum standard. A button cannot communicate on the CAN bus that's why you need the microcontroller.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#162

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #93

IshKebab wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally would rank Tesla's Supply Chain to high, so.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#163

Post by hulitu » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

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.

Because the architecture is not so important. What is important is what periphereals are available. And even if you have the same architecture you still need to test if you change something. And things change rapidly also in automotive. 10 years ago you had a 100 pin micro at 32Mhz clock with 64kb ram, now you have a 384 pin micro running atva couple of hundred MHz with 256 MB ram.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#164

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #142

The fine article quotes the Intel CEO: > "I’ll make them as many 16 nanometer chips as they want" However, > Carmakers have bombarded him with requests to invest in brand-new production capacity for semiconductors > featuring designs that, at best, were state of the art when the first Apple iPhone launched. He then says of that: > "It just makes no economic or strategic sense" So if we look at this from a capitalisti…

Or Intel will loose that entire market to some company that can make the business case happen.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#165

Post by slavik81 » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #32

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…

The customers screwed up the forecast. That's a huge part of the problem. They assumed the pandemic would kill demand and cancelled orders, but it didn't, and the cancelled capacity was already sold to someone else.

There was also a factory fire. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26558359

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#166

Post by rampant_ai » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

useful wrote: post #118

Ekaros wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

you can tow charge an electric car with another car or truck

Charging efficiency isn't 100%, so you'd have to tow it further than the range you need. Seems like it'd make more sense to just tow it to a charger.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#167

Post by swiley » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #98

radicalbyte wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..)

I thought you would fail most driving tests doing that.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#168

Post by kortex » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

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.

Ok, lets assume for a moment that throttle can be modelled by a PID plant (it can't) - is the circuit temperature stable? You don't want the characteristics changing as the engine. Now you need a compensator circuit. What about power supply stability and noise? Car power busses are hella noisy, due to alternator and spark coil. Now you need some serious conditioning and filtering. What about knocking? Modern ECUs adjust parameters on knock detection to reduce the damage from pre-ignition. Gotta put in a control system for that.

Repeat for manifold air temp, exhaust temp, emissions, rev limiter, etc., and as you mention, make that 3x for redundancy. Now you have hundreds to thousands of components, in a high noise, vibration, and temperature environment, and you have something which is about as efficient as an 80s car. And you can't as easily simulate it cause it's analog.

Or just use some digital chips and simulate all the tuning.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#169

Post by VLM » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

somehnguy wrote: post #104

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your radio dying won't kill you.

Correct, but you seem to have disregarded half my comment. ECUs are not failure-proof and fail all the time. I've never heard of anyone dying due to ECU failure either..I'm not sure how that would even happen given all the critical systems on a car are mechanical first with electronic assist. So you can't lose steering, braking, etc. The worst that happens is you lose power, which is about the same risk as a subpar s…

Its easier and more realistic to kill the company via a recall.

Take for example the Boeing 737-MAX. Eh, its bigger, needs a little more elevator movement to simulate the older model, just flex the software so it can wiggle a bit more what could possibly go wrong?

Likewise, remember the VW Diesel emissions "scandal". You can nearly kill a company without actually killing anyone.

So, the specified ECU chip (which is no longer in stock) could output 40 mA to the gas tank vacuum solenoid so we spec'd the solenoid to draw 30 mA on the coldest day of the year, usually it draws much less. Got a substitute chip only rated to 20 mA usually it'll work fine, what could possibly go wrong? Until it burns out and the vacuum solenoid fails open and nationwide millions of gallons of "excess" gas evaporate per year from sitting cars. Harmless on an individual scale but on a nationwide scale its a lot of ozone... Insert yet ANOTHER $35B recall to replace all the ECUs for willful emissions violations ...

I'm just saying its not binary where either people die and it kills the company or people aren't even harmed and nothing bad happens at all. Plenty of "company killer" situations where "what could possibly go wrong" got the F-around and find out treatment.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#170

Post by matz1 » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #154

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a risk adverse culture then. Tesla is spending gobs of money specifically on building safer if not the safest cars out there.

How do you square that with them removing sensors from their cars and going all-in on doing self-driving exclusively using vision? If they were so passionate about spending money to make the safest cars, they'd be doing sensor fusion.

They specifically mention because camera is better than radar. It gives more information than radar.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1380796939151704071?s=19