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

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#171

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

mwint wrote: post #110

csours wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I wonder if the balance is shifting towards taking action." I can't find a public source, but some actions are being taken. Bear in mind that any major shifts would happen in a new product, that is, something 5-7 years out.

Fundamentally, what is it that prevents the established auto makers from making changes mid lifecycle? Seems like Tesla keeps pulling it off; why can’t GM? Is it that the component specification+acquisition cycle you describe is optimized to take as long as the development cycle of a new car?

The little changes are going to end up as technical debt they will pay for later. And notice that they haven’t come out with any meaningful refresh of any of their cars, some of which have been on the market quite a while. It’s definitely too soon to suggest they have a good, effective update strategy.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#172

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

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...

That’s a fancy way of portraying big tech debt. They will pay for these decisions later.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#173

Post by dvh » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #103

phkahler wrote: post #91

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 o…

ESP32 satisfies each of your requirement. They are available for $1(without BT sensor) in bulk pricing, have 4MB flash, have eeprom, have CAN, ADC, SPI, goof timers, good PWM, good DAC, is realtime, dualcore, and ambient temperature range of -40 to +125 C.

Aren't all esp32 out of stock on digikey?

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#174

Post by rcxdude » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #57

SkyPuncher wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fact…

I think you are misunderstanding me. What I mean under a computer is a Turing complete machine. A circuit just doing some LP solving, or PID is not necessarily a computer.

Very little applications strictly need a turing complete machine. However microcontrollers are ubiquitous because they are so flexible. One chip does the job of many, and without needing to be specialised, allowing all applications to take advantage of the economies of scale in semiconductor manufacturing. (Also as pointed out here you drastically underestimate the complexity of a modern ECU)

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#175

Post by formerly_proven » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

snthd wrote: post #133

csours wrote: post #51

Disclaimer up front: I work for GM. I don't work on chips or components for my day job. What follows is solely my own opinion. Some things to emphasize: OEMs (GM, Ford, Toyota, VW, etc) do not design components, and they do not want to. They design specifications for components, and then get suppliers to bid. This is great for efficiency in established ecosystems, not great for agility. To my knowledge, GM did not ca…

>40-60V system What makes that voltage a better trade off?

Siblings covered why 12 V is annoying, let's talk about why 12 V was chosen in the first place.

6 and 12 V electric systems in vehicles came about because lead-acid batteries made sense in this application, and cetpar. a higher voltage lead-acid battery is overall costlier to manufacture, because it contains more individual cells. Another big thing is that there are many switches and relays in a car, and those often switch significant power. E.g. the light switch for the headlights has to deal with around 200 Watts total for incandescent/halogen headlights, indicators are like 15 Watt each front and back, the starter motor requires a tremendous amount of power, and has a very robust power switch built into it.

All of those switches become much more expensive when you increase the voltage. DC at 12 V and sizable currents is something you can reliably switch with mechanical contacts without costs going through the roof.

Being able to use 48 V for everything in a car is more or less dependent on using silicon switches for everything, not something that was possible in the past. The reason why legacy ICE cars (all ICE cars are now legacy) stick with 12 V is because everything is 12 V, and everything would have to change for the new voltage.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#176

Post by sandGorgon » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

csours wrote: post #51

Disclaimer up front: I work for GM. I don't work on chips or components for my day job. What follows is solely my own opinion. Some things to emphasize: OEMs (GM, Ford, Toyota, VW, etc) do not design components, and they do not want to. They design specifications for components, and then get suppliers to bid. This is great for efficiency in established ecosystems, not great for agility. To my knowledge, GM did not ca…

>If you were going to design a new car electrical architecture from scratch today, you would have something like a 40-60V system with a centralized controller (or pair of controllers in a safety redundant configuration).

Actually this point is something im curious about - it seems to be redundant to have a 3X redundant processor ..probably placed in different places on the car body for safety.

Would that not be superior to current architecture..while being able to tap into the most modern chip architecture of the day ?

I'm not a car engineer and dont understand CANBUS, etc. But just wondering if this is indeed possible.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#177

Post by tantony » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:21 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.

> If they were so passionate about spending money to make the safest cars, they'd be doing sensor fusion.

That's your opinion. They have shown data where the information from radar was of a lower quality than what their vision stack was providing (e.g. lack of vertical resolution). Watch their AI day webcast for examples. Their current vision-only stack has been validated with LIDAR ground-truth data.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#178

Post by frosted-flakes » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #124

gedy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..)

> There are quite a few people who use two feet to drive automatics They are very irritating to drive behind. Some seem to keep pressure on the brake pedal, and the brake lights stay on as they accelerate. When they slow it takes longer to realise they are braking as the lights have been solidly on.

Are you sure they're not just driving a manual transmission car? I can keep my foot lightly on the brake and apply the clutch to accelerate, without touching the accelerator pedal (diesel engine has a lot of low-end torque). Not that I do this in practice, except in drive-through lines just for the fun of it.

In first gear I can reach 8 km/h, but it's possible to get all the way to fifth gear while idling (takes a long time though).

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#179

Post by tantony » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

rampant_ai wrote: post #166

useful wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Charging efficiency isn't 100%, so you'd have to tow it further than the range you need

That's not how it works. You basically get 5 mpg or less on the truck, while the car charges at significantly higher rates than the speed of the truck (in mph), because the car is more efficient at using the energy.

https://insideevs.com/news/514727/tesla-towing-70mph-fast-ch...

Towing at 70mph in the above example was charging the car at 65 kW. That's equivalent to ~260-270 mi/hr of charging rate assuming 250Wh/mi.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#180

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #156

_0ffh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but I think those enthusiasts are mostly just fixing up calibration values, not changing the actual control software.

It is more than just a few values, it's maps to plot a curve. But they do actual control software too, though that's less common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaSquirt

Well I never wrote "just a few", but I did write "mostly".

Also, disclosure: I'm intimately familiar with the ECU software of a major player in the industry, though primarily the part that governs the air system. It's surprisingly sophisticated and extremely configurable just by fiddling with those calibration values.