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

141–150 of 335 posts

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#141

Post by vvanders »

kjksf wrote: post #134
csours wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small company risk is failure to grow. Big company risk is every other failure. Tesla is valued as a growth/tech company. As long as people believe in their growth, they get more cash. I don't personally understand how Tesla hasn't had more problems with their apparently uncontrolled engineering changes. At least part of it is customer enthusiasm for the product papering over any drawbacks. It's not that GM can't mak…

Alternatively, maybe just like SpaceX has faster development cycle AND greater safety and reliability of rockets, Tesla has faster development cycle AND greater safety and reliability of cars? Judging by the number of recalls, Tesla doesn't seem to be doing worse than GM, Porsche or Ford.

Their EMMC issue on the S was pretty egregious, that's something you get right in even basic consumer electronics. They also had numerous issues with door handles(I had two fail once the car was outside of warranty).

There's things they do well but I don't know if I'd qualify them as having better reliability.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#142

Post by dotancohen »

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 capitalistic standpoint, automakers are not offering enough money to convince Intel to continue supplying their "old" types of chips. Either the automakers need to supply a convincing amount of money, or they need to adapt as their suppliers change priorities.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#143

Post by WalterBright »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #38
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…

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.

The pedals are close together in my car, and a couple times I have hit the accelerator rather than the break. But I knew immediately what was wrong and adjusted.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#144

Post by _0ffh »

tyingq wrote: post #10
bellyfullofbac wrote: post #6

I look forward to the cyber-punkish future (real soon now?) where there's an old beige computer case with a Pentium MMX sticker on it on someone's passenger seat with wires snaking into the engine bay. "Yeah the ECU died, so I had to hack together this replacement...".

There are cars where the enthusiast scene burns their own ECU EEPROMS to compensate air:fuel calculations after installing larger injectors, better flowing intakes, etc. Edit: There's also some "universal ECUs" from companies like Haltech. They sell a single ECU plus some adapter cables to make that single ECU run on a broad variety of cars from the 90's. Possible since the 90's cars all have the same rough types/num…

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

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#145

Post by joezydeco »

sircastor wrote: post #56
anaganisk wrote: post #2

When a Power PC is perfectly capable for a MARS rover missions, I dont see any reason why they must run Snapdragons. Unless some evil company, starts ditching physical controls or starts shoving Ads into Speedometer. And everyone follows. Im thankful that automobile tech didn’t discover electron yet. Imagine your speedometer consuming 200mb of ram.

Speaking from experience, I can tell you automakers are already shipping vehicles that some Infotainment apps are web technologies. Not electron, but a similar system to run an encapsulated web page. I’m doubtful of the cluster being run by a browser engine though.

Mazda has been using Opera running JS for their infotainment since 2014...

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#146

Post by hef19898 »

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?

Tesla has yet to do even a face lift on its Model S. In the meanwhile most incumbent OEMs either came up with EVs based on existing platforms or completely new EV platforms.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#147

Post by kiba »

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?

Agile does not mean less reliable. See Boeing versus SpaceX.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#148

Post by kazinator »

Any discussion about why you can't transition to newer chips that doesn't mention the software is incomplete.

Chips are not fungible in part because of software compatibility.

OK, so you got a newer chip, and have redesigned the board and everything to fit. Now you have to get all the old firmware running on it and validate it.

If the new chip isn't a 100% backwards compatible version of the old one, including all the peripherals, that could be a considerable effort, fraught with risk.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#149

Post by optimiz3 »

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?

Thinner wires can be used, which significantly reduces weight, complexity, and cost.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#150

Post by optimiz3 »

csours wrote: post #121
mwint wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Small company risk is failure to grow. Big company risk is every other failure. Tesla is valued as a growth/tech company. As long as people believe in their growth, they get more cash. I don't personally understand how Tesla hasn't had more problems with their apparently uncontrolled engineering changes. At least part of it is customer enthusiasm for the product papering over any drawbacks. It's not that GM can't mak…

Tesla is past the cash raising phase though - they are massively profitable and actively retiring debt early.

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/0000...

"On July 16, 2021, we issued a notice of redemption to the holders of the 2025 Notes informing the holders that we will redeem the notes in full in August 2021 at a redemption price equal to 102.65% of outstanding principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any."

Post reply on HN