A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built • Hacker News Board

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#21

Post by PoachedSausage » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:49 PM UTC

ramy_d wrote: post #19

what about software? I'm reminded of what farmers have to go through with John Deere tractors [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w ]. Isn't that going to start happening with cars (I thought this was already happening). Are they going to reverse engineer that too?

Probably easier to just pay someone that specialises in breaking into corporate networks to get the source code to give to your own devs.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#22

Post by gumby » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:51 PM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #5

vinceguidry wrote: post #3

This is the sort of thing that makes my eyes roll and my attention wander whenever politicos hammer on about the loss of our manufacturing base being America's imminent downfall. The amount of institutional knowledge baked into our industries is simply mind-boggling. The only reason we can get away with outsourcing manufacturing in the first place is because this knowledge is so amazingly thorough.

We have transferred a TON of this institutional knowledge to China. Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us, and it’s all with knowledge that we transferred to them in the last 30 years.

Nothing stops you from doing a tear down on a DJI drone and reverse engineering it.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#23

Post by salgernon » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

I wonder if they acknowledge any responsibility if their tear-downs reveal recallable design defects? Not that I'd want them to be persecuted, but they'd be in a great position to notice that something may be under-spec'd for a given workload.

The article also didn't mention any reverse engineering of the software - I'm sure someone could clone the physical parts of an i3 and have a vastly substandard product because without a thorough understanding of the software...

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#24

Post by vuln » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:11 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #10

ggg9990 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have transferred a TON of this institutional knowledge to China. Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us, and it’s all with knowledge that we transferred to them in the last 30 years.

> Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us DJI hires high quality Chinese engineers. Their software is better than what American consumer drone companies manage to push out, and they can push the latest tech to market insanely quick, as GoPro learned the hard way when they found out DJI was a half generation ahead of them on drone tech. DJI has great customer service, an amazing insurance plan that provides pie…

Do you remember when the DoD banned use of any DJI drone due to it phoning home everything to China?

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#25

Post by kazinator » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:14 PM UTC

But you're a criminal if you disassemble an executable.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#26

Post by mc32 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

I was under the impression all car MFGs did their own tear-downs as well to ensure or at least gauge how easy/difficult it is to recycle a car. The car "green" effort back in the mid 90s.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#27

Post by S_A_P » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

Luc wrote: post #9

A fun comparison: Munro on the BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA Munro on the Tesla Model 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCIo8e12sBM

I would not doubt that the build quality of the Tesla is lacking in areas that are cosmetic. Ive seen numerous Model S and Model X vehicles with atrocious panel gaps and things that people coming from the likes of Audi, BMW, MB, and Lexus would notice. That said, it doesnt seem to be affecting their safety, as there is a pretty significant amount of crash data from tesla vehicles that shows that they are among the safest vehicles in crash tests.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#28

Post by sharpercoder » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:28 PM UTC

Should not the government require manufacturers to extensively document all the parts and materials that go into a product? In this age, we should demand that products are easily (re/up/down)cycle-able, and this means third parties should be able to efficiently dismantle products.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#29

Post by THE_PUN_STOPS » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:34 PM UTC

sxates wrote: post #15

Luc wrote: post #9

A fun comparison: Munro on the BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA Munro on the Tesla Model 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCIo8e12sBM

One of those companies is a multi-million dollar client for them, and one is not.

On the other hand, Munro is a company whose ability to sell products and services depends wholly on the veracity of their reports.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#30

Post by csours » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

Hasz wrote: post #11

I'm amazed they sell all that info for just $150,000. I figure there's around ~125 major automakers in the world, maybe a dozen or two or so big enough to own their own labs. For each 23,000 page document, we're only taking ~15M, max. For a team of manufacturing experts, this just isn't that much cash. I suspect a majority of their cash flow comes from those training seminars, and the $150K book is just to get you in…

23 automakers (OEMs) sold more than 1 million vehicles in 2016; 42 sold more than 100,000.

http://www.oica.net/wp-content/uploads/World-Ranking-of-Manu...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor...