27 ms·
Cars are products not platforms, and it will be thus for the time being. Cars are very complex. There's a lot going on. Changes to one small thing, affect many
by edblarney 10y ago
Cars are products not platforms, and it will be thus for the time being.
Cars are very complex. There's a lot going on. Changes to one small thing, affect many other things. Safety is a huge concern, and everything has to be tested, tested, tested.
I don't think Tesla's car is really a 'platform' - rather, maybe that have a more advanced and seamless means to update their software, after all, they are pretty new.
Perhaps internally - the software could be more 'platform-like' - in which case, re-using components could be easier, and upgrading legacy cars could be much more feasible.
Maybe we're arguing semantics ... but from a driver's perspective ... it's a 'product'. Some companies, because of their internal processes, just do a better job of keeping things up to date.
- Animats 10y agoTesla has cars, not platforms. There's not much commonality between Tesla models. Ford has five car platforms with 28 models built on them. In the auto business, "platforms" are a manufacturing economy; they mean little to the consumer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms
- BoorishBears 10y agoThe entire comment chain is clearly using "platform" in a way that means something wholly different than a vehicle platform
- edblarney 10y agoI was using 'platform' in the computer sense, well, since this is HN :) after all. I used to work at BlackBerry, and we had the 'platform' vs. 'product' debate a lot, but again it was a consumer thing, not internal, i.e. 'is a BlackBerry a solution, or a platform for other things'?