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Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy a

Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy automotive companies really figuring out build & deploy software? (It's not that black and white, all automotive companies have varying degrees of expertise in both software engineering and mechanical engineering. But it's certainly interesting to watch the industries learn from each other.)

CharlesW 6y ago
> Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy automotive companies really figuring out build & deploy software? Yes! And (3) is potentially: A company who's even better at building and deploying software and hardware enters the market.
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  You forgot the much more cynical (4) Tesla lowers the bar for success and quality diminishes across the industry in a race-to-the-bottom on price. ;)
  - kcb 6y ago
    Nothing that Tesla has built is anywhere near the bottom of the industry though.
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    A Dacia Sandero Stepway (5 seater small SUV/crossover) costs € 13 000 brand new. How much is the cheapest Tesla again?
    - catmanjan 6y ago
      Apples to oranges if it's not electric
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        The Chevy Spark EV was supposedly nearly as cheap after rebates, I think. But I believe it was discontinued, and I assume that means it probably was being produced at a loss, so it doesn't really count.
      - bzzzt 6y ago
        Should have compared it to a Dacia Spring then: 17.500 euro with >200km range.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        semi-extrinsic 6y ago
        I believe that is before subsidies and including VAT, so it will be more like € 11 000 after subsidies. The point still stands: there are many other manufacturers with long experience in making cheap cars.
- unionpivo 6y ago
  If you are referring to Apple, I have a question. I see a lot of speculation that apple will produce a car. But apple at the moment just designs hardware, doesn't really make it (as in they don't have their own factories), so presumably they would either need to build factory for their cars or hire some other factory(or factories) to build cars for them ? As far as I understand most cars sold in USA are build in USA (I am not sure if that's only because of shipping costs or if there are any import taxes or something). Even if most parts were from China finally assembly would probably have to be done in USA, and factory quite big and expensive, and have lots of trained people (to have apple standards). Given that its apple that we are talking about car would almost certainly be an instant hit, so they would need to produce a lot of them, which again means big factory with lots of people. How likely is it that everybody missed such factory ? Especially with press so obsessed with apple. Even if some other company like Toyota were building it for them, they would likely need a lot more additional capacity than they have now ? And we have seen with Tesla, that scaling out is really the big problem here. I genuinely interested how likely is it that apple cars will be on streets anytime soon.
  - fingerlocks 6y ago
    There was speculation that they were partnering with Kia/Hyundai to do the manufacturing. This was big news a week ago, but Kia/Hyundai have backpedaled since.
ajross 6y ago
Software/design issues requiring hardware recalls are routine in the industry, though. There's really nothing notable about this particular issue at all, except that it involves "consumer-like" devices that posters here understand and feel expert on. We all think that "we'd never have done something this dumb", so therefore it's an easy shot to take where esoterica about engine control PCBs isn't something we have the confidence to second guess. (Needless to say, we totally would have made the same kind of mistake, and probably do so every day.) The only meaningful ding on Tesla here is #4 above: clearly this was a design flaw and should have been a recall from the start, not a customer-financed repair.
- nraynaud 6y ago
  I certainly have shipped dodgy stuff knowingly for lack of time to do better. "This is a prototype, we'll apply the Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit". I would ship non-UV cables to outdoors stuff, because I had no time to select and order a better one, I shipped an outdoor temperature sensor cover that was not open to the air enough and was just tracking the sun. The only red lines were thunder and fire. I don't want to start a fire, and I don't want to conduct the thunder. But I did that way earlier than Tesla in the process.
  - ajross 6y ago
    Yeah, but it's not a single person or single decision. They went with consumer eMMC, and probably had a justification showing that they'd never need replacement for 30 years of use or whatever. But then someone else overfilled the partition, leaving not enough space for the hardware wear leveling to work in, which over-wears the available space. (No idea what the filesystem choice was, some are more susceptible to this than others). And then a third party decided to ship with the logging settings set to dump all sorts of junk to storage that wasn't needed on a production device. None of those are particularly boneheaded in isolation. It's just a bug. Bugs just happen. (But again: design bugs should be recalls and not repairs)
  - lupire 6y ago
    > Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit" That's the mass production warranty for integrated objects. Calling it "Chinese" is just weird unless you are calling attention to a claim that only china does mass production anymore. For cars, we have the "extended warranty" which is just a bet that the car won't fail to much on average. Same for hard drives with 3 vs 5 yr warranties.
m463 6y ago
Tesla seems to have a clean slate advantage. Every established company I've worked for seems to have as many processes that get in the way as those that help. also - nobody mentioned the amount of data collected. Is it good diagnostics or is it hoarding? I remember the story of the guy who tried to return his tesla under the lemon law thing because of some weird failure. Tesla diagnosed it and found he would pop the trunk before every failure happened, and they used that to prove he was doing it. After that, I can see an engineering push to log more, not less.
MrMan 6y ago
Gm has this covered I believe. I think they have a less totalizijg view of over the air undates than Tesla. Tesla uses it as a marketing tool to attract “tech savvy” consumers. Gm has good tech look at Onstar.
ehvatum 6y ago
I can offer a somewhat unusual perspective on Tesla and SpaceX, from the manufacturing POV, because I never did sign their production NDAs, although I have made parts for them. Producing for Musk companies is a fucking shit show. Specifications change mid-production on a constant basis, to a ridiculously comical extent. I honestly can’t imagine what the hell is wrong with these people that they change hole locations and part geometry for every single order, knowing full well that 1000 of 1000 units have already been produced and boxed and loaded onto pallets. As an Elon Musk fan, it was rude surprise that their shit is so fucked. I tried holding off on production until the last possible nanosecond, but no. No good. Changes happened the day orders are due. The only Musk work I do at this point is emergency corrections for other local outfits who made parts with rapidly evolving and mutating requirements. I thought that the designers would settle down as Tesla and SpaceX get through production hell, but they seem committed to mass production of no-two-things-ever-the-same. I drive a Model S and I figure probably most things people make and do are objectively retarded, I just happen to know more than I want about this particular retardation.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Pretty sure calling things retarded is a nogo in 2021.
  - fukmbas 6y ago
    Shh retard
  - arpa 6y ago
    Yoų can say the seven words freely tho.
- RobertRoberts 6y ago
  The big question is, would you buy a model S again? Did you know what their manufacturing process was like _before_ buying your model S?
- fukmbas 6y ago
  That's modern day software development/management for you. Thank the MBAs
fukmbas 6y ago
It ain't tesla

CharlesW 6y ago

> Always thought of this as a fascinating race to watch. What will happen first: (1) Tesla figuring out how to really build & manufacture cars or (2) the legacy automotive companies really figuring out build & deploy software? Yes! And (3) is potentially: A company who's even better at building and deploying software and hardware enters the market.

CarelessExpert 6y ago
You forgot the much more cynical (4) Tesla lowers the bar for success and quality diminishes across the industry in a race-to-the-bottom on price. ;)
- kcb 6y ago
  Nothing that Tesla has built is anywhere near the bottom of the industry though.
- semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  A Dacia Sandero Stepway (5 seater small SUV/crossover) costs € 13 000 brand new. How much is the cheapest Tesla again?
  - catmanjan 6y ago
    Apples to oranges if it's not electric
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      The Chevy Spark EV was supposedly nearly as cheap after rebates, I think. But I believe it was discontinued, and I assume that means it probably was being produced at a loss, so it doesn't really count.
    - bzzzt 6y ago
      Should have compared it to a Dacia Spring then: 17.500 euro with >200km range.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
        I believe that is before subsidies and including VAT, so it will be more like € 11 000 after subsidies. The point still stands: there are many other manufacturers with long experience in making cheap cars.
unionpivo 6y ago
If you are referring to Apple, I have a question. I see a lot of speculation that apple will produce a car. But apple at the moment just designs hardware, doesn't really make it (as in they don't have their own factories), so presumably they would either need to build factory for their cars or hire some other factory(or factories) to build cars for them ? As far as I understand most cars sold in USA are build in USA (I am not sure if that's only because of shipping costs or if there are any import taxes or something). Even if most parts were from China finally assembly would probably have to be done in USA, and factory quite big and expensive, and have lots of trained people (to have apple standards). Given that its apple that we are talking about car would almost certainly be an instant hit, so they would need to produce a lot of them, which again means big factory with lots of people. How likely is it that everybody missed such factory ? Especially with press so obsessed with apple. Even if some other company like Toyota were building it for them, they would likely need a lot more additional capacity than they have now ? And we have seen with Tesla, that scaling out is really the big problem here. I genuinely interested how likely is it that apple cars will be on streets anytime soon.
- fingerlocks 6y ago
  There was speculation that they were partnering with Kia/Hyundai to do the manufacturing. This was big news a week ago, but Kia/Hyundai have backpedaled since.

ajross 6y ago

Software/design issues requiring hardware recalls are routine in the industry, though. There's really nothing notable about this particular issue at all, except that it involves "consumer-like" devices that posters here understand and feel expert on. We all think that "we'd never have done something this dumb", so therefore it's an easy shot to take where esoterica about engine control PCBs isn't something we have the confidence to second guess. (Needless to say, we totally would have made the same kind of mistake, and probably do so every day.) The only meaningful ding on Tesla here is #4 above: clearly this was a design flaw and should have been a recall from the start, not a customer-financed repair.

nraynaud 6y ago
I certainly have shipped dodgy stuff knowingly for lack of time to do better. "This is a prototype, we'll apply the Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit". I would ship non-UV cables to outdoors stuff, because I had no time to select and order a better one, I shipped an outdoor temperature sensor cover that was not open to the air enough and was just tracking the sun. The only red lines were thunder and fire. I don't want to start a fire, and I don't want to conduct the thunder. But I did that way earlier than Tesla in the process.
- ajross 6y ago
  Yeah, but it's not a single person or single decision. They went with consumer eMMC, and probably had a justification showing that they'd never need replacement for 30 years of use or whatever. But then someone else overfilled the partition, leaving not enough space for the hardware wear leveling to work in, which over-wears the available space. (No idea what the filesystem choice was, some are more susceptible to this than others). And then a third party decided to ship with the logging settings set to dump all sorts of junk to storage that wasn't needed on a production device. None of those are particularly boneheaded in isolation. It's just a bug. Bugs just happen. (But again: design bugs should be recalls and not repairs)
- lupire 6y ago
  > Chinese warranty, if it's broken we'll replace the unit" That's the mass production warranty for integrated objects. Calling it "Chinese" is just weird unless you are calling attention to a claim that only china does mass production anymore. For cars, we have the "extended warranty" which is just a bet that the car won't fail to much on average. Same for hard drives with 3 vs 5 yr warranties.

m463 6y ago

Tesla seems to have a clean slate advantage. Every established company I've worked for seems to have as many processes that get in the way as those that help. also - nobody mentioned the amount of data collected. Is it good diagnostics or is it hoarding? I remember the story of the guy who tried to return his tesla under the lemon law thing because of some weird failure. Tesla diagnosed it and found he would pop the trunk before every failure happened, and they used that to prove he was doing it. After that, I can see an engineering push to log more, not less.

MrMan 6y ago

Gm has this covered I believe. I think they have a less totalizijg view of over the air undates than Tesla. Tesla uses it as a marketing tool to attract “tech savvy” consumers. Gm has good tech look at Onstar.

ehvatum 6y ago

I can offer a somewhat unusual perspective on Tesla and SpaceX, from the manufacturing POV, because I never did sign their production NDAs, although I have made parts for them. Producing for Musk companies is a fucking shit show. Specifications change mid-production on a constant basis, to a ridiculously comical extent. I honestly can’t imagine what the hell is wrong with these people that they change hole locations and part geometry for every single order, knowing full well that 1000 of 1000 units have already been produced and boxed and loaded onto pallets. As an Elon Musk fan, it was rude surprise that their shit is so fucked. I tried holding off on production until the last possible nanosecond, but no. No good. Changes happened the day orders are due. The only Musk work I do at this point is emergency corrections for other local outfits who made parts with rapidly evolving and mutating requirements. I thought that the designers would settle down as Tesla and SpaceX get through production hell, but they seem committed to mass production of no-two-things-ever-the-same. I drive a Model S and I figure probably most things people make and do are objectively retarded, I just happen to know more than I want about this particular retardation.

brianwawok 6y ago
Pretty sure calling things retarded is a nogo in 2021.
- fukmbas 6y ago
  Shh retard
- arpa 6y ago
  Yoų can say the seven words freely tho.
RobertRoberts 6y ago
The big question is, would you buy a model S again? Did you know what their manufacturing process was like _before_ buying your model S?
fukmbas 6y ago
That's modern day software development/management for you. Thank the MBAs

fukmbas 6y ago

It ain't tesla