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Chips become obsolete very quickly, and car makers create new models every year or two. You are not going to keep a year worth of inventory. Not convinced maint
by cm2187 6y ago
Chips become obsolete very quickly, and car makers create new models every year or two. You are not going to keep a year worth of inventory. Not convinced maintaining more stocks would have bought them much more time.
- turbinerneiter 6y agoIt takes them 5 to 6 years to design a new model. The chips they use usually come with a guarantee from the manufacturer that they will supply it for the next 15 years.
- Ekaros 6y agoAnd I believe the automotive engineers are much happier to keep using old proven parts if there is no reason to replace those. Unlike software, where every new thing will have to be done with something different.
- spamizbad 6y agoAutomobiles don't always use the latest-and-greatest. Also: There's really no hard and fast rule next year's model must use all new electronics.
- jnwatson 6y agoChips aren't that expensive per-unit, and they take up very little space. It would not be cost prohibitive. Even better, force the cost of holding to the supplier like Toyota.
- Swenrekcah 6y agoI don’t think chips for cars become obsolete so quickly. Well, self driving hardware excluded, but the other stuff can probably run very well on 10+ year old designs.
- Ekaros 6y agoExactly even those will have same the chips as the regular cars. Just because you have big expensive chip and stuff for self-driving doesn't mean the other systems doesn't use standard off-the-shelve solutions like ABS and so on and on. People just think the CPU or GPU, but what about power supply, peripherals, busses? All sorts of auxiliary stuff...
- jonfw 6y agoThat's really not true, Car parts are heavily interchangeable. Many parts are used across generations of cars, across different models in a make's lineup, and even across makes.