4 ms·

So true. Computing is very cheap nowadays. It is also very reliable. If you watch Sandy Munro's videos, he mentions often how his visits with Chinese car manuf

So true. Computing is very cheap nowadays. It is also very reliable. If you watch Sandy Munro's videos, he mentions often how his visits with Chinese car manufacturers go, when they discuss architecture options. Customers hold up a cell phone and ask "How can we make it more like this?". The cell phone got rid of separate components a long time ago. Everything's on one PCB, plus the display. And many things that used to be on the PCB but consisted of many chips, are now integrated to a single chip. The car consisting of a lot of OEM boxes connected with wires seems so outdated. And each box having a separate computer makes it in essence stranded. Instead, if the control is centralized, then it's possible to take the complexity to software and keep managing it much better, features are easier to develop and can be sent to existing cars over the air etc.

nicbou 5y ago
What if you don't want OTA features, but a simple car you can fix separately form the manufacturer's supply chain? This might not be a huge concern for the HN demographic, but it is for developing countries operating whatever vehicles the EU deems too dangerous or polluting for their roads. There are no PCBs making their way to Central Asia. The problem with black boxes is that they work until they don't. In some cases like fuel injection, they're a significant reliability improvement. In others they're a ticking time bomb that can make the entire vehicle unusable. This a problem in the motorcycle world. You now have bikes that are dead because of computer issues. Small pebbles if you're near a dealership, possibly deadly if you use adventure bikes for their intended purpose.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  Yeah, there's some problems with the approach. But I guess if you had an old one, you could install some open source software, or replace the whole computer. I assume it would cost a few hundred bucks at most. It's peanuts compared to engine, or in electric car, battery work. The main board on an iphone is taking a really small part of the whole nowadays. https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/JtBACGbyZcYSdBfL.huge https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/JtBACGbyZcYSdBfL.hug... Besides maybe some machine vision things, the computing in a car seems to have very low performance requirements. Sensors, actuators and controllers etc are another thing then, but they're different.
  - nicbou 5y ago
    My point is that you won't be able to replace the whole computer if you're disconnected from the supply chain. A few hundred bucks is more than those cars are worth by the time they are exported to those countries.
nikau 5y ago
Everything on the one PCB is great, just ask Tesla owners that get stranded with a hardware failure, or need to reboot their screen for a software failure by holding down steering wheel buttons to get their car operable again. The reason cars have lots of computers is for price - its cheaper to use a power and CAN data bus rather than have individual wires going from a central computer to each device. For example, a door module can control the locks, windows and mirrors with just a 2 power wires and 2 thin wires for CAN bus. Contrast this to old cars which had thick bundles of wires to power the mirror, doorlock and window motors from outside the door.

nicbou 5y ago

What if you don't want OTA features, but a simple car you can fix separately form the manufacturer's supply chain? This might not be a huge concern for the HN demographic, but it is for developing countries operating whatever vehicles the EU deems too dangerous or polluting for their roads. There are no PCBs making their way to Central Asia. The problem with black boxes is that they work until they don't. In some cases like fuel injection, they're a significant reliability improvement. In others they're a ticking time bomb that can make the entire vehicle unusable. This a problem in the motorcycle world. You now have bikes that are dead because of computer issues. Small pebbles if you're near a dealership, possibly deadly if you use adventure bikes for their intended purpose.

Gravityloss 5y ago
Yeah, there's some problems with the approach. But I guess if you had an old one, you could install some open source software, or replace the whole computer. I assume it would cost a few hundred bucks at most. It's peanuts compared to engine, or in electric car, battery work. The main board on an iphone is taking a really small part of the whole nowadays. https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/JtBACGbyZcYSdBfL.huge https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/JtBACGbyZcYSdBfL.hug... Besides maybe some machine vision things, the computing in a car seems to have very low performance requirements. Sensors, actuators and controllers etc are another thing then, but they're different.
- nicbou 5y ago
  My point is that you won't be able to replace the whole computer if you're disconnected from the supply chain. A few hundred bucks is more than those cars are worth by the time they are exported to those countries.

nikau 5y ago

Everything on the one PCB is great, just ask Tesla owners that get stranded with a hardware failure, or need to reboot their screen for a software failure by holding down steering wheel buttons to get their car operable again. The reason cars have lots of computers is for price - its cheaper to use a power and CAN data bus rather than have individual wires going from a central computer to each device. For example, a door module can control the locks, windows and mirrors with just a 2 power wires and 2 thin wires for CAN bus. Contrast this to old cars which had thick bundles of wires to power the mirror, doorlock and window motors from outside the door.