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>It's not volume, it's vertically integrated agility. Which is easier at low volume... >They have motivated engineers (culture!) I love the implication that

>It's not volume, it's vertically integrated agility. Which is easier at low volume... >They have motivated engineers (culture!) I love the implication that 100+ year old companies that build race cars don't have solid engineering culture. Aren't ICE vehicles far more complicated?

lmm 5y ago
> I love the implication that 100+ year old companies that build race cars don't have solid engineering culture. Aren't ICE vehicles far more complicated? They are complicated, but in a different way. They don't get radically re-architectured from the ground up the way software does. An ICE car today has some fantastically complicated components, but by and large they're recognisably the same components doing recognisably the same things, as you would see going back decades.
NotSammyHagar 5y ago
So only a million vehicles a year, eh? That's not really an easy problem. Your door handle motor manufacturer ran out of ics. Please build 20,000 new door handle motor controllers. It's not documented, it needs to work reliably. Tesla doubled their sales because there is lots of demand (as there is for legacy 'makers) but also because they are at heart a scrappy, innovative company.
ashtonkem 5y ago
> I love the implication that 100+ year old companies that build race cars don't have solid engineering culture. Aren't ICE vehicles far more complicated? Depends on what kind of engineering. Having an old company that is good at mechanical engineering struggling when it comes to software is not surprising, it's the norm. I'd also disregard the race cars; that is often a wildly different group with its own unique culture and specialists. Tech can and does move back and forth between the two, but if we're evaluating culture, you have to acknowledge that the racing divisions are just different teams with different cultures.

lmm 5y ago

> I love the implication that 100+ year old companies that build race cars don't have solid engineering culture. Aren't ICE vehicles far more complicated? They are complicated, but in a different way. They don't get radically re-architectured from the ground up the way software does. An ICE car today has some fantastically complicated components, but by and large they're recognisably the same components doing recognisably the same things, as you would see going back decades.

NotSammyHagar 5y ago

So only a million vehicles a year, eh? That's not really an easy problem. Your door handle motor manufacturer ran out of ics. Please build 20,000 new door handle motor controllers. It's not documented, it needs to work reliably. Tesla doubled their sales because there is lots of demand (as there is for legacy 'makers) but also because they are at heart a scrappy, innovative company.

ashtonkem 5y ago

> I love the implication that 100+ year old companies that build race cars don't have solid engineering culture. Aren't ICE vehicles far more complicated? Depends on what kind of engineering. Having an old company that is good at mechanical engineering struggling when it comes to software is not surprising, it's the norm. I'd also disregard the race cars; that is often a wildly different group with its own unique culture and specialists. Tech can and does move back and forth between the two, but if we're evaluating culture, you have to acknowledge that the racing divisions are just different teams with different cultures.