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> c. Electric vehicles consume an order of magnitude more chips than ICE cars. EV demand is also skyrocketing Source? My impression is just the opposite. Ba

by sliken 5y ago

> c. Electric vehicles consume an order of magnitude more chips than ICE cars. EV demand is also skyrocketing Source? My impression is just the opposite. Batteries and an electric motor is a relatively simple device compared to a gas motor. So you replace a fuel pump (and related sensors), cat converter (and sensors), transmission (and sensors), and a hugely complex (1000s of parts) engine (and sensors). Managing maximum efficiency, torque, and HP across the entire RPM range while minimizing emissions is quite an intensive process. Not to mention the interaction between the engine and the (compute controlled) transmission. Especially these days when the simple rules are gone and managing turbos, heat management, etc means that you might give maximum HP, but only for 5-10 seconds or even idling unneeded cyclinders, stopping the engine at redlights, etc. Tesla in particular as moves many distributed chips into a highly integrated single board, various people (like Monroe on Youtube) claim the Tesla model3 has a market leading level of integration replacing dozens of distributed CPUs with a custom board/ASIC.

phkahler 5y ago
I used to work in EVs (and tangentially still do). They really only require some power electronics - gate drivers and IGBTs - in addition to the normal bunch of chips all over the vehicle. So even if demand was "skyrocketing" rather than being a tiny fraction of the market, they shouldn't impact the demand for chips on regular cars.
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
  EVs require 2.3x the chips of ICE. (not orders of magnitude, apologies for the hyperbole) https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/ev-power-electronics-driving-semiconductor-demand-in-a-chip-shortage/24820 https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/ev-power-electr...
  - sliken 5y ago
    Interesting, and weird. Although that's measured by $, not per chip, per per mm^2 of silicon. I suspect electric cars (being newer designs) tend to use much newer chips, where the traditional ICE manufacturers are often using many generation old processes and paying rock bottom prices. So during shortages the cheap chips don't get made as fabs migrate production to the most profitable/newer chips. Based on the tear downs I've seen I believe the 2000+ chips in the model S/X, but would be surprised if a model 3/y even had as many as 1000 (the number in a ICE vehicle). The model S/X were crazy complex, CPUs for each door lock, each window motor, each windshield motor, etc. As a result VW, Ford, GM, Chevy, etc have to halt production lines, while Tesla has a record year.
    - bonestamp2 5y ago
      > The model S/X were crazy complex, CPUs for each door lock, each window motor, each windshield motor, etc. A lot of ICE cars have similar complexity in these systems. It's much easier to put a module in each component and just send messages on the bus to control them. Most newer cars also detect objects in the path of the window and will stop/reverse the window to prevent pinching. While EVs might have more $ in chips, I also suspect they have a lower chip count as more indicators and interactions are handled on screen. Meanwhile, most ICE vehicles still have analog gauges, analog gear shifters, physical gear selection illuminators, etc. and all of these need chips.
      - sliken 5y ago
        I compared a 2019 Model 3 to a BMW i3, Chevy Bolt, and a Nissan Leaf (as well as a fair number of ICE cars like subarus, bmw 335, VW Golf R). I did notice that the entertainment system/nav/music, etc where worlds apart. The Tesla felt like a current smartphone, pinch/zoom, fast UI, easy to use, and pretty good speech recognition. The others felt like 5-10 year old phones, similar in feeling to even my ancient nokia 770 with Maemo mapper. Monroe (on youtube) did a breakdown and said that the only other place he say CPU/ASIC/Sensor integration like on the model 3 was in satellites. Apparently there's a large CPU with a ton of pins that handles quite a bit of cars needs. Even the usually Bosche supplied ABS/Stability management/traction control functionality has been merged into the Tesla chip.
        bonestamp2 5y ago
        > Even the usually Bosche supplied ABS/Stability management/traction control functionality has been merged into the Tesla chip. That's interesting... that's usually it's own ECU on most cars.
        mywittyname 5y ago
        I can see why they might do it this way. ABS/SC in ICE cars tend to focus mostly on the braking system. Since most ICE cars are two-wheel drive with an open differential, there's not much that can be done from a stability point of view besides cutting power. Even AWD cars with computer-controlled differentials have response times that are too long to really be of much use in an emergency situation. EVs, OTOH, can apply or reduce torque to the wheels much faster than even the brakes can respond. And being able to not only apply stopping force to a wheel, but also apply torque to another wheel makes for a totally different approach to stability management.
  - abducer 5y ago
    2.3x is a base 2 order of magnitude, so you were technically correct.
Manuel_D 5y ago
I suspect it's more the case that electric vehicles ship with more "smart" features (touchscreen consoles, mobile phone connectivity, etc.) which in turn leads to larger chip requirements.
- sliken 5y ago
  Dunno, I don't think so. Streaming music, maps for nav, top down views that integrate numerous camera/utlrasound etc sensors, onstar (and similar), traffic updates for maps, bluetooth connections/app for phone, etc seem common on pretty much all new cars. At least they were in the subaru, honda, bmw, and VW cars I was test driving. A center console mounted screen for entertainment/maps/music is becoming very common on pretty much all new cars I looked at.

by sliken 5y ago

phkahler 5y ago

I used to work in EVs (and tangentially still do). They really only require some power electronics - gate drivers and IGBTs - in addition to the normal bunch of chips all over the vehicle. So even if demand was "skyrocketing" rather than being a tiny fraction of the market, they shouldn't impact the demand for chips on regular cars.

11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
EVs require 2.3x the chips of ICE. (not orders of magnitude, apologies for the hyperbole) https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/ev-power-electronics-driving-semiconductor-demand-in-a-chip-shortage/24820 https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/ev-power-electr...
- sliken 5y ago
  Interesting, and weird. Although that's measured by $, not per chip, per per mm^2 of silicon. I suspect electric cars (being newer designs) tend to use much newer chips, where the traditional ICE manufacturers are often using many generation old processes and paying rock bottom prices. So during shortages the cheap chips don't get made as fabs migrate production to the most profitable/newer chips. Based on the tear downs I've seen I believe the 2000+ chips in the model S/X, but would be surprised if a model 3/y even had as many as 1000 (the number in a ICE vehicle). The model S/X were crazy complex, CPUs for each door lock, each window motor, each windshield motor, etc. As a result VW, Ford, GM, Chevy, etc have to halt production lines, while Tesla has a record year.
  - bonestamp2 5y ago
    > The model S/X were crazy complex, CPUs for each door lock, each window motor, each windshield motor, etc. A lot of ICE cars have similar complexity in these systems. It's much easier to put a module in each component and just send messages on the bus to control them. Most newer cars also detect objects in the path of the window and will stop/reverse the window to prevent pinching. While EVs might have more $ in chips, I also suspect they have a lower chip count as more indicators and interactions are handled on screen. Meanwhile, most ICE vehicles still have analog gauges, analog gear shifters, physical gear selection illuminators, etc. and all of these need chips.
    - sliken 5y ago
      I compared a 2019 Model 3 to a BMW i3, Chevy Bolt, and a Nissan Leaf (as well as a fair number of ICE cars like subarus, bmw 335, VW Golf R). I did notice that the entertainment system/nav/music, etc where worlds apart. The Tesla felt like a current smartphone, pinch/zoom, fast UI, easy to use, and pretty good speech recognition. The others felt like 5-10 year old phones, similar in feeling to even my ancient nokia 770 with Maemo mapper. Monroe (on youtube) did a breakdown and said that the only other place he say CPU/ASIC/Sensor integration like on the model 3 was in satellites. Apparently there's a large CPU with a ton of pins that handles quite a bit of cars needs. Even the usually Bosche supplied ABS/Stability management/traction control functionality has been merged into the Tesla chip.
      - bonestamp2 5y ago
        > Even the usually Bosche supplied ABS/Stability management/traction control functionality has been merged into the Tesla chip. That's interesting... that's usually it's own ECU on most cars.
        mywittyname 5y ago
        I can see why they might do it this way. ABS/SC in ICE cars tend to focus mostly on the braking system. Since most ICE cars are two-wheel drive with an open differential, there's not much that can be done from a stability point of view besides cutting power. Even AWD cars with computer-controlled differentials have response times that are too long to really be of much use in an emergency situation. EVs, OTOH, can apply or reduce torque to the wheels much faster than even the brakes can respond. And being able to not only apply stopping force to a wheel, but also apply torque to another wheel makes for a totally different approach to stability management.
- abducer 5y ago
  2.3x is a base 2 order of magnitude, so you were technically correct.

Manuel_D 5y ago

I suspect it's more the case that electric vehicles ship with more "smart" features (touchscreen consoles, mobile phone connectivity, etc.) which in turn leads to larger chip requirements.

sliken 5y ago
Dunno, I don't think so. Streaming music, maps for nav, top down views that integrate numerous camera/utlrasound etc sensors, onstar (and similar), traffic updates for maps, bluetooth connections/app for phone, etc seem common on pretty much all new cars. At least they were in the subaru, honda, bmw, and VW cars I was test driving. A center console mounted screen for entertainment/maps/music is becoming very common on pretty much all new cars I looked at.