3 ms·
Does a $100 sensor really change the bottom line of a $55k+ car?
by moralestapia 4y ago
Does a $100 sensor really change the bottom line of a $55k+ car?
- MPSimmons 4y agoOnly when you can't ship a $55k car because you don't have any $100 sensors.
- genericone 4y agoThis holds true until Tesla/Elon gets into the business of semiconductors to control that level of supply chain and the vertical monopoly gets taller.
- foobarian 4y agoIf you need a million dollar team to support the sensor, maybe.
- stefncb 4y agoThat seems way over the top. An ultrasonic sensor is really not a difficult thing.
- icegreentea2 4y agoApparently Tesla makes on the order of 10k per car. If they can drop $100 on cost of goods and keep the same sell price, that's a 1% bump in profit/margin. Alone, that's not significant, but it's also not trivial. 1% bumps can quickly add up to "real" growth. Another way to look at is, is $100 BOM cost reduction would be like finding ~2 hours of man-hours saving in producing a single vehicle. Which at this point in Tesla's lifecycle (they've been building Model 3s for years now), is probably not an easy or cheap task.
- detritus 4y agoIf they are, as I assume they are, ultrasonic sensors - schlub punters like us can get them for £3 a pop. I've got some sat in my drawer here (for yet another project that's not gotten very far in over a year now :\ ...).
- mrguyorama 4y agoI once needed a couple but it was the same price to buy ten instead of one. I don't know what to do with 9 extre ultrasonic time of flight sensors lol.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> $100 sensor Not even that. The retail price of an ultrasonic bumper sensor is $5. And that includes a display if you buy them in a pack of 8.