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Intel CEO Gelsinger proposes a fab tour for Elon Musk — could be an attempt to win orders from Tesla, other Musk companies

Couldn't hurt, but Elon is not a fan of Biden or the CHIPS Act (corporate subsidies) so maybe not. Worth a try though. Automotive is exciting because cars are so personal but automotive does not represent a lot of profit for the semiconductor industry. New cars have more chips but they also have a longer life. Tesla cars have an average life of 400k miles versus non EV cars 200k miles. My wife and I get a new car every 10 years or so and have not gone EV yet.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Couldn't hurt, but Elon is not a fan of Biden or the CHIPS Act (corporate subsidies) so maybe not. Worth a try though. Automotive is exciting because cars are so personal but automotive does not represent a lot of profit for the semiconductor industry. New cars have more chips but they also have a longer life. Tesla cars have an average life of 400k miles versus non EV cars 200k miles. My wife and I get a new car every 10 years or so and have not gone EV yet.
Click to expand...
Not sure we really know what the average lifespan of a Tesla (or any other EV) is yet. I'd certainly put it at far shorter than a 1970s Mercedes. There's simply too much fast-depreciating tech that will be hard to replace when it goes wrong - and thanks to auto manufacturer lobbying (certainly in the EU) it is all deemed "essential", so if you're car fails an annual check, it's either an exortionate repair or a write-off. Built-in obsolescence is as embedded in cars as it is in iPhones. No thanks ! Old school I know, but I like stuff that lasts.
 
tooLongInEDA said:
Not sure we really know what the average lifespan of a Tesla (or any other EV) is yet. I'd certainly put it at far shorter than a 1970s Mercedes. There's simply too much fast-depreciating tech that will be hard to replace when it goes wrong - and thanks to auto manufacturer lobbying (certainly in the EU) it is all deemed "essential", so if you're car fails an annual check, it's either an exortionate repair or a write-off. Built-in obsolescence is as embedded in cars as it is in iPhones. No thanks ! Old school I know, but I like stuff that lasts.
Click to expand...
You have a 1970s Mercedes?

Even a car from the last decade has a lot of electronics in it and when it goes bad good luck finding parts. My 2006 has a few parts that I just leave broken because the replacement is either junk yard or crazy price from repair shop.

A modern ICE has many thousands of movies parts and needs oil, coolant and much other consumables while an EV or Teslas has likely fewer than 50 moving parts and I would argue the EV and Tesla have a cleaner electronic system. My wife’s Tesla has more than 30k in a year and replaced nothing bit the windshield.

I love watching those who preach old school, still use hotmail probabaly too?
 
TBiggs said:
You have a 1970s Mercedes?

Even a car from the last decade has a lot of electronics in it and when it goes bad good luck finding parts. My 2006 has a few parts that I just leave broken because the replacement is either junk yard or crazy price from repair shop.

A modern ICE has many thousands of movies parts and needs oil, coolant and much other consumables while an EV or Teslas has likely fewer than 50 moving parts and I would argue the EV and Tesla have a cleaner electronic system. My wife’s Tesla has more than 30k in a year and replaced nothing bit the windshield.

I love watching those who preach old school, still use hotmail probabaly too?
Click to expand...
I still use Hotmail. Anyone who doesn't like it can... [use your imagination about what pejorative acronym I might insert here]. :p

I agree with you about EV drivetrains, at least on Teslas. I think the legacy carmakers are putting more component-level complexity in their EVs. For Rivian, Fisker, and Lucid owners - good luck with getting any parts ten years from now.
 
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TBiggs said:
You have a 1970s Mercedes?

Even a car from the last decade has a lot of electronics in it and when it goes bad good luck finding parts. My 2006 has a few parts that I just leave broken because the replacement is either junk yard or crazy price from repair shop.

A modern ICE has many thousands of movies parts and needs oil, coolant and much other consumables while an EV or Teslas has likely fewer than 50 moving parts and I would argue the EV and Tesla have a cleaner electronic system. My wife’s Tesla has more than 30k in a year and replaced nothing bit the windshield.

I love watching those who preach old school, still use hotmail probabaly too?
Click to expand...
No (though I'd quite like something Italian from the 1960s). Those Mercedes just seemed to last forever. Don't use hotmail either. But I do ride steel bikes from the 1980s - don't like the newer designs and everything is easily fixable at home and spare parts easy to find. And the metal parts weren't either all cost engineered to death or ridiculously expensive. The bike-to-buck ratio is much higher on old bikes.
 
Pat could be thinking of trying to woo Elon for the business of his FSD chips and infotainment systems for the 2+ million cars he sells a year.. followed by helping Musk build/source compute and AI chips for Tesla and X.

There’s actually a good strategy play here for Pat for building business. I’m pretty sure Pat could geek out with Elon to connect with him personally.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Couldn't hurt, but Elon is not a fan of Biden or the CHIPS Act (corporate subsidies) so maybe not. Worth a try though. Automotive is exciting because cars are so personal but automotive does not represent a lot of profit for the semiconductor industry. New cars have more chips but they also have a longer life. Tesla cars have an average life of 400k miles versus non EV cars 200k miles. My wife and I get a new car every 10 years or so and have not gone EV yet.
Click to expand...
Old Elon love a carbon credit though!

Swings and Roundabouts.
 
tooLongInEDA said:
Not sure we really know what the average lifespan of a Tesla (or any other EV) is yet. I'd certainly put it at far shorter than a 1970s Mercedes. There's simply too much fast-depreciating tech that will be hard to replace when it goes wrong - and thanks to auto manufacturer lobbying (certainly in the EU) it is all deemed "essential", so if you're car fails an annual check, it's either an exortionate repair or a write-off. Built-in obsolescence is as embedded in cars as it is in iPhones. No thanks ! Old school I know, but I like stuff that lasts.
Click to expand...

The lifespan numbers are based on the reports I have read. I'm working on an automotive research project and that is what the current thinking is in a broad sort of way. EV lifespan is expected to be 2x the norm. The lifetime of the batteries are the big issue and they may have to be replaced once or maybe twice. Either way the automotive market is not a big growth market and will more than likely tread water for the next few years. I agree that there will be a big EV consolidation in a year or three and yes good luck getting parts/service if your brand is extinct.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
The lifespan numbers are based on the reports I have read. I'm working on an automotive research project and that is what the current thinking is in a broad sort of way. EV lifespan is expected to be 2x the norm. The lifetime of the batteries are the big issue and they may have to be replaced once or maybe twice. Either way the automotive market is not a big growth market and will more than likely tread water for the next few years. I agree that there will be a big EV consolidation in a year or three and yes good luck getting parts/service if your brand is extinct.
Click to expand...
This is really a very interesting area - and I'm not saying that the EV parts of EVs won't last longer, simply yet to be proved. On the other hand, I've read some auto industry commentators saying that the maturity of the legacy auto industry and mastery of reliability engineering for existing components meant that cars had been increasingly designed to ensure that all components lasted the length of the warranty - but not any longer ! Where in the past, component designers tended to over-design to be on the safe side (the Volvo "red block" engine being an extreme case with collosal design margins and a 200K mile lifetime from a petrol [gas] engine not unusual).

But, as noted before, the actual lifespan of any vehicle is limited as much by the ever-changing annual vehicle testing requirements (emissions, functional checks, etc) as by the continued practical usability of the vehicle. Hold on ... it appears that many US states don't have full annual checks - and some have none ! Over here (UK), you have an mandatory annual MOT for any car over 4 years old. Similarly France has the "controle technique".

Vehicle only as strong as its weakest part. I'd guess the screen for a Tesla.
 
tooLongInEDA said:
This is really a very interesting area - and I'm not saying that the EV parts of EVs won't last longer, simply yet to be proved. On the other hand, I've read some auto industry commentators saying that the maturity of the legacy auto industry and mastery of reliability engineering for existing components meant that cars had been increasingly designed to ensure that all components lasted the length of the warranty - but not any longer ! Where in the past, component designers tended to over-design to be on the safe side (the Volvo "red block" engine being an extreme case with collosal design margins and a 200K mile lifetime from a petrol [gas] engine not unusual).

But, as noted before, the actual lifespan of any vehicle is limited as much by the ever-changing annual vehicle testing requirements (emissions, functional checks, etc) as by the continued practical usability of the vehicle. Hold on ... it appears that many US states don't have full annual checks - and some have none ! Over here (UK), you have an mandatory annual MOT for any car over 4 years old. Similarly France has the "controle technique".

Vehicle only as strong as its weakest part. I'd guess the screen for a Tesla.
Click to expand...

EVs have fewer moving parts, right? I think that is a big issue. Electric motor versus combustion engine... Just like smartphones, cars are not really made to last or be serviceable. I remember working on cars in my teens to late 30s. No chance now, I have a rear engine oil cooled Porsche. I can't even change the oil.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
EVs have fewer moving parts, right? I think that is a big issue. Electric motor versus combustion engine... Just like smartphones, cars are not really made to last or be serviceable. I remember working on cars in my teens to late 30s. No chance now, I have a rear engine oil cooled Porsche. I can't even change the oil.
Click to expand...
All true. But the failures of the future are going to be in the electronics, systems and software, not in the mechanical parts that did used to regularly go wrong and which you could sometimes fix yourself (memories of choke usage and flooding engines, adjusting carburettor damping screws and removing air filter covers at high altitude when the engine wouldn't start come to mind).

It's decades since I had a car that wouldn't start ... but ...

My last serious car problem was when the ABS engine warning light came on (with a constant, loud beeping sound that you couldn't disable). It took a main dealer over 4 weeks to fix it because they couldn't tell which component was faulty. They solved it by a process of elimination after ordering a $1500 part from the factory (1000 miles away in Europe, 2 week lead time), testing it and realising that wasn't the faulty part. Another $800 part from the factory eventually fixed the problem. The car was still perfectly usable all this time, but not legally drivable. The diagnostics weren't up to the job here.

Expect more of this. There's more to go wrong. And more people involved in the process to help it go wrong. We're never going to put as much effort into the diagnostics and maintenance as we do into the fun parts of the design.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Couldn't hurt, but Elon is not a fan of Biden or the CHIPS Act (corporate subsidies) so maybe not. Worth a try though. Automotive is exciting because cars are so personal but automotive does not represent a lot of profit for the semiconductor industry. New cars have more chips but they also have a longer life. Tesla cars have an average life of 400k miles versus non EV cars 200k miles. My wife and I get a new car every 10 years or so and have not gone EV yet.
Click to expand...

"Couldn't hurt" .

I think it may.

In most supply chain negotiations, such as semiconductor foundry business, parties involved would like to keep things private for a variety of reasons. But in this case, Pat Gelsinger is publicly pushing Elon Musk to response. I believe as big as Intel Foundry(IF) is, IF business development team definitely had reached out to Tesla multiple times but haven't got the answers Intel wanted.

This time Pat Gelsinger is bypassing those Tesla executives who are responsible for Tesla semiconductor projects and going directly to Elon. Are those executives feeling good for such approach? Intel is creating more enemies even before they can make a deal.

Now Pat is using the government $8.5 billion grant as a reason to tell Elon, in public, that "our big brother is behind me and you better answer my phone call".
 
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