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

[Xebec]

All true. And I expect there will be useful progress in these areas. A lot depends on the availability and motivation of engineers and companies to do this sort of work and whether they get sufficient economic reward from doing so. Remember that the auto business today is based on a one-off sale and not a sale plus an ongoing service/maintenance contract which may be worth as much as the original sale (as with aicraft jet engines).

We are also locking ourselves into a future where the modules which will ultimately fail within a vehicle are far larger, more complex and costly and have no guarantee of ongoing maintenance and support for more than a few years. What happens when your EV company goes bust (as some surely will) ?

In the past, auto servicing was easier and cheaper partly because there was a plentiful supply of third party spare parts. This won't be the case with highly integrated modules with complex software.

Yes, the problems are all theoretically solvable with enough thought and effort. Whether they will be is another question entirely. I'd like to think there's a large pool of engineers out there who care about this stuff and think about the bigger picture. But not sure there is.

Good reply - and likewise agree with the challenges and certain EV makers going under.

You know I always expected Ford-Microsoft's "Sync" partnership to turn into Microsoft providing platforms for cars that would be more universal than what we see today. But Microsoft dropped the ball here just like they did with Windows CE and Mobile..

It's going to be an interesting ride -- I think the current tariff and trade wars going on are only going to slow the competition between "new" and "old" thinking here. VW fired their forward looking CEO Deiss and are now in really bad shape, though Ford appears to be thinking ahead with splitting the company (internally) into two, with one group not being beholden to dealers and traditional suppliers as much. I expect the Korean makers are/will figure out this new way faster than anyone else who aren't Tesla or the Chinese (BYD, Seal, etc).

We can add infotainment in cars to another market that Intel has failed on btw .

 

[Barnsley]

Good reply - and likewise agree with the challenges and certain EV makers going under.

You know I always expected Ford-Microsoft's "Sync" partnership to turn into Microsoft providing platforms for cars that would be more universal than what we see today. But Microsoft dropped the ball here just like they did with Windows CE and Mobile..

It's going to be an interesting ride -- I think the current tariff and trade wars going on are only going to slow the competition between "new" and "old" thinking here. VW fired their forward looking CEO Deiss and are now in really bad shape, though Ford appears to be thinking ahead with splitting the company (internally) into two, with one group not being beholden to dealers and traditional suppliers as much. I expect the Korean makers are/will figure out this new way faster than anyone else who aren't Tesla or the Chinese (BYD, Seal, etc).

We can add infotainment in cars to another market that Intel has failed on btw .

Hyundai trying there best in South East Asia EV market.


Somewhat strangely they have an assembly plant in Singaprore

 

[Xebec]

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.

"Necro reply" but it's still possible to (easily) repair 1980s computers today, even with commodity parts in some cases. Cuba also has a sizeable supply of running 1950s-1960s cars. As long as the OEM is still around, there may be a way .

(In Tesla's case so far the newer gen computers have been mostly retrofit capable to older models, hopefully others follow this trend).