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Tesla teardown finds electronics 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW


mlhm5

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The reason: "...Automakers worry that computers like Tesla's will render obsolete the parts supply chains they have cultivated over decades...Such systems will drastically cut the number of electronic control units, or ECUs, in cars. For suppliers that depend on these components, and their employees, this is a matter of life and death."

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tesla-teardown-finds-electronics-6-years-ahead-of-Toyota-and-VW2

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Even one small part of Elon's vision shows how different he is...

 

Elon Musk has said adamantly he does not want service to be a profit-motivated part of the business and that concept is unthinkable in the ICE auto business.

 

The competition doesn't just have to come up vehicles that can compete, they have to change the very way they think and they have to change who they are.

Can Fortune 200 companies with thousands and thousands of employees do and decades and decades of experience playing a different game really do that?

 

The expanded view looks like a game of three-dimensional chess, where one player is playing in a single dimension and, the other is thinking 10 moves ahead and playing in three dimensions. The single dimension player is unable to know they are doomed because they only know how to play the game they are playing.

 

The fallout from this disruptive innovation, as stated in the article, is a possible tsunami of unemployment.

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It is interesting to look back at this slow-motion train wreck. The legacy automakers never saw any of this coming, but probably now understand the basics of what’s happened. Tesla is six years ahead because, from the start, they followed a completely different business model than the legacy automotive industry.

 

 It’s bad enough to be 6 years behind in terms of technology but much worse to be even further behind with your entire company structure and culture. Going forward, transforming a system will be far more difficult since legacy automakers will be forced to sacrifice jobs and old knowledge on which thousands of their employees are still working on.

 

This disruptive innovation is going to cause some major casualties in the coming years and the legacy automakers are destined to fail unless they reinvent their corporate culture and mission focus.

 

Disruptive innovation is what Musk is all about. Just wait to see what the Starlink will do to the cable/internet business. Starlink will most likely be more valuable than all of Tesla combined.

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2 hours ago, mlhm5 said:

It is interesting to look back at this slow-motion train wreck. The legacy automakers never saw any of this coming, but probably now understand the basics of what’s happened. Tesla is six years ahead because, from the start, they followed a completely different business model than the legacy automotive industry.

 

 It’s bad enough to be 6 years behind in terms of technology but much worse to be even further behind with your entire company structure and culture. Going forward, transforming a system will be far more difficult since legacy automakers will be forced to sacrifice jobs and old knowledge on which thousands of their employees are still working on.

 

This disruptive innovation is going to cause some major casualties in the coming years and the legacy automakers are destined to fail unless they reinvent their corporate culture and mission focus.

 

Disruptive innovation is what Musk is all about. Just wait to see what the Starlink will do to the cable/internet business. Starlink will most likely be more valuable than all of Tesla combined.

 

It's bad enough to be almost 17 years in and still cant turn an annual profit.  But hey, at least they are 6 years ahead of technology then the competition.  Go Tesla!!

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One of the biggest advantages that Tesla has with the “competition” is that the legacy car companies really don’t want to manufacture EVs.  They have demonstrated this last year with the introduction of so many “Tesla Killers” that failed because of the cost, performance, battery range, or lack of significant quantities to be a real threat or even just a competition for Tesla.  Some of the EVs proposed by the legacy car companies are very good vehicles but they will never threaten Tesla’s dominance if the car companies only produce – for example, 50,000 Ford Mustang Mach E by the end of 2021!  By the end of 2021, Tesla probably will have completed at least two new Gigafactories – Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas, each capable of producing 500,0000 EVs per year.  The global unit sales market for EVs in 2030 is at least 20 million vehicles per year. 50,000 Ford Mustang Mach E or Chevy Bolts, or Audi eTrons, or Porsche Taycans - even they are much better than Tesla’s Evs, will have no significant impact on Tesla’s current and future dominance in this market.
 

It would be suicide for any of the legacy car companies (except perhaps VW, because of their “diesel-gate” scandal, their stock has been pummeled and their remaining shareholders know they need to be patient during this rebuilding phase) to manufacture truly competitive EVs on a mass-market scale that would provide real competition for Tesla.  If they did, it would hasten their own demise because they have billions of dollars invested in the manufacturing of their profitable ICE cars that would soon become obsolete if EVs became prevalent.  Because EVs are practically maintenance-free - with only 20 moving parts compared to 2,000 moving parts for an ICE vehicle, the auto industry will lose even more money due to the loss of the revenue stream they currently receive for parts, service, and maintenance of their ICE vehicles - especially after the warranty period ends (typically 4 years).  Today, 70% - 80% of these automakers' fleet of ICE cars on the road are out of warranty, so the car companies and their dealership networks currently enjoy huge after-the-sale revenue streams and profits.  The fact that the legacy auto companies can’t build a profit-making EVs because they currently outsource almost everything except for perhaps the engine, the chassis, and the assembly; and the fact that there won’t be the same after-the-sale revenue stream for parts and maintenance – combined with write-offs of their existing ICE car manufacturing equipment while at the same time incurring huge investment costs required to retool and scale-up the production to produce mass-market volumes of EVs in order to be competitive or perhaps break-even, would be a one-two knock-out punch for the $4 trillion dollar auto industry. No matter how many Super Bowl ads they produce touting their EVs, they want to stall, delay, or postpone the adoption of EVs for as long as possible.  Legacy automakers' survival depends on a very slow transition from ICE cars to EVs.

 

This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco, This Ain't No Fooling Around

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Despite its breathless tone, over-the-top doomsday scenario, and factual errors ("...Model 3, the most affordable car in the U.S. automaker's all-electric lineup, starting at about $33,000*) this article makes an argument worth considering. That is, Tesla's success in developing in-house technology in its central computer is a key competitive advantage. The article raises one of two key questions. That is, will mainstream automakers be able to compete successfully with Tesla as BEV sales start ramping up? The other key question the article avoids. And that is, will Tesla succeed, anytime soon, in becoming a profitable enterprise that generates its capital investment funds through sales rather than through early deposits, debt instruments, offsets and stock offerings? The technology is a real advantage, whether it is the cornerstone of Tesla's future as it continues to grow or if it end up in the hands of another company (a possibility somewhat less likely than it looked like a year ago).

 

*Go to Tesla's website, and you are presented with a $32,690 cost for a "Standard Range Plus" Model 3, but that price has an asterisk. Go to the asterisk and you get this: "costs above include potential incentives and gas savings of $7,300". So the base price of the Model 3 actually starts in the range of $40,000, not $33,000.

Edited by Gurgeh
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Tesla is like the hacker who says why does it take you guys 3 months to put out code when I can do it in 3 weeks?  Because it doesn’t take 3 months to write the basic code.  It takes 3 months to put in all the error handling, write the documentation and test the hell out of it to make sure it works under all conditions for all users and is maintainable over time.

 

The legacy automakers need some disruption in their processes but you have to make different decisions when you have to make a profit and you are building millions of vehicles instead of tens of thousands.  
 

The long term answer is something in between.

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Tesla is a world-class software company with the management having world-class software minds who have pushed Tesla to the bleeding edge of technology and are always pushing the envelope whenever they can to reinvent themselves. Legacy carmakers have over 60-100 years of legacy to preserve and do not have the foundation, the infrastructure or the values to disrupt itself. Over the past decade, legacy automakers have shifted most of their software and electronics expertise to suppliers and have chosen to focus on higher-margin areas like engines, chassis, suspension and assembly, promotion and distribution and consciously decided to outsource the more complicated parts of the car and in turn, have lost control over the software and today different parts of the cars are controlled by different software from different suppliers and are not compatible with each othe they cannot talk to each other and that is a large problem -- ask Toyota about sudden acceleration). Tesla has its own AI chip, its own ECU, and everything talks to each other even by Bluetooth.

 

What Ford has is a cost optimization business model in which they build the big parts themselves and pour billions into marketing and distribute the final product through their franchise network. This is the current business model for legacy automakers. This model only works if there is scale to bring down costs and no outstanding competitor takes too much of the market. As long as this exists, the competition is kinda equal and allows the automakers to follow the same business model. A recent example is the mobile phone market prior to the introduction of the iPhone. All of the phones were just mediocre and all the companies like Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, could survive in a mediocre market. However, when an outstanding, far superior product was introduced it disrupted the market and the market went haywire. Same story in the auto market. As long as there is no Apple to disrupt the market, the legacy automakers are content with their market share, eeking out profits and running a cost-optimized manufacturing operation. Why change if it takes billions of dollars just to enter the market and since the legacy carmakers already have economies of scale why do anything except incremental change. After all the competition is in the same spot and adding new tech costs $$ and if no one else is doing it why should I especially if it affects my bottom line? Instead, I will look to see how I can pinch a few pennies here and there and add $$ to my bottom line.

 

Enter the iPhone, I mean Tesla and after a few years of denial, the market is going haywire. 

 

Edited by mlhm5
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2 hours ago, mlhm5 said:

Tesla is a blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

What Ford has is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

Enter the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

Fixed

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8 minutes ago, mlhm5 said:

What happens to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .

 

fixed

Edited by twintornados
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By the time Ford sells its 50,000th Ford Mustang Mach E by the end of 2021, Tesla probably will have completed at least two new Gigafactories – Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas, each capable of producing 500,0000 EVs per year. I am wondering if the 2021 Tesla release of the Cybertruck will be before or after Ford sells its 50,000th Mustang Mach E?

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16 hours ago, mlhm5 said:

 Legacy automakers' survival depends on a very slow transition from ICE cars to EVs.

 

Legacy automakers can't afford to go very slow in that transition if they are to survive. The rEVolution in the auto industry is well underway, and there are already plans to ban the sale of ICE cars within the next 15 years, such as Great Britain's. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/uk-ban-sale-petrol-diesel-cars-shapps-transport

Edited by rperez817
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1 hour ago, mlhm5 said:

I am wondering if the 2021 Tesla release of the Cybertruck will be before or after Ford sells its 50,000th Mustang Mach E?

 

Probably before. Recently "retired" Ford executive Joe Hinrichs said Ford will produce 50,000 Mustang Mach E vehicles in its first year, but based on sales performance of long range BEV crossovers from other legacy automakers, that seems unlikely.

 

The big deal for Ford isn't Mustang Mach E though, it's BEV F-Series. If Ford is able to ramp up production of that truck before Tesla does the same with Cybertruck, Ford could be a serious player in the BEV race. The first automaker to sell truly capable BEV pickup trucks in large quantities will have it made, assuming that company has a plan to sustain their first mover advantage.

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6 hours ago, J-150 said:

Software may be 6 years ahead, unfortunately, manufacturing and supply chain are at least 12 years behind.

By the time Ford manufactures its 50,000th Mustang Mach E, Tesla will have opened two more Gigafactories. One in Texas and one in Germany, both capable of manufacturing hundreds of thousands of cars a year.

 

Tesla is building the Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Model S in the USA. 

 

Ford is building the Mustang Mach E in a 56-year-old plant in Mexico which sure takes the American out of American made.

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52 minutes ago, mlhm5 said:

By the time Ford manufactures its 50,000th Mustang Mach E, Tesla will have opened two more Gigafactories. One in Texas and one in Germany, both capable of manufacturing hundreds of thousands of cars a year.

 

Tesla is building the Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Model S in the USA. 

 

Ford is building the Mustang Mach E in a 56-year-old plant in Mexico which sure takes the American out of American made.

 

And yet not one model from Tesla ranks in the top 15 of highest US vehicles manufactured in the USA (monroney sticker - American made).

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