[foxtr0t]

Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain. The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude and so does the size and weight, not to mention manufacturing techniques and materials. These are capabilities, not so much skills, and they aren't as transferable as you may think.

For instance, logistically things are very different in the automotive space. Many, many more people are required to ship a single unit. You also have many more variables that can hold up a production line anywhere in the hierarchy because you rely on more 3rd parties for parts. While these things are also true of consumer electronics, you may rely on a dozen suppliers for an iPhone, car companies often rely on hundreds.

Materials are also very different in the automotive space. You have to build with materials that will last 100k miles driving a 80mph in all weather, day/night, freezing/scorching etc etc. It is a very long tail to cover. Apple can do it, but it will take years and many, many partners to get it done.

[m-ee]

I've worked with ex Apple supply chain people, and they were very used to operating at massive scale and the leverage that came with it. This led to some some unhappy suppliers some of which walked because they felt we were being too demanding. I don't want to overgeneralize, some of the issue was likely the culture of this particular team, but I could definitely see growing pains as they move into a new vertical with suppliers they can't push around as much. There's a lot more to it than "Apple is good GSM"

[briandw]

Same here. I have vivid memories of the supply chain guy yelling into the phone, and this gem of a quote. "What's my target price? It's zero, now what can you do for me?!"

[m-ee]

Company I used to work at was approached by Tesla years ago. They tried very, very hard to convince our CEO that selling Tesla parts at cost (or preferably less) was a great money making decision. Just think of the scale!

[rrdharan]

What’s funny is everyone (including Microsoft) was saying all this same stuff about Apple in 2006 and early 2007 when it became clear they were going to move into phones.

[the_arun]

We need smart electric appliances from Apple at home - lights, washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc.,. We'll be controlled by Apple wherever we go :) Apple eyewear could even track how many times we flip our eyelids.

[mamp]

The point is that they don’t need to. They are not selling advertising, they are selling privacy as a service. E.g. Apple maps breaks apart your journey on their side so they can’t reconstruct your journey from a to b.

[the_arun]

They may not need maps for this. They could use geolocation or “findMyDevice” service which may be collecting this data already. Right?

[pxtail]

No no no, stop it, it's Apple and this word is the synonym to "privacy", you are not buying a device, it's like second mother, caring about you and protecting your privacy with angel wings.

[coldtea]

That seems like a reasonable argument, and not hysterical snark.

[nomeddie]

Let's hope Siri will evolve better than the auto correct on iOS in this instance to interface to all these appliances.

[coldtea]

Apple would be the only major FAANG company that doesn't need to do that, because they don't make their profits through ads.

Google and Nest on the other hand...

[crucialfelix]

But if they dare to try to start a record label then Yoko Ono will put a quick stop to that.

[tuatoru]

The regulatory differences are also huge.

Apple has negliglible experience dealing with the raft of certifications and demonstrations of compliance that car manufacturers have to go through.

[kube-system]

I doubt Apple even considers compliance to be in their top 50 concerns for building a car.

If their staff can’t figure it out, they have plenty of cash to hire the people or organizations that do.

[threeseed]

Apple does have a lot of SKUs in most of the world's countries and mobile certifications isn't exactly trivial.

[als0]

ASIL D certification isn’t comparable to mobile phones.

[aidenn0]

Does any government require ASIL D yet?

[als0]

Most governments require safe cars. The easiest way to show they are safe is to show how all aspects of the car adhere to IEC 61508, a widely accepted international standard. Within that there are various safety ratings that are expected. ASIL D is expected of life threatening aspects like brake controllers. Less critical parts don't need such a high rating.

[iancmceachern]

They have been working in a similar highly regulated space (medical devices) for years.

[vel0city]

You're talking about the Apple Watch, right? That's peanuts of regulatory compliance stuff compared to the amount of regulations related to building a car in the US market. The FDA requires this big fat disclaimer:

> The ECG app is intended for over-the-counter (OTC)use. The ECG data displayed by the ECG app is intended for informational use only. The user is not intended to interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. The ECG waveform is meant to supplement rhythm classification for the purposes of discriminating AFib from normal sinus rhythm and not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf18/DEN180044.pdf

[ska]

That's not a disclaimer. That's (part of) the indications for use, which is a term of art. These are inherently narrowing statements, and they are in place to constrain what the company can market a device as, and gives the FDA a stick to beat you with if you aren't careful about this.

If you follow the submission you'll also see they were granted approval to market as a de-novo filing as a class II device, so it's not as much work as a PMA but the regulatory work is not peanuts. Since then they have self-predicated for a 510(k) on a newer version.

Even for a smallish software only project like this, it means they had to set up all the basic infrastructure and have it audited. They also wrote a ton of formal engineering process documentation, a full design history file, etc. These skills at least are pretty transferable.

[starfallg]

>Even for a smallish software only project like this, it means they had to set up all the basic infrastructure and have it audited. They also wrote a ton of formal engineering process documentation, a full design history file, etc. These skills at least are pretty transferable.

That's like saying English is a transferable skill. Domain knowledge is what counts here. It's the same reason medical device makers don't try their luck in the automotive market and vice-versa.

[ska]

It doesn't mean you easily set up shop in the other domain, sure. But the two processes are much closer than never having worked in a regulated environment. Especially at a corporate level, you have a much better idea of what is involved if you have been successful in one domain.

You'd have to hire a bunch of people with domain knowledge, but you are better off than starting from scratch.

If I am hiring engineers for aerospace, I'd rather bring someone in from medical devices than no regulatory experience, all else equal. Same in the other direction. Principle extends reasonably.

I guess there are lots of reasons I'd think it would be a big jump for apple, but "they won't get their head around the regulatory requirements" isn't really one of them.

[iancmceachern]

I'm am engineer working in both spaces for 20 years. They do carry over. The principles are the same - much of it came out of the aerospace programs of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

[iancmceachern]

English is a transferable skill, learning new languages is a skill also, being a successful bi or tri lingual person is a skill.

There are many many engineering and manufacturing companies who specialize in being suppliers for regulated industries. Like machine shops that specialize in aerospace, medical and automotive parts. Electronics manufacturers that do the same. At that level its more about process control and running a smooth operation and not the specifics of the application.

[enos_feedler]

You could also count finance. Apple Card and Apply Pay. Apple was able to execute through partnerships. It is possible they use a similar strategy here. I think it is important to remember that as painful as these regulatory and compliance hurdles might be, it pales in comparison to the research, design and deployment of technology enabled products that Apple delivers.

[coldtea]

>Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain.

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

(Palm CEO Ed Colligan, regarding Apple’s prospects in the mobile phone market)

[discreteevent]

Apple worked with Motorola to figure out how to do it.

[coldtea]

I don't think so. Apple had ditched Motorola for cpus for 2 years by the time the iPhone came out.

Motorola had no clue about Apple making a phone, and Apple wasn't getting phone-making knowledge from them.

If you mean about before, their single phone collaboration with Motorola was just a 100% Motorola phone design running an Apple-provided music player part.

Motorola didn't collaborate with Apple on the design of that phone or anything, Apple didn't get any IP or copied any elements, and nor was the iPhone anything like it.

[iamgopal]

If Apple can get most of their parts made by direct competitor, same can be true for car components supply chains. Most if not all, top components suppliers, can become part of apple supply chain. Apple just need to become designer company. There is plenty of tech outside Tesla, and when investment become distributed much larger capital can be employed.

[fn1]

> The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude

For reference, a single car has about 30,000 parts, built by dozens of suppliers.

[agumonkey]

Are you sure an EV is still that much more complex in terms of part count from a phone ? An ICE I would agree.

[foxtr0t]

If you're asking this question seriously, I have to ask a clarification question: what are we actually talking about? Are we comparing just certain aspects of production of the whole thing? If you think about this from an engineering perspective for even 30 seconds there are so many differences that come to mind.

- Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

- Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone

- iPhones don't need to drive themselves

- iPhones don't need to pass crash tests

- Brakes don't exist on iPhones

- Suspension does not exist on iPhones

- iPhones don't propel themselves at 100 mph

- iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car

- Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones

- Lights

- ...

I'm sort of dumbfounded by the level of conversation here given this is HN and the reputation is one of very thoughtful discourse on current events relating to technology and engineering.

EDIT: line breaks, looks like I'm further contributing to the downward spiral here.

[dcolkitt]

> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone.

> Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone

Also, not really true if you look at the range of temperature and conditions an iPhone is rated for. (Including water resistance. Mine went through a washing machine cycle and came out fine.)

> iPhones don't need to pass crash tests

iPhones protected highly delicate components against hard impact on concrete. That requires similar engineering delicacy as protecting human meat in car crashes.

> Brakes... suspension

The complexity of the accelerometers and camera systems deal with similar engineering challenges of the same quality.

> iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car

Does weighing less make something harder to engineer? If anything making complex machines that are feather-weight seems more challenging. Certainly you'd acknowledge that smartphones are harder to build than mainframes, even though the latter is an order of magnitude heavier.

> Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones

This is true. But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers. Apple has plenty of cash to hire lawyers. Certainly much more than GM.

> Lights

iPhones definitely have lights.

[mortenjorck]

Each of these comparisons makes sense at only the most superficial level. The automotive industry may have more in common with personal electronics than it did thirty years ago, but forced comparisons belie the unique and complex challenges in shipping a road-legal car.

And yet, that massive gulf is the whole point here.

Apple is treading in 95% unfamiliar waters, but the company has proven time and again this is its secret power. They'd never made portable music players before; they'd never made phones before; they'd never made watches before. A car is simply the ultimate expression of this, bringing to bear all of Apple's experience in entering a market where they have no experience.

[saagarjha]

Wait, they definitely made phones and watches before. You just don't remember them ;)

[agumonkey]

I read about this a few years ago. I really had no memory of their attemps.. but what I wonder is how deep they tried to market these attempts at telephony and other devices. in the 90s. Was it more a little side game or did they claim to 'reinvent the phone' back then ? The only similar event I can remember is the newton.

[mortenjorck]

Technically correct! Still, I’m not entirely sure a prototype desk phone that never shipped and a couple of promotional Think Different-branded quartz watches offered much in the way of relevant experience for getting into the smartphone and wearable markets.

[ClumsyPilot]

> iPhones definitely have lights.

I am sorry, are you trolling?

Are you seriously comparing smash test on a phone with regulatory crash test on a car? Have you thought about this at all? Do iPhones have crumple zones designed in? Do they asses performance of the chassis after 30 years of corrosion? Do they operate in 50 degree Dubai or -30 Siberia? Do they travel at 100 m/h? How many Gs does an SSD (~100) survive as opposed to a human brain (~10)?

I am sorry for namecalling, but this post comes across as very arrogant.

[dcolkitt]

I could just as easily ask you whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers. Or whether cars have to support thousands of third party engineers adding arbitrary add-on components. Or whether automakers worry about hardening their security against nation state actors.

I'm sorry, but do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics? How could you possibly explain why the microchip was invented 100 years after the automobile?

Every domain has its own engineering challenges. Apples has consistently shown execution excellence across a wide range of disparate areas though. And more importantly an ability to quickly and effectively spin up expertise in new areas. From silicon to machine learning to acoustics to compilers to optics. Read this HBS case study[1] to be amazed at its ability to leverage cross-functional expertise across disparate domains. No large org in the world operates like it. There's a reason AAPL has a 50 times the market cap as GM. There's zero doubt in my mind that if Apple pursues autos, within a decade they'll acquire 5%+ global marketshare.

[1]https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...

[ClumsyPilot]

'whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers'

Thats done by TSMC, but you are right, I have much higher confidence in them producing a car than I do in Apple.

> do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics?

By two orders of magnitudes, at least! Modern car encompasses microelectronics, safety critical software and hardware design, passenger safety, repairability, corrosion, and thousands of other issues phones and laptops never face. You can't just push an OTA and fix a flawed engine. You can't tell you users 'they are holding it wrong'

> How could you possibly explain why the microchip was invented 100 years after the automobile?

How do you explain that Segway was invented after the microchip?

[nickik]

Tesla designs its own chips, they don't use 5 nanometers but they are working on 7 nanometers. You need to have very good microelectronics to build a modern car.

Yes, car makers have to worry about hardening against nation states. Probably don't do it as well yet however.

However I agree that Apple could go into that direction.

[foxtr0t]

Especially hilarious given I left the "lights" bullet (with zero explanation as the last item) as fool's bait. It was gloriously taken.

[Dylan16807]

Joke's on them, I was only acting dumb!

Seriously, you putting a bullet point with no explanation, and got an equally terse rebuttal. You didn't "win" that.

[ClumsyPilot]

Did i say arrogance?

[starfallg]

>> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

>I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone.

A car has a much longer service life than a phone, at least 3-4x longer. The battery pack, being the most expensive components of the EV, pretty much has to last the life of the car.

[Ygg2]

> But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers

Wat.

Phone safety compared to car safety is like comparing bottle rocket to Saturn V. If bottle rocket/phone goes south, you generally don't expect loss of life.

Fuck, Tesla can't seem to wrap their head around this. They used standard phone like quality components in car. Which caused stuff to stop working in regular car conditions e.g. noon left in car.

> iPhones definitely have lights.

This has about as much relevance as nothern lights do.

[agumonkey]

I simply asked a question you know, I'm neither a proponent nor an adversary of anything here.

I get you have a lot of knowledge on the matter.. but you're biased and quite emotional it seems.

You're shifting topic a bit.

You were talking about part count, not part complexity. My iPhone battery doesn't have a cooling system and my car doesn't need to fit in my pocket (<= absurd arguments for the sake or arguing outside of the original question)

[vel0city]

How many windows are on an iPhone? Window motors? Window motor switches? Door panels to hold the window motor switches? Mechanical guides for the windows? The little weather striping to keep rain out from inside the doors?

How many doors are there on an iPhone? Door latches? Door locks? Door handles? Door close sensors? Weather stripping to keep the rain out from inside the cabin? The little sticker inside the door listing the OEM specs of tire pressure?

How many wheels are there on an iPhone? How many tires? Wheel lugs? TPMS sensors? TPMS readers? Hubs? Brake rotors? Brake calipers? Brake pads?

And on, and on, and on...

[saberience]

How many components on a car are engineered at a 5 nanometer level? Your comment is going to age like milk...

For a company like Apple, making a car is child's play.

[vel0city]

You do realize there are several SoC's in modern cars right? There's the ABS and stability systems, torque vectoring systems, lane keeping/driving automation, the infotainment system, and more. Sure they're not made to the 5nm level at the moment, but supply chain wise a 15nm part is about the same as a 5nm part when it comes to making the silicon. This is especially true when you're needing them to be more resilient temperature-wise and have other restrictions needed in the automotive space.

I drive a 2017 Santa Fe. Its a pretty basic car tech-wise compared to many others on the market these days. There's still the computerized ABS and traction control system taking samples thousands of times a second and making split second decisions on how to handle the car. There are radar sensors tracking the distance to vehicles around me, that data is being fed to computer systems for automatic cruise control and alert aids. The car features lane keeping features which is based off computer vision systems to track the lines on the road. The transmission system is computerized, being more like a computer controlled manual transmission rather than a traditional automatic. The infotainment system is obviously driven by some kind of computer and contains WiFi, LTE, Bluetooth, GNSS, satellite, AM, FM, and digital FM radio systems along with cameras and radar sensors.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some additional computerized systems on this list. So honestly there are several iPhones worth of computer systems on this list, all with more extreme hardening requirements to expect a longer deployed lifetime than an iPhone and all of which need to reliably talk to each other in some kind of fashion.

[leoedin]

Car infotainment systems run ARM SoCs, much like an iPhone.

To compare the complexity of a car and a phone (any modern phone - they're all fundamentally similar inside) belies immense ignorance of both.

Phones are functionally complex, but physically quite simple. The complexity is dealt with by the chip fab and software. Electronic manufacturing processes are basically the same for every device, and so are very well understood and optimised.

A phone is a model of system abstraction. The incredible complexity of the processor and digital logic is abstracted into little black boxes which are then soldered to a PCB. The assembly is then a straightforward sandwich of all the bits.

I don't think anyone's arguing that phones are not complex, but that cars have an order of magnitude more bits to assemble, and that means manufacturing complexity that the existing manufacturers obtained through decades of iteration.

Tesla's a great example - they completely underestimated the complexity of manufacturing (building the machine to make the machine), spent billions of dollars on it and are still struggling with poor fit and finish.

Of course, any company can put the processes in place to build a modern car - it will just take time. To argue that a phone requires as many assembly processes as a car is simply ludicrous.

[RealityVoid]

I can assure you that only in the instrument cluster and the central console area you have the same amount of complexity as in a smartphone. Now add the rest of the car.

[agumonkey]

I meant critical component, not seat buttons. People are getting too involved in this.

Nobody gives a damn about the infotainment or door knobs.. it's delegated to one supplier just like a phone charger or any secondary part.

The car mechanics, engine, battery and control units are what I was mostly thinking about.

If Musk keeps on going their EVs car body will be two cast parts, so in terms of supply chain management the complexity is gone into the manufacturing process.

[bonestamp2]

A Tesla has 40+ Electronic Control Units. Even if you just look at that, it's way more complex than a phone. Sure, the powertrain has fewer parts in an EV, but everything else is still the same as a regular car, and all of that stuff is a lot of stuff.

[Melting_Harps]

> I can assure you that only in the instrument cluster and the central console area you have the same amount of complexity as in a smartphone. Now add the rest of the car.

Not only that but the regulatory standards of EV in US/EU/Asia varies so widely that I don't see how they can get a product to Market in less than 5-10 years unless they're just making EV clones of what is already out here or partner with a Manufacturer. And burned factories in India are not going to cut it on the logistics and supply chain so they'd need to work that out, too.

I can honestly see them partnering up with Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors who are in dire financial straits and want get out of their alliance with Renault-French Government after all the Ghosn corruption and are taking their entire lineup to EV and want to improve on the in-cabin AR side of things, all of which Apple could help build and have the finance to support it.

Having worked at Nissan I think its focus is on tech and still makes cars to prove and refine it's technology, they had an Aerospace division in Mountain View, and used the supposed 'auto pilot' features Tesla has on some of its Infiniti chassis (lidar based cruise control and lane staying signals) in the early 2000s.

I hope it happens, to be honest I dislike anything Apple makes and I despise their business practices for obvious reasons (Foxxcon) but I'm forced into their ecosystem as of now. I'd like to be open to their products if they it did happen.

[saberience]

This is such a clueless comment. Tesla, a start-up with zero experience in cars managed to make cars without any issue at all and become one of the most popular luxury car makers in the world.

So Apple, the world's most valuable company, isn't going to be able to make their own car? You're dreaming.

[vel0city]

I doubt anyone here would say Apple couldn't make their own car, but the idea of Apple mass manufacturing a brand new car in four years is a bit crazy. In your example, Tesla took nearly a decade of focus and half a billion in capital to begin small production of the Model S.

[Melting_Harps]

> without any issue at all and become one of the most popular luxury car makers in the world.

I've followed Tesla since the Roadster days, and I lost count how many times they've almost gone Bankrupt. The only one here that is clueless is you if you think it was without 'issue.' Hell, I worked for Kimbal who is on the Board at Tesla and he openly talks about how many times Tesla almost went under in the few interviews/podcasts he's been on. What echo chamber do you live in to think there was no issue?

> This is such a clueless comment.

I've been in Motorsports with close ties to manufactures since I was 17, and then went on to work for Volkswagen Audi Group (the largest manufacture of cars by scale) and then to BMW and then back to VW because of Diesel-gate, then Nissan in various capacities from technician to supply chain. Then I tried my hand at Tesla during Model 3 ramp up and saw FIRST HAND why/how the delay in ramp was occurring in 2017 with 2 trips to the Fremont Factory before deciding to decline and focus on SpaceX instead.

What experience do you have in that Industry to call it clueless?

I know Apple cultists are as rabid as Elon worshipers, but the two combined are completely toxic.

> I doubt anyone here would say Apple couldn't make their own car, but the idea of Apple mass manufacturing a brand new car in four years is a bit crazy. In your example, Tesla took nearly a decade of focus and half a billion in capital to begin small production of the Model S.

In 3 years? A prototype to build hype and take pre-orders that still needs all the regulatory compliance to be on the road ahead of it, sure; a refined 49-1 street legal product that's mass produced with scaled production line, distribution channels and supply chain to accommodate domestic, let alone international, deliveries: HELL NO!

Money alone won't buy you that, especially if COVID is still shutting/delaying down so many factories, International supply lines and look at the distribution system Tesla had to INVENT because it refused to play by the dealership system.

You FAANG guys live in an unrealistic bubble and think because it works for mobile/computers, and I laugh when I say 'works' because look at India, it should work for several ton vehicles with way more complexity and red tape than you can possibly imagine.

You're comparing vastly different Industries that have little to nothing in common.

Nissan just announced that it will be making its EVs in Japan [0] instead of Sunderland, so unless Apple decides to detract from its business model built on slave labour in Asia, chances are it will not happen.

0: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nissan-picks-japan-over-sunde...

[bonestamp2]

You can't be serious. There are more components in an 8-way power seat than there are in a phone.

[natch]

The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One. Made in house from raw materials. Rolls of steel, copper, and aluminum. It’s also considered a single part for manufacturing and servicing purposes. So not simply one moving part. One part, period.

>The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude

>car companies often rely on hundreds of suppliers

See above. You must be thinking of ICE cars.

>aren’t as transferable as you may think

Other than pulling a few things off the shelf like tires, windshields, and wheels (and more; those are just a few examples) the manufacturer of my car stated from scratch. Prodigiously hard for sure but Apple is good at hard.

>will last 100k miles

Try one million.

>will take years

Again Apple excels at this.

The real problem for Apple is having Tesla as a competitor. They are used to competing with Google, but it’s easy to compete with lame. Tesla is not lame, by a long stretch.

[foxtr0t]

I was waiting for the Muskians to swoop in and spread their nonsense.

Guess what? I drive a white model 3 long range AWD and I love it. I'm still 1: an engineer with 10 years of hardware experience and 2: skeptical of every ounce of BS Elon Musk has ever spread.

You know how many parts are under the car? Have you taken one apart? They're complicated machines with, again, orders of magnitude more parts than a phone. Forget ICE vehicles, we're just talking about EVs and iPhones. You don't think Tesla relies on thousands of suppliers? Who do you think makes the screens, wiring hardness, cameras, brakes, glass, acoustic devices, steering, battery temp management, motorized seats, etc etc. And who do you think supplies their parts? And theirs? And so on and so forth. Its a complicated web of suppliers and manufacturers, much more so than what goes into a single iPhone (which is still very complicated). This is why a Tesla costs 35k+ and an iPhone costs ~1k. There are more parts that are more complicated and manufacturing them takes more time, effort, and people. Elon may have a magic car printer in his wet dreams but that won't happen in reality for four, five, or six decades.

Also, nobody, I repeat, absolutely nobody is holding their breath for you to hit 1m miles in your Tesla. Currently they don't even have a story for repair and so many parts are fused that if something breaks you can't replace it. The car is totaled. I recommend you watch all of the early Rich Rebuilds on YouTube if you really want to understand some of the nitty gritty details of these vehicles. Yes they are simpler than a normal ICE. By an order of magnitude? Certainly not. Progress is made at the margins, in increments of 1% then 5% then 10% then 15%. Not 1000% in one swoop.

EDIT: clarification

[Reason077]

The Tesla Model S is not an ideal example here. It’s a great car, but also Tesla’s first mass produced model. It’s over-engineered in many ways and has way more parts and complexity than if Tesla were designing the same car today!

Comparing the Model S to the Model 3, and now the Model Y, we see with each generation simpler designs, reduced part counts, and easier assembly which all translates into improved reliability and, often, repairability.

Sandy Munro’s Tesla tear downs are a great reference for this stuff.

[foxtr0t]

Agreed 100%. Though even Sandy's conclusions are that they're saving at the margins here. It is revolutionary in the sense that they're design and manufacturing techniques are unique, but they don't lead to orders of magnitude reduction in complexity/cost.

[pengaru]

Yeah, the complexity comparison of a DOT-legal EV to smartphone is idiotic.

There has been some improvement over ICEs though, at least in the precision-machined parts and assemblies department.

But a smartphone is analogous to the infotainment display in a modern car. There's still a lot of car attached to that. I think many people commenting on this don't have the slightest clue what the average automobile is composed of beyond the engine, interior, exterior, and wheels.

[natch]

> Guess what? I drive a white model 3 long range AWD and I love it. I'm still 1: an engineer with 10 years of hardware experience and 2: skeptical of every ounce of BS Elon Musk has ever spread.

0) Blue P3D AWD + Blue 3 AWD 1) 30 2) Right there with you, but that is a red herring.

It would have been sufficient to clarify that you held the opinion even about electric cars, without the histronics and name calling. You may be right, because cars certainly are complex.

[nwienert]

Hm... but a phone is orders of magnitude harder to build than a car (minus the computer). Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers.

Cars use many more off the shelf parts, they have far easier supply chains to tap into.

Designing and building the CPU, GPU, camera systems, neural chip/software, touchscreen, FaceID, etc. All of these components require way more competence to build than any single part of an electric car using an off the shelf computer.

Cars have more parts, but they are dramatically bigger, less intensely complex, less intensely integrated. Just the CPU alone of a phone puts an entire electric engine to shame in terms of difficulty of engineering.

So it’s an interesting comparison. But I’d put money on Apple making a great car before Tesla made a great computer.

[easde]

> Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers.

Tesla has shipped their custom SoC in every new car since April 2019.

[nwienert]

The point has nothing to do with whether they do now, but the relative complexity of building a car vs computer.

[ClumsyPilot]

Complexity of a phone has no relevance on your ability to deliver a car, just like it has no relevance on your ability to deliver a hydroelectric dam.

[vel0city]

The above poster was talking about the entire car not just the motor. Sure, the motor is far simpler than an ICE. But there's still a cooling system, with pumps and hoses and heat exchangers. Those are all parts. There's still seats, with sensors and motors and mounting rails. There are steering assemblies, with linkages and actuators for power steering. There's the whole infotainment system, which contains just as many parts if not more as an iPhone would have. So when comparing the idea of a car having an order of magnitude more parts and complicated supply chains its still true even with an electric car.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One.

Your electric car has doors. The doors have hinges, latches, interior handles, exterior handles, locks, lock switches, power window motors, power window switches, power mirror motors, power mirror switches, etc. Those are all moving parts. Those are all just in the doors.

[jeffreyrogers]

There's a lot more to a car than just the engine. Power transmission, brakes, power steering, heating/cooling, etc. All of those have moving parts. There are likely hundreds of parts suppliers just for those subsystems. Yeah, the engine of an ICE car is more complicated than an electric car[0], but there is a lot more that has to be supplied an integrated.