[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.

[nwienert]

This isn't reddit, don't just make assertions. Give it an honest try.

[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.