I think people are surprised at how many chips are in a car — basically every option has its own chip. If you don’t order the car with that option, then you don’t get the chip.
Tesla did something that would seem normal to most non-automotive engineers—they just made one chip to run all the functions (not exactly accurate, but close enough for this discussion). But that is heretical to how automotive came to be.
Power windows would include what they needed in the feature. You don’t put a big cpu in the car just in case someone ordered power windows. Same with door locks. And each electrical thing that got tacked on over the years/decades.
Cars should have bitten the bullet much earlier in consolidation. Still not there yet for most.
A huge save Tesla's architecture can have is in cables. It seems silly, but that amount of automotive-grade cables sums up to the cost of the different electronic units.
Doesn't surprise me at all they didn't implemented that before Tesla knowing how problematic are electronic and software in plenty of ICE cars.
Tesla did something that would seem normal to most non-automotive engineers—they just made one chip to run all the functions (not exactly accurate, but close enough for this discussion). But that is heretical to how automotive came to be.
Power windows would include what they needed in the feature. You don’t put a big cpu in the car just in case someone ordered power windows. Same with door locks. And each electrical thing that got tacked on over the years/decades.
Cars should have bitten the bullet much earlier in consolidation. Still not there yet for most.