Tesla is very vertically integrated, so I suspect they can make the decision to rewrite software etc. internally and pivot quickly.

Most other automakers rely a lot more on suppliers, who in turn supply to multiple customers. It's a lot harder for a supplier that sells to many companies to swap chips and rewrite software and get that qualified by all their customers etc. Most of their customers wouldn't even be nimble enough to take that on even if a supplier wanted to do this.

That said, Tesla is still being hit by the semiconductor shortage. Just to a lesser extent.

 

These are the things that make me an Elon Musk fan. He's an innovator and a problem solver.

 

This article is from July. I thought it was interesting. Why haven't other automakers done the same thing?

Tesla: Finding A Solution to the Global Chip Shortage | Procurement & Supply Chain | Manufacturing Global

Why?
Because of a number of reasons:
1) Tesla is very vertically integrated, so they control their supply chain fairly tightly and have good visibility on it. So when they saw the potential for a shortage, they pivoted.
2) They have massive dev and eng staff, and move at the speed of Silicon Valley. They're quicker to pivot than most other companies.
3) They're largely computers on wheels, making updates faster/easier.
4) They don't have an expansive lineup.

 

Why?
Because of a number of reasons:
1) Tesla is very vertically integrated, so they control their supply chain fairly tightly and have good visibility on it. So when they saw the potential for a shortage, they pivoted.
2) They have massive dev and eng staff, and move at the speed of Silicon Valley. They're quicker to pivot than most other companies.
3) They're largely computers on wheels, making updates faster/easier.
4) They don't have an expansive lineup.

Could it also be that they have a risk tolerant culture where most traditional auto makes are conservative? Tesla doesn't seem to mind if there are glitches at the customers expense where traditional makes spend a lot more time designing and testing to ensure the customer has less problems.

 

Congratulations to Tesla for for finding a workaround for the global chip shortage. However, the story about what Musk did is complete and utter nonsense. Particularly mindblowing is the supposed difference between between a chip and a micro controller included in the report linked on the OP by 4gm. What that report calls a "chip" sounds more like a diode. Virtually any integrated circuit can be called a "chip." A diode is a discrete component.

The integrated circuits that Tesla had been using were clearly programmable. Otherwise, the engineers could not have replaced them with other programmable circuits. In fact, the programs would not have existed. Tesla vehicles would not have had the ability to be reprogrammed over-the-air.

The point of this whole fairy tale does not make sense. It does seem to have impressed a few people who know absolutely nothing about 21st Century electronics. But, that is a very low bar.

 

Congratulations to Tesla for for finding a workaround for the global chip shortage. However, the story about what Musk did is complete and utter nonsense. Particularly mindblowing is the supposed difference between between a chip and a micro controller included in the report linked on the OP by 4gm. What that report calls a "chip" sounds more like a diode. Virtually any integrated circuit can be called a "chip." A diode is a discrete component.

The integrated circuits that Tesla had been using were clearly programmable. Otherwise, the engineers could not have replaced them with other programmable circuits. In fact, the programs would not have existed. Tesla vehicles would not have had the ability to be reprogrammed over-the-air.

The point of this whole fairy tale does not make sense. It does seem to have impressed a few people who know absolutely nothing about 21st Century electronics. But, that is a very low bar.

Agree the article linked in the first post of the thread is written by someone who doesn't understand what's going on. The following quote from the Tesla Q2 earnings letter is a more accurate (although much shorter) description of what they actually did:

“Our team has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to react quickly and mitigate disruptions to manufacturing caused by semiconductor shortages. Our electrical and firmware engineering teams remain hard at work designing, developing, and validating 19 new variants of controllers in response to ongoing semiconductor shortages.”

 

Moving 200K vehicles over 3 months is not something GM or Ford would brag about.

 

Four years ago people doubted they could do 100k in a year.

 

Has anyone thought of using chocolate chips? Potato chips? Asking for a friend. Or maybe a fiend.

 

Fish and chips.

 

Ford’s Chip Shortage Is Improving Despite Ominous Headlines, CEO Says
The Drive.com
'Before things get better, they usually have to get worse. Jim Farley thinks we may be past that point.'

"First of all, the chip situation is getting better," Farley started. "It’s very opaque, because if you read the announcements about this production going down, or this plant being idle for two weeks, it’s hard to see. But for sure, our wholesale is improving for this quarter vs. second quarter."

The executive then zoomed in for more detail, discussing a fire at a plant owned by one of the automaker's suppliers, Renesas. He also mentioned how many of these plants are the automaker's only source of these components, and that when they go down in countries like Malaysia, which is experiencing a wave of Coronavirus infections right now, there's quite literally nowhere else to get them. "Nothing [in Malaysia] burned down," Farley clarified, "so once the labor gets back, they’ll start producing."

The biggest obstacle, though, lies with the primary source of automotive semiconductors, located in Taiwan. The business, TSMC, supplies 80 to 90 percent of the car and truck industry's chips, as Farley explains. However, automotive applications account for "only about four percent" of global semiconductor usage, according to the Ford CEO. It's a small part of the company's total business, but it's supposedly taken more seriously now. "They have absolutely ramped up production," he explained, "So we are seeing better availability, but it’s [still] not nearly what we need."

So the actual chip supply is slowly getting better, although Farley also spoke to the way auto manufacturers are structured that makes this situation worse for cars in particular. "Just-in-time" lean manufacturing works when you can control the supply of a component, he explained, but not when those supplies are coming from an outside company.

Shocking!

"When I talk to my peer at Cisco, who doesn’t have any manufacturing facilities—the only control they have over their output is through the supply chain. They said, 'let me get this right. You ran a just-in-time system for key electronic components? You had no buffer stock?'" As it turns out, the answer was yes. Unlike other companies outside the auto industry, Ford and many others ordered exactly what they needed and nothing else. When the well of chips ran dry, well, it was dry. "'Don’t you guys get it?'" Farley said, speaking in the shoes of a Cisco executive. "'We used to do that and it doesn’t work.'"

Having experienced this, Ford is now taking steps to rectify the situation, using engineering expertise to use more off-the-shelf chips and prepare for other possible shortages outside of just semiconductors. "We have cameras, we have communication 5G modules, we have software, we have so many other things that mean we have to manage our supply chain differently than worrying about alternators and water pumps," Farley said. He also confirmed that, in the case of the new F-150 Lightning, stockpiles are already being built to ensure that everything is ready for extended production of that vehicle. "We are absolutely learning a lot and actioning that immediately," Farley added.

For instance, speaking to the situation in Malaysia, he said Ford expected supply to be down, but now it's actually coming back up earlier than anticipated. "Even since we guided that, Malaysia has now come up, and we never expected that. So who knows?"

Would you like to know more?

 

Apologies for the multi-quotes. But there did seem to be a lot of good info in the interview.

This was just a small sample of a larger interview with Farley. Full info can be found here.

 

Curious how the shortage will affect the new Model S and X. They not only have all the regular microcontrollers and the Full Self-Driving Computer (two 260 mm² Samsung 14nm chips), but also AMD Navi 23 GPU, produced on TSMC 7nm, including 8 GB GDDR6 memory. There is a huge shortage on TSMC 7nm, affecting AMD CPUs, GPUs and APUs (including consoles) and many other products.

There are rumors that Tesla is moving FSD HW 4.0 to TSMC 7nm. That would be a huge upgrade, but also use TSMCs very strained 7nm production process. I hope they placed their orders in time.

 

Curious how the shortage will affect the new Model S and X. They not only have all the regular microcontrollers and the Full Self-Driving Computer (two 260 mm² Samsung 14nm chips), but also AMD Navi 23 GPU, produced on TSMC 7nm, including 8 GB GDDR6 memory. There is a huge shortage on TSMC 7nm, affecting AMD CPUs, GPUs and APUs (including consoles) and many other products.

There are rumors that Tesla is moving FSD HW 4.0 to TSMC 7nm. That would be a huge upgrade, but also use TSMCs very strained 7nm production process. I hope they placed their orders in time.

Yea, its while the damn PS5 is still impossible to get. HAHAHAH

 

I thought Tethla (say it like Duffy duck) had its own chip designs.. according to Sandy Monroe and didn’t need anyone for Chips…

were we lied to?

 

Sigh. It really is never ending with you at times.

Semi was delayed because of battery in-house production.

Truck is delayed because of plant construction delays.

Soooo... Yay for you.

The article in the first post is a great way to get around the chip problem. Can we just talk about that or shall you always go down this dumbass route of saying well they suck because of this but it's not related to anything we're talking about.

Nah, what's the fun in that.

Plus, Elon has praised over and over again the importance of getting EVs in people's hands so that's why they're building the cheaper ones for that purpose.

It's ok, he's no Barra so that's a shame.