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Originally Posted by Dbone
Saying the legacy automakers don't understand software sounds like something Tesla sales people would try to have you believe.
Most cars are drive by wire, most have electric steering assist. All have ABS, traction control, stability control. Most have parking sensors, and a whole suit of other sensors to manage. Sure, GUI design probably isn't so great, and perhaps battery management is something that requires a good amount of R+D, but the systems that drive and manage a car are not really that different.
Back to Fisker, I've heard they have paused production and are scrambling to setup a dealer network. I personally wouldn't put down any money on one as they may well go bust (again).
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If you check on how legacy automakers make their vehicle software, you'd understand the difference between them vs. Tesla.
They are basically putting things together. Much like you have a windows PC, and you can gather different parts, as long as those parts are made to be Windows-compatible, they are able to work with. Nowadays is mostly GENIVI framework I believe.
Legacy carmakers don't care about how efficient or how well something work. That's why they all rely of 3rd parties to do their stuff and as long as they are within the GENIVI framework, they work. But to work =/= work well. There are tens if not over 100 ECUs to control various aspects of the vehicle.
This is where cars like Fisker Ocean have so many problems. Each ECU work on their own to control a particular part of the car. They don't talk to each other. And when there's a conflict between what's going on, it's each to their own.
Tesla, on the other hand, works on a different architecture. They have this domain concept that splits the vehicle E/E into 3 large sectors. Each with their own management and safety things like redundancy and whatnot and instead of tens of ECUs, a single DCU takes on multiple functions.
To make it simple in programming terms, the level between what legacy automakers and Tesla or even Rivian are doing is like someone who learn how to write a code to show a popup of "Hello World" vs. a full OS system. They are on a whole different level of complexity and require different types of expertise.
Tesla didn't get there in one day. But they knew from the moment they were making Model S that this was the way to go and put their effort on.