Tesla ‘six years ahead of Toyota and VW’ for electronics

Tesla is “six years ahead of Toyota and VW” when it comes to electronics, according to Nikkei Business Publication

s after taking apart a Tesla Model 3.

“What stands out most is Tesla’s integrated central control unit, or ‘full self-driving computer’. Also known as Hardware 3, this little piece of tech is the company’s biggest weapon in the burgeoning EV market. It could end the auto industry supply chain as we know it,” the Japanese media outlet says.

Engineers from Japanese automakers were apparently also involved.

An engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, “We cannot do it”, Electrek

reports.

The full self-driving computer they are talking about was released in April 2019.

When Tesla launched the new system that powers its Autopilot and other advanced features it claimed the computer could perform 144 trillion operations a second, manage 2300 frames per second, and all while using less power.

Nikkei believes such computers won’t come to competitors until 2025.

“This kind of electronic platform, with a powerful computer at its core, holds the key to handling heavy data loads in tomorrow’s smarter, more autonomous cars. Industry insiders expect such technology to take hold around 2025 at the earliest.”

The report suggests other automakers worry that computers like Tesla’s will make the parts supply chains they have developed obsolete, reducing the electronic control units (ECUs).