“Toyota Motor and Volkswagen each sell 10 million cars, give or take, every year. Tesla delivered about 367,500 in 2019. But when it comes to electronics technology, Elon Musk’s scrappy company is far ahead of the industry giants.
This is the takeaway from Nikkei Business Publications’ teardown of the Model 3, the most affordable car in the U.S. automaker’s all-electric lineup, starting at about $33,000.
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.
One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, “We cannot do it.”…”