Featured 6 year lead on EV Computers

Offering SELF-DRIVING has nothing to do with being an EV.

So, the claim of "ahead" is very misleading.

 

This article is about the computer, but other tear downs have concluded Tesla is ahead in other areas of EV, by 5 to 10 years.

Sandy Munro - “They’ve got magic,” he says. “The electric motor is smaller and lighter than everybody else, but outperforms everybody.”
Auto Expert: Model 3 teardown proves Tesla's 'got magic' beneath the s | EVANNEX Aftermarket Tesla Accessories
It is also cheaper.

Munro Talks Tesla Model 3 Motor Magic And Profit Potential

Auto Industry Expert In Lean Design, Sandy Munro, Gushes Over Tesla In New Video | CleanTechnica

Munro's company has a blog.
Tesla | Munro & Associates, Inc.

There is a Jalopnik article raving over the Model 3's coolant bottle.

 

There is still a chance to close the gap as GM, BMW, Volkswagen, and Toyota are really big and could if they felt it was to their advantage throw enough money at it to catch up. They just do not feel it is to their advantage at the moment.

 

Tesla has done so much it's hard to cover it all in just one article... Mostly I'm really happy to see so many comments and links talking about what they're doing. Seems we've really turned the corner on everyone talking about what Tesla has done wrong/trolling them. And now we're just talking about what they're doing and there's a lot to talk about.

 

Money helps, but it isn't a panacea. Development and retooling does have a time factor, and they might have to contend with Tesla's patents.

Even when they catch up to Tesla, there will still be the Supercharger advantage.

 

Well EA after dieselgate is building charge stations faster than Tesla for the moment. You would be right to say that even then Tesla has an advantage as they can use superchargers and EA ableit only with a 50kw adapter slowing them down.

 

Snapshot February 17, 2020, comparing Electrify America CCS-1 versus Tesla Supercharger:

Electrify America has lots of empty spaces to fill in the USA. Near as I can tell, they're not doing anything outside of the USA and Canada.

In contrast, this is a North American map of Superchargers. Not shown are the European and Asian Superchargers:

A new Supercharger is coming online in Lowell AR that will connect Little Rock AR to Joplin MO and Tulsa OK. This will allow a Supercharger route between our home in Huntsville AL and Coffeyville KS where my Mom lives. Before the best route included staying overnight at a motel with a Tesla distribution charger.

Bob Wilson

 

So presumably as these real estate investments / EV charging infrastructure go up in value, does that mean that real estate value in fossil fuel stations starts to go down?

Meanwhile the political polarization of electric cars vs gasoline/diesal as a way of life has meant gas stations are not organizing in any meaningful regardinga transition. So much so that only in 2020 the first gas station has gone on record in converting from fuel pumps to charging stations: Gas station ditched oil to become the first EV charging station in US - Business Insider

 

These fast DC chargers are more for transit EVs. Their value is supporting cross country travel by either Tesla or non-Tesla EVs.

There are two sets of L2 level chargers not shown: (1) NEMA 14-50 / NEMA 14-30 chargers at RV parks, and (2) NEMA 14-30 chargers at some truck stops in the "Shorepower" network. I've used the Shorepower units at Ozark AR and Cornersville TN.

Bob Wilson

 

The gas retailers are seeing the handwriting on the wall.
Fuel-retail chains are visiting Norway to ponder a future when gas stations don’t exist - Electrek

 

Not mentioned in the article is the Model 3, ~1.5 km of internal wiring. Given the 'spider web' of a GM sketch on a recent Autoline After Hours, this reduction in length and connectors is industry leading. Better still, the Model Y wiring is designed to be ~0.1 km. This order of magnitude reduction not only saves material but makes wiring installation much easier and possibly something a robot can do.

Still, the custom AI chips are impressive:

Each chip performs up to 72 trillion operations per second (or TOPS), and the system, as a whole, is capable of analyzing 2,100 frames of video each second, which is 21 times faster than previous-generation hardware, says Tesla. (Tesla’s new AI chip isn’t a silver bullet for self-driving cars - The Verge)​

Recently we learned that Tesla has been recoding the software into hardware specific code versus slower interpretive code. My experience has been this alone will give a 10-20 times performance boost. So a combination of hardware and software elevates this Tesla system to a substantial lead over existing systems. Combined with ~3 orders of magnitude (and growing) data from the Tesla fleet, the lead keeps growing.

Bob Wilson

 

It has been almost 3 years for @Prius Team .

I wanted to circle back to them about an event Toyota put on out in Northern California 3 years ago, but never circled back.

Oh well.

 

Yes, that may be true, but it's kind of hard to catch up when you're driving on a different road.

"Lets ask our supplier to make a new thingamajig that's just as good as Tesla's. Let's put that in the next generation model."

"Let's find a way to make the car better, even if we have to reinvent the thingamagic ourselves. Let's put it in the current model right away."​

 

If Tesla competitors ever catch up, Tesla will still be six years ahead