Last week, the company announced several products that will be used to improve the next generation of cars. These future cars will definitely be electric and increasingly autonomous.
The underlying technology has applications in emerging markets such as robotics, automated business, and even smart cities; because when you develop automated controls that can handle the complexities of driving on a public street, you have the foundation to automate almost anything.
This possibility is why other companies like Intel and Nvidia are pursuing this as well; it's not just the automotive market. This is an industrial revolution on an epic scale. Let's discuss that this week, and we'll close with my product of the week, the upcoming Cadillac, which could be more of a technology showcase than anything Tesla has.
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Today's cars are a mess
I grew up working on cars. My father had a shop when I was young and I worked for a very short time as an apprentice mechanic in a Jaguar shop.
There was a time - it must have been in the 1980s - when I was sitting on the curb in front of a hamburger stand, drinking soda. The two kids approached driving what looked like a late ' 60s Chevy and proceeded to demonstrate their ignorance. They said they knew a lot about cars - and didn't want a lecture from me - but wondered what the round thing on top of their engine was. It was an air filter, and it was all I could do not to be kind of snide about their "automotive expertise".
These days, finding that damn air purifier is a hell of a lot harder than it used to be. In due time, I could pretty much restore one. Now I open the hood, turn white, and then make an appointment with a mechanic. Just pulling off some of the cosmetic engine covers can be an exercise in advanced problem solving. You can have multiple networks and sensors all over the car. Fortunately, we don't have as many electric shorts as we did when I was young, because it will take divine intervention to find today.
Electric cars are better in some ways and worse in others. They tend to be simpler, but only a few of them are trained to work with high-voltage DC. Lithium-ion burns hot enough to melt aluminum.
I had an extended battery go up a few years ago on an electric bike and almost lost my house. The problem was that even though the battery was in a steel firebox, the company didn't specify the screws correctly, and the fire melted them, causing the containment to fail, and the bike tires caught fire. Luckily, I trained for fire fighting and I got it, but it still costs me almost $ 10K to repair smoke and fire damage.
While gas is arguably worse, more people know how to work with it, so if you have a car fire, chances are the people who show up will know how to deal with it. The chances are still, given how rare electric cars still are, that most rapid responders are not yet fully trained to work as electricians.
For example, you can't extinguish a fire in an electric car. Instead, focus on the cooling of the battery as long as the cascading failure of the cells do not stop. But even if the fire doesn't work, it can ignite again if there is a short one that heats the battery up to the combustion level. I have seen many electric cars that previously caught fire catch fire again hours later where they are stored. I've often thought it would be handy to have a "battery eject button", just like Star Trek can eject the warp core, so you can save the rest of the car if the battery goes up.
But the reason cars are a mess is they are rarely designed from scratch. It's a hot mess of technologies that range from a current to several decades old - that were mostly not designed to work together. These technologies are all smooshed into a body made by designers who focus more on aesthetics than ease of use, with one goal: to survive the warranty period.
Yes, and car companies make money by selling cars, and their sales channel makes money by servicing them, so the economy doesn't lead to sustainable models or even, apparently, an emphasis on loyalty.
Tesla
Tesla fiddled with fixing this. He did a lot of things right and a few things wrong.
First, Tesla cars are usually grounding structures. They have heavily armored batteries placed low in the car, which are safer and create a better turning experience than car designs that started with gas engines and were reimagined as electric cars. They are designed to be retrofitted, and Tesla, unlike other automakers, refurbishes and refurbishes its used cars for resale. It was even programs (I'm not sure if they still exist) that allowed them to upgrade their car rather than replace it, which arguably makes Tesla the best sustainable car manufacturer.
On the other hand, Tesla's quality control sucks; and they weld their car bodies together. These problems lead to their resulting in accidents that only lead to bodywork in more traditional cars. Tesla makes a brain of dead stupid things like calling its cruise control "Autopilot," resulting in behavior that has killed a number of Tesla owners - and their autopilot is nowhere near the best, dropping far back Cadillac in testing.
What kills me on autopilot is that when Musk and I were much younger, a story floated around about a guy who rented a house and asked about cruise control. He was told that it works like an autopilot. So he set up cruise control and went back to make himself a cup of coffee. It didn't end well.
You'd think anyone with Musk's intelligence would know they wouldn't call cruise control autopilot because people would be doing something like the guy in that motorhome and people keep doing crazy things like the dangerous use of the Tesla Autopilot:
This leads me to think Musk should be charged with reckless homicide to effectively promote this behavior with his schema naming function. I mean, if you know calling the autopilot cruise control will kill people and you do it anyway, there should be no consequences?
You may be wondering why I am worried. This is because Tesla are built like tanks, and mine and your car are probably not, which means that if one hits you, you probably are not going to survive, but the driver is sleeping in Tesla probably will.
Consumer reports have been trying to get Tesla to rename this feature for years. However, Musk says no because he prioritizes looking right past keeping Tesla drivers and the people who ride the roads with Teslas alive.
Qualcomm's approach to changing the game
Qualcomm, which imagined last week that he is becoming the smarter leader in the automotive space, has a much more comprehensive approach.
Working with BlackBerry (NoNX) and Google (Android), they are proposing to reimagine vehicle design with a unified, holistic approach to vehicle operational and entertainment segments. Android's entertainment components will have access to the platform's deep application base for security. The operating part of the car will use nX, arguably the most secure operating system in total production (used in nuclear power plants), ensuring that the car cannot be easily hacked.
In addition, Qualcomm advocates modularity and the path of modernization, which, if implemented, would lead to much more stable vehicles, which will more often be upgraded than replaced. This approach should significantly reduce the number of cars, dumps and landfills.
Finally, Qualcomm has demonstrated viable Layer 4 autonomous capabilities that should solve Tesla's problem by turning their autopilot into something that made the roads safer for Tesla drivers and those who pass them.
It is far back in time that we began the process to make the ground up for the redesign of these upcoming vehicles. Thus, the mechanical components of these cars were as easily replaceable as the electronics, but the Qualcomm company, in turn, and if it were me, starting next year, I would look at cars using its technology, how safer , greener and much more user-friendly. GM seems to be an inner track. I'm eyeing the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq, which should work and look better than Tesla - and be far less likely to kill you. I tend to think that not killing you should be a necessary feature of every car.
Packing up
We're about to go through some significant personal transportation changes, with personal flying vehicles advancing faster than the rules, electric cars moving from niche vehicles to the general market, and automotive building materials moving from metals to composites.
If existing car companies don't get their actions together, they could lose the market just like cell phone companies like Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Microsoft got slammed dunked by Apple. (By the way, Apple works on the car line.)
GM is clearly on the right track, and companies like Volvo, Audi and Mercedes are on the hunt - and don't forget, Ford's impressive Mustang Mach-E, or my very own Jaguar I-Pace. I feel that many of the existing car firms will not be around in about a decade and we will have many new companies as we move from owning a car to car services and our cars start driving us.
The future of the car is coming and it will change the relative status of every car company on the planet. I expect, as it is with the most massive violations, most of them will not survive. Those who understand that they need to switch to more electronics and accept sustainability and service models will come out just fine.
Cadillac Celestiq
My Heart is currently set on the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq, but the GM real showcase electric car will be the Cadillac Celestiq. The Celestiq is the sister car to the Lyriq and is not due until 2024. But it has some impressive, unique technology that should make it a showcase.
However, given that we have about three years until it appears, a lot can change in the market before Celestiq arrives. Along with Lyriq, it should showcase what Qualcomm presented last week at its event - which is why I'm covering it early.
It's not going to be a cheap date. A car showcase is rare. While the Lyriq's base price is $ 60K, the Celestiq starts at $ 90K. However, it should be competitively priced compared to German and Tesla alternatives in the same class, if not slightly cheaper.
The Celestiq will have both all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering, and if it has, as rumored, one engine per wheel, then it will be one of the first cars that can adjust the power of each wheel independently. Modern electric vehicles typically have two engines and by adjusting them, they can generally outperform their internal combustion engine (ICE) alternatives in snow, ice, and even sand. Performance is expected to be in line with the Tesla S, and if so, we could see some remarkable sub-3 second 0-60 times from this car as soon as it arrives.
This will be the first car I know that has a smart glass (once again, three years until it shows up, so it may not be one by then). Smart glass can be darkened electronically.
The range is expected to be between 300 and 400 miles, but they're talking about new battery technology on the CES that could push the top-end version of this car to a critical 500-mile range. It would be a game-changer for electricians, because 500 miles should cover the placement of high-speed chargers across the country by the time it comes in - and that would be better than enough for most of us today.
Cadillac currently has the best Level 2 " autonomous driving technology on the road (Tesla is a distant second), and it should get much better by 2024, when this car will probably first appear as a 2025 model.
Fast charging continues to improve, and this car is expected to have a revolutionary new battery that can safely charge faster. This will be crucial because Tesla has new batteries coming, and they look impressive on paper.
As the Mercedes MBUX Hyperscreen Dash is developed with Nvidia, and demonstrated at CES, the Celestiq will have a similar display, but I expect it to come from Qualcomm. A comparison of the two should better demonstrate how Qualcomm's approach and Nvidia's in-car displays competitively delay.
If you want to see what goes into electric cars, check out Celestiq. I think it looks less like a better Tesla S and more like a low-cost Mercedes Maybach, which makes 2024 quite interesting at the high end of the car market.
This Cadillac may be worth the wait - and because it's a model where high-end electric cars are likely to be by the middle of the decade, the Celestiq is my product of the week.