Batteries, Skateboards & Software: Everything Else Is Just A Metal Box and Sub-Assemblies

[Coast2Coast]

Here's a couple of recent news stories just out: CATL, China's biggest battery maker, reveals its new chemistry for million mile batteries plus its next five year's development projects, and a former Audi exec talks about how it's all software now, and most legacy auto companies just don't get it. I won't add links to the numerous stories on Rivian's skateboard architecture; we have RJ and many others talking about the skateboard.

Put the three threads together and you have a new way of thinking about transportation and the automobile industry, in particular. The implication is obvious. Legacy auto makers are having a heck of a time, and their difficulties developing new vehicles based on electrification, autonomous driving, connectivity and infotainment will continue. It's all new knowledge, and it's all software driven. Yes, hardware has to do what it's supposed to do, but it's software that tells the hardware what to do and when it's doing it right and when it's doing it wrong.

The former Audi exec credits Tesla with showing the way. Tesla's atypical reliance on vertical integration allowed it to innovate rapidly and to put software first, as the driver of everything else. That makes sense given Tesla's Silicon Valley roots.

Rivian is not a Silicon Valley firm. We don't yet know how this will impact Rivian and its vehicle development strategy. Obviously a huge amount of effort has gone into the skateboard architecture and its multiple, interlinked systems, and there's been a tremendous investment in the software systems driving the skateboard and battery management. But we don't know a lot about these software systems and, to use the former Audi exec's paradigm, the degree to which software came first in their development. I'm not an engineer or a chemist or even an auto buff. But it seems like we're entering a Brave New World as far as transportation is concerned, and being a legacy in the auto industry seems more of a disadvantage than advantage.

Finally, there's a Brave New World of batteries and CATL, the largest battery company in China and, therefore, the world, is one of the leaders. Last week, it announced it's 'million mile battery', that's 10% more expensive to make than the current generation lithium ion batteries, but it lasts ten times longer. Pretty amazing. And it was noteworthy CATL made its announcement independent of Tesla. Later breaking stories say CATL's million mile battery is not what it has been working on with Tesla. No doubt other battery majors, BYD, LG Chem, Samsung SDI, Panasonic and more, will be hot on CATL's heels.

Maybe you're not as impressed as I am by these stories. The hundred year old auto industry, firmly rooted in hardware engineering and development, is being stood on its head by upstarts, like Tesla, CATL and, hopefully, Rivian.

https://insideevs.com/news/428508/catl-2-million-km-battery-not-tesla/amp/

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/1...tens-former-head-of-audi-rd-we-all-did-sleep/

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[ElectricTrucking]

Too much research for my future. I'm burnt out on all of these scenarios. If Rivian doesn't work for me I'll move on. I don't have decades to finally think I'm there.

 

[DucRider]

Rivian has offices in Silicon Valley (San Jose, Palo Alto), and they are very much aware of the software driven nature of EVs. One example is found in the "smart" batteries that adapt to user behavior and usage patterns.

 

[Coast2Coast]

This is a matter of paradigms. Obviously, any company in the auto business must master hardware and software to varying degrees, but as the former Audi exec declares, it's difficult for a mainstream, legacy company in the auto business to understand the extent to which software has become critical to vehicle development today. It's not just electrification, it's also autonomous driving, connectivity, infotainment and more.

As the former Audi guy suggests, it makes a difference whether a company is adding a bunch of software engineering after the fact or whether a company builds its software capabilities internally, from the ground up. Is software brought in to bolster, support and enable hardware, the old school way, or is software engineering the leaven from which everything else rises?

We might call this the Silicon Valley way although this is an oversimplification. (I lived in Palo Alto/Menlo Park and worked in San Jose for thirty years.) Remember the top Apple exec didn't last too long at Rivian though we don't know the reasons why he left.

Rivian is unknown in this regard - the hardware/software divide. Its CEO did a Ph.D. in Automotive Engineering at MIT, its headquarters is in Plymouth, Michigan, the heartland of the auto industry in the U.S., its factory is in Normal, Illinois, along the main corridor of assemblers and suppliers in the U.S., and many, if not most of its hires, come with traditional auto industry backgrounds. All of that looks old school.

Its skateboard, including batteries, motors, suspension, brakes and steering, doesn't look old school, but do we know enough to say whether its a hardware-first or a software-first driven platform? I don't believe so. That's not saying a tremendous amount of software development hasn't been done and will continue to be done.

The former Audi exec suggested much of Tesla's success likely rests on not being beholding to the auto industry legacy in terms of how vehicles are designed, developed and made. Tesla is very unusual in its high degree of vertical integration - doing everything itself, instead of relying on suppliers. The former Audi guy claims Tesla's speed of innovation and the rest of the industry's slowness in following suit/catching up pivots on a new paradigm - that software comes first and everything else follows, and the software is done in-house.

I don't know enough and maybe none of us not working for Rivian know enough to make the call. But it's a critical query into how Rivian was set up and runs.

The battery article on CATL's million mile battery isn't really an old paradigm vs new paradigm matter, but it highlights the extent to which all of the tried and true knowledge about propulsion, drivetrains, energy efficiency and losses - almost all the stuff we thought we knew about powering vehicles - is no longer so applicable.

So, is Rivian an old school or new school firm and, by that, in the spirit of this thread, is Rivian a hardware-first or software-first/old knowledge or new knowledge firm? If I knew enough, I could likely pose the question as something other than an either/or. Obviously, a blend of hardware and software, old and new is required today, but that still doesn't answer the question of the driving force, the molten energy, the core capabilities from which everything else follows.

I like to think Rivian is new school or at least enough new school that its location and legacy knowledge/knowhow don't prevent it from performing well in the new auto paradigm's ferment and flux.

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