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Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain. The number of parts/unit di

Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain. The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude and so does the size and weight, not to mention manufacturing techniques and materials. These are capabilities, not so much skills, and they aren't as transferable as you may think. For instance, logistically things are very different in the automotive space. Many, many more people are required to ship a single unit. You also have many more variables that can hold up a production line anywhere in the hierarchy because you rely on more 3rd parties for parts. While these things are also true of consumer electronics, you may rely on a dozen suppliers for an iPhone, car companies often rely on hundreds. Materials are also very different in the automotive space. You have to build with materials that will last 100k miles driving a 80mph in all weather, day/night, freezing/scorching etc etc. It is a very long tail to cover. Apple can do it, but it will take years and many, many partners to get it done.

natch 6y ago
The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One. Made in house from raw materials. Rolls of steel, copper, and aluminum. It’s also considered a single part for manufacturing and servicing purposes. So not simply one moving part. One part, period. >The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude >car companies often rely on hundreds of suppliers See above. You must be thinking of ICE cars. >aren’t as transferable as you may think Other than pulling a few things off the shelf like tires, windshields, and wheels (and more; those are just a few examples) the manufacturer of my car stated from scratch. Prodigiously hard for sure but Apple is good at hard. >will last 100k miles Try one million. >will take years Again Apple excels at this. The real problem for Apple is having Tesla as a competitor. They are used to competing with Google, but it’s easy to compete with lame. Tesla is not lame, by a long stretch.
- foxtr0t 6y ago
  I was waiting for the Muskians to swoop in and spread their nonsense. Guess what? I drive a white model 3 long range AWD and I love it. I'm still 1: an engineer with 10 years of hardware experience and 2: skeptical of every ounce of BS Elon Musk has ever spread. You know how many parts are under the car? Have you taken one apart? They're complicated machines with, again, orders of magnitude more parts than a phone. Forget ICE vehicles, we're just talking about EVs and iPhones. You don't think Tesla relies on thousands of suppliers? Who do you think makes the screens, wiring hardness, cameras, brakes, glass, acoustic devices, steering, battery temp management, motorized seats, etc etc. And who do you think supplies their parts? And theirs? And so on and so forth. Its a complicated web of suppliers and manufacturers, much more so than what goes into a single iPhone (which is still very complicated). This is why a Tesla costs 35k+ and an iPhone costs ~1k. There are more parts that are more complicated and manufacturing them takes more time, effort, and people. Elon may have a magic car printer in his wet dreams but that won't happen in reality for four, five, or six decades. Also, nobody, I repeat, absolutely nobody is holding their breath for you to hit 1m miles in your Tesla. Currently they don't even have a story for repair and so many parts are fused that if something breaks you can't replace it. The car is totaled. I recommend you watch all of the early Rich Rebuilds on YouTube if you really want to understand some of the nitty gritty details of these vehicles. Yes they are simpler than a normal ICE. By an order of magnitude? Certainly not. Progress is made at the margins, in increments of 1% then 5% then 10% then 15%. Not 1000% in one swoop. EDIT: clarification
  - Reason077 6y ago
    The Tesla Model S is not an ideal example here. It’s a great car, but also Tesla’s first mass produced model. It’s over-engineered in many ways and has way more parts and complexity than if Tesla were designing the same car today! Comparing the Model S to the Model 3, and now the Model Y, we see with each generation simpler designs, reduced part counts, and easier assembly which all translates into improved reliability and, often, repairability. Sandy Munro’s Tesla tear downs are a great reference for this stuff.
    - foxtr0t 6y ago
      Agreed 100%. Though even Sandy's conclusions are that they're saving at the margins here. It is revolutionary in the sense that they're design and manufacturing techniques are unique, but they don't lead to orders of magnitude reduction in complexity/cost.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Hm... but a phone is orders of magnitude harder to build than a car (minus the computer). Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers. Cars use many more off the shelf parts, they have far easier supply chains to tap into. Designing and building the CPU, GPU, camera systems, neural chip/software, touchscreen, FaceID, etc. All of these components require way more competence to build than any single part of an electric car using an off the shelf computer. Cars have more parts, but they are dramatically bigger, less intensely complex, less intensely integrated. Just the CPU alone of a phone puts an entire electric engine to shame in terms of difficulty of engineering. So it’s an interesting comparison. But I’d put money on Apple making a great car before Tesla made a great computer.
    - easde 6y ago
      > Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers. Tesla has shipped their custom SoC in every new car since April 2019.
      - nwienert 6y ago
- vel0city 6y ago
  The above poster was talking about the entire car not just the motor. Sure, the motor is far simpler than an ICE. But there's still a cooling system, with pumps and hoses and heat exchangers. Those are all parts. There's still seats, with sensors and motors and mounting rails. There are steering assemblies, with linkages and actuators for power steering. There's the whole infotainment system, which contains just as many parts if not more as an iPhone would have. So when comparing the idea of a car having an order of magnitude more parts and complicated supply chains its still true even with an electric car.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  There's a lot more to a car than just the engine. Power transmission, brakes, power steering, heating/cooling, etc. All of those have moving parts. There are likely hundreds of parts suppliers just for those subsystems. Yeah, the engine of an ICE car is more complicated than an electric car[0], but there is a lot more that has to be supplied an integrated.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One. Your electric car has doors. The doors have hinges, latches, interior handles, exterior handles, locks, lock switches, power window motors, power window switches, power mirror motors, power mirror switches, etc. Those are all moving parts. Those are all just in the doors.
iamgopal 6y ago
If Apple can get most of their parts made by direct competitor, same can be true for car components supply chains. Most if not all, top components suppliers, can become part of apple supply chain. Apple just need to become designer company. There is plenty of tech outside Tesla, and when investment become distributed much larger capital can be employed.
tuatoru 6y ago
The regulatory differences are also huge. Apple has negliglible experience dealing with the raft of certifications and demonstrations of compliance that car manufacturers have to go through.
- iancmceachern 6y ago
  They have been working in a similar highly regulated space (medical devices) for years.
  - vel0city 6y ago
    You're talking about the Apple Watch, right? That's peanuts of regulatory compliance stuff compared to the amount of regulations related to building a car in the US market. The FDA requires this big fat disclaimer: > The ECG app is intended for over-the-counter (OTC)use. The ECG data displayed by the ECG app is intended for informational use only. The user is not intended to interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. The ECG waveform is meant to supplement rhythm classification for the purposes of discriminating AFib from normal sinus rhythm and not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf18/DEN180044.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf18/DEN180044.pdf
    - ska 6y ago
      That's not a disclaimer. That's (part of) the indications for use, which is a term of art. These are inherently narrowing statements, and they are in place to constrain what the company can market a device as, and gives the FDA a stick to beat you with if you aren't careful about this. If you follow the submission you'll also see they were granted approval to market as a de-novo filing as a class II device, so it's not as much work as a PMA but the regulatory work is not peanuts. Since then they have self-predicated for a 510(k) on a newer version. Even for a smallish software only project like this, it means they had to set up all the basic infrastructure and have it audited. They also wrote a ton of formal engineering process documentation, a full design history file, etc. These skills at least are pretty transferable.
agumonkey 6y ago
Are you sure an EV is still that much more complex in terms of part count from a phone ? An ICE I would agree.
- foxtr0t 6y ago
  If you're asking this question seriously, I have to ask a clarification question: what are we actually talking about? Are we comparing just certain aspects of production of the whole thing? If you think about this from an engineering perspective for even 30 seconds there are so many differences that come to mind. - Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone - Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone - iPhones don't need to drive themselves - iPhones don't need to pass crash tests - Brakes don't exist on iPhones - Suspension does not exist on iPhones - iPhones don't propel themselves at 100 mph - iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car - Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones - Lights - ... I'm sort of dumbfounded by the level of conversation here given this is HN and the reputation is one of very thoughtful discourse on current events relating to technology and engineering. EDIT: line breaks, looks like I'm further contributing to the downward spiral here.
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    > Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone. > Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone Also, not really true if you look at the range of temperature and conditions an iPhone is rated for. (Including water resistance. Mine went through a washing machine cycle and came out fine.) > iPhones don't need to pass crash tests iPhones protected highly delicate components against hard impact on concrete. That requires similar engineering delicacy as protecting human meat in car crashes. > Brakes... suspension The complexity of the accelerometers and camera systems deal with similar engineering challenges of the same quality. > iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car Does weighing less make something harder to engineer? If anything making complex machines that are feather-weight seems more challenging. Certainly you'd acknowledge that smartphones are harder to build than mainframes, even though the latter is an order of magnitude heavier. > Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones This is true. But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers. Apple has plenty of cash to hire lawyers. Certainly much more than GM. > Lights iPhones definitely have lights.
m-ee 6y ago
I've worked with ex Apple supply chain people, and they were very used to operating at massive scale and the leverage that came with it. This led to some some unhappy suppliers some of which walked because they felt we were being too demanding. I don't want to overgeneralize, some of the issue was likely the culture of this particular team, but I could definitely see growing pains as they move into a new vertical with suppliers they can't push around as much. There's a lot more to it than "Apple is good GSM"
- rrdharan 6y ago
  What’s funny is everyone (including Microsoft) was saying all this same stuff about Apple in 2006 and early 2007 when it became clear they were going to move into phones.
- the_arun 6y ago
  We need smart electric appliances from Apple at home - lights, washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc.,. We'll be controlled by Apple wherever we go :) Apple eyewear could even track how many times we flip our eyelids.
  - crucialfelix 6y ago
    But if they dare to try to start a record label then Yoko Ono will put a quick stop to that.
  - nomeddie 6y ago
    Let's hope Siri will evolve better than the auto correct on iOS in this instance to interface to all these appliances.
  - mamp 6y ago
    The point is that they don’t need to. They are not selling advertising, they are selling privacy as a service. E.g. Apple maps breaks apart your journey on their side so they can’t reconstruct your journey from a to b.
    - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fn1 6y ago
> The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude For reference, a single car has about 30,000 parts, built by dozens of suppliers.
coldtea 6y ago
>Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” (Palm CEO Ed Colligan, regarding Apple’s prospects in the mobile phone market)
- discreteevent 6y ago
  Apple worked with Motorola to figure out how to do it.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    I don't think so. Apple had ditched Motorola for cpus for 2 years by the time the iPhone came out. Motorola had no clue about Apple making a phone, and Apple wasn't getting phone-making knowledge from them. If you mean about before, their single phone collaboration with Motorola was just a 100% Motorola phone design running an Apple-provided music player part. Motorola didn't collaborate with Apple on the design of that phone or anything, Apple didn't get any IP or copied any elements, and nor was the iPhone anything like it.

natch 6y ago

The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One. Made in house from raw materials. Rolls of steel, copper, and aluminum. It’s also considered a single part for manufacturing and servicing purposes. So not simply one moving part. One part, period. >The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude >car companies often rely on hundreds of suppliers See above. You must be thinking of ICE cars. >aren’t as transferable as you may think Other than pulling a few things off the shelf like tires, windshields, and wheels (and more; those are just a few examples) the manufacturer of my car stated from scratch. Prodigiously hard for sure but Apple is good at hard. >will last 100k miles Try one million. >will take years Again Apple excels at this. The real problem for Apple is having Tesla as a competitor. They are used to competing with Google, but it’s easy to compete with lame. Tesla is not lame, by a long stretch.

foxtr0t 6y ago
I was waiting for the Muskians to swoop in and spread their nonsense. Guess what? I drive a white model 3 long range AWD and I love it. I'm still 1: an engineer with 10 years of hardware experience and 2: skeptical of every ounce of BS Elon Musk has ever spread. You know how many parts are under the car? Have you taken one apart? They're complicated machines with, again, orders of magnitude more parts than a phone. Forget ICE vehicles, we're just talking about EVs and iPhones. You don't think Tesla relies on thousands of suppliers? Who do you think makes the screens, wiring hardness, cameras, brakes, glass, acoustic devices, steering, battery temp management, motorized seats, etc etc. And who do you think supplies their parts? And theirs? And so on and so forth. Its a complicated web of suppliers and manufacturers, much more so than what goes into a single iPhone (which is still very complicated). This is why a Tesla costs 35k+ and an iPhone costs ~1k. There are more parts that are more complicated and manufacturing them takes more time, effort, and people. Elon may have a magic car printer in his wet dreams but that won't happen in reality for four, five, or six decades. Also, nobody, I repeat, absolutely nobody is holding their breath for you to hit 1m miles in your Tesla. Currently they don't even have a story for repair and so many parts are fused that if something breaks you can't replace it. The car is totaled. I recommend you watch all of the early Rich Rebuilds on YouTube if you really want to understand some of the nitty gritty details of these vehicles. Yes they are simpler than a normal ICE. By an order of magnitude? Certainly not. Progress is made at the margins, in increments of 1% then 5% then 10% then 15%. Not 1000% in one swoop. EDIT: clarification
- Reason077 6y ago
  The Tesla Model S is not an ideal example here. It’s a great car, but also Tesla’s first mass produced model. It’s over-engineered in many ways and has way more parts and complexity than if Tesla were designing the same car today! Comparing the Model S to the Model 3, and now the Model Y, we see with each generation simpler designs, reduced part counts, and easier assembly which all translates into improved reliability and, often, repairability. Sandy Munro’s Tesla tear downs are a great reference for this stuff.
  - foxtr0t 6y ago
    Agreed 100%. Though even Sandy's conclusions are that they're saving at the margins here. It is revolutionary in the sense that they're design and manufacturing techniques are unique, but they don't lead to orders of magnitude reduction in complexity/cost.
- nwienert 6y ago
  Hm... but a phone is orders of magnitude harder to build than a car (minus the computer). Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers. Cars use many more off the shelf parts, they have far easier supply chains to tap into. Designing and building the CPU, GPU, camera systems, neural chip/software, touchscreen, FaceID, etc. All of these components require way more competence to build than any single part of an electric car using an off the shelf computer. Cars have more parts, but they are dramatically bigger, less intensely complex, less intensely integrated. Just the CPU alone of a phone puts an entire electric engine to shame in terms of difficulty of engineering. So it’s an interesting comparison. But I’d put money on Apple making a great car before Tesla made a great computer.
  - easde 6y ago
    > Keep in mind, Tesla didn’t design or build the computers. Tesla has shipped their custom SoC in every new car since April 2019.
    - nwienert 6y ago
vel0city 6y ago
The above poster was talking about the entire car not just the motor. Sure, the motor is far simpler than an ICE. But there's still a cooling system, with pumps and hoses and heat exchangers. Those are all parts. There's still seats, with sensors and motors and mounting rails. There are steering assemblies, with linkages and actuators for power steering. There's the whole infotainment system, which contains just as many parts if not more as an iPhone would have. So when comparing the idea of a car having an order of magnitude more parts and complicated supply chains its still true even with an electric car.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
There's a lot more to a car than just the engine. Power transmission, brakes, power steering, heating/cooling, etc. All of those have moving parts. There are likely hundreds of parts suppliers just for those subsystems. Yeah, the engine of an ICE car is more complicated than an electric car[0], but there is a lot more that has to be supplied an integrated.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> The engine of my electric car has one moving part. One. Your electric car has doors. The doors have hinges, latches, interior handles, exterior handles, locks, lock switches, power window motors, power window switches, power mirror motors, power mirror switches, etc. Those are all moving parts. Those are all just in the doors.

iamgopal 6y ago

If Apple can get most of their parts made by direct competitor, same can be true for car components supply chains. Most if not all, top components suppliers, can become part of apple supply chain. Apple just need to become designer company. There is plenty of tech outside Tesla, and when investment become distributed much larger capital can be employed.

tuatoru 6y ago

The regulatory differences are also huge. Apple has negliglible experience dealing with the raft of certifications and demonstrations of compliance that car manufacturers have to go through.

iancmceachern 6y ago
They have been working in a similar highly regulated space (medical devices) for years.
- vel0city 6y ago
  You're talking about the Apple Watch, right? That's peanuts of regulatory compliance stuff compared to the amount of regulations related to building a car in the US market. The FDA requires this big fat disclaimer: > The ECG app is intended for over-the-counter (OTC)use. The ECG data displayed by the ECG app is intended for informational use only. The user is not intended to interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. The ECG waveform is meant to supplement rhythm classification for the purposes of discriminating AFib from normal sinus rhythm and not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf18/DEN180044.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf18/DEN180044.pdf
  - ska 6y ago
    That's not a disclaimer. That's (part of) the indications for use, which is a term of art. These are inherently narrowing statements, and they are in place to constrain what the company can market a device as, and gives the FDA a stick to beat you with if you aren't careful about this. If you follow the submission you'll also see they were granted approval to market as a de-novo filing as a class II device, so it's not as much work as a PMA but the regulatory work is not peanuts. Since then they have self-predicated for a 510(k) on a newer version. Even for a smallish software only project like this, it means they had to set up all the basic infrastructure and have it audited. They also wrote a ton of formal engineering process documentation, a full design history file, etc. These skills at least are pretty transferable.

agumonkey 6y ago

Are you sure an EV is still that much more complex in terms of part count from a phone ? An ICE I would agree.

foxtr0t 6y ago
If you're asking this question seriously, I have to ask a clarification question: what are we actually talking about? Are we comparing just certain aspects of production of the whole thing? If you think about this from an engineering perspective for even 30 seconds there are so many differences that come to mind. - Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone - Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone - iPhones don't need to drive themselves - iPhones don't need to pass crash tests - Brakes don't exist on iPhones - Suspension does not exist on iPhones - iPhones don't propel themselves at 100 mph - iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car - Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones - Lights - ... I'm sort of dumbfounded by the level of conversation here given this is HN and the reputation is one of very thoughtful discourse on current events relating to technology and engineering. EDIT: line breaks, looks like I'm further contributing to the downward spiral here.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  > Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone. > Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone Also, not really true if you look at the range of temperature and conditions an iPhone is rated for. (Including water resistance. Mine went through a washing machine cycle and came out fine.) > iPhones don't need to pass crash tests iPhones protected highly delicate components against hard impact on concrete. That requires similar engineering delicacy as protecting human meat in car crashes. > Brakes... suspension The complexity of the accelerometers and camera systems deal with similar engineering challenges of the same quality. > iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car Does weighing less make something harder to engineer? If anything making complex machines that are feather-weight seems more challenging. Certainly you'd acknowledge that smartphones are harder to build than mainframes, even though the latter is an order of magnitude heavier. > Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones This is true. But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers. Apple has plenty of cash to hire lawyers. Certainly much more than GM. > Lights iPhones definitely have lights.

m-ee 6y ago

I've worked with ex Apple supply chain people, and they were very used to operating at massive scale and the leverage that came with it. This led to some some unhappy suppliers some of which walked because they felt we were being too demanding. I don't want to overgeneralize, some of the issue was likely the culture of this particular team, but I could definitely see growing pains as they move into a new vertical with suppliers they can't push around as much. There's a lot more to it than "Apple is good GSM"

rrdharan 6y ago
What’s funny is everyone (including Microsoft) was saying all this same stuff about Apple in 2006 and early 2007 when it became clear they were going to move into phones.
the_arun 6y ago
We need smart electric appliances from Apple at home - lights, washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc.,. We'll be controlled by Apple wherever we go :) Apple eyewear could even track how many times we flip our eyelids.
- crucialfelix 6y ago
  But if they dare to try to start a record label then Yoko Ono will put a quick stop to that.
- nomeddie 6y ago
  Let's hope Siri will evolve better than the auto correct on iOS in this instance to interface to all these appliances.
- mamp 6y ago
  The point is that they don’t need to. They are not selling advertising, they are selling privacy as a service. E.g. Apple maps breaks apart your journey on their side so they can’t reconstruct your journey from a to b.
  - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fn1 6y ago

> The number of parts/unit differs by an order of magnitude For reference, a single car has about 30,000 parts, built by dozens of suppliers.

coldtea 6y ago

>Despite becoming more similar in recent years, the cell phone supply chain is still very different than the automotive supply chain. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” (Palm CEO Ed Colligan, regarding Apple’s prospects in the mobile phone market)

discreteevent 6y ago
Apple worked with Motorola to figure out how to do it.
- coldtea 6y ago
  I don't think so. Apple had ditched Motorola for cpus for 2 years by the time the iPhone came out. Motorola had no clue about Apple making a phone, and Apple wasn't getting phone-making knowledge from them. If you mean about before, their single phone collaboration with Motorola was just a 100% Motorola phone design running an Apple-provided music player part. Motorola didn't collaborate with Apple on the design of that phone or anything, Apple didn't get any IP or copied any elements, and nor was the iPhone anything like it.