Batteries are “by far the most expensive part of BEVs,” automotive industry analyst Egil Juliussen noted. “Supply chains are tricky.”
The big hitch in EV batteries is that there’s “so much new tech, new battery manufacturing, potential supply chain upheaval,” he said. However, he believes, “Apple will have a backup plan via China connections if the better technologies are not ready in time.”
Read More »What About EV Batteries?
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Rising economic nationalism is causing fissures in the global semiconductor supply chain. The rifts are threatening the IC market at a time of rapid growth, when it most needs to retain the collaborative and unified structure that has driven its expansion over several decades. As economic powers like China, the EU, and the United States move to militarize the global electronics supply chain to achieve their geopolitical objectives, companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. are caught in the fray. How TSMC and its competitors respond to these geopolitical pressures will determine whether the industry will continue to grow unhindered or enter a phase of extreme uncertainty and uneven product development.
Debates over the safety of autonomous vehicles boil down to one simple question: Is a machine driver safer than a human being?
Beliefs and convictions abound among both experts and lay people on the topic of robocars. Yet, today, no regulators, no carmakers, no AV startups, and no industry organizations appear ready to answer the $64 billion question with certainty.
Read More »Will Aurora ‘Do the Right Thing’?
by Bolaji Ojo
Intel Corp. and GlobalFoundries do not belong together. If there is any truth to the recent Wall Street Journal report that Intel is considering purchasing the contract chipmaker, the board of directors should snuff the life out of that bizarre idea. That’s because Intel’s long-term success lies in the opposite direction.
Rather than lead the consolidation of the foundry market, Intel should take the bolder step of spinning off Intel Foundry within the next year, freeing the foundry business to service customers across the globe and evolve to become a more competitive rival to market leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC).
A spinoff of Intel Foundry as an independent, publicly traded company has numerous attractions. The new enterprise would be able to raise the billions of dollars it needs to fund new fabs, expand operations globally, catch up to TSMC in next-generation process technology, and, critically, attract more customers. Data generated from customers across multiple markets is one of the secrets behind TSMC’s success. The information provided by customers has fueled innovations in manufacturing as well as process technology. This is sorely lacking at Intel Foundry, which has principally served the parent company and a handful of external customers.
Read More »Intel Foundry: A Spinoff is Necessary (and Inevitable)
It’s one thing to ridicule Elon Musk for realizing, belatedly, that real-world AI is easier preached than done. Last week, in a tweet, Musk wrote: “Generalized self-driving is a hard problem, as it requires solving a large part of real-world AI. Didn’t expect it to be so hard, but the difficulty is obvious in retrospect. Nothing has more degrees of freedom than reality.”
Read More »Can ADAS Aid Us on a Dark and Stormy Night?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) order this week requiring carmakers and tech companies to submit crash reports involving vehicles equipped with highly automated features — including both Automated Driving Systems (ADS)and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) — is a sensible move.
It’s also wildly out of character. Known for its hands-off approach to automakers, NHTSA has traditionally permitted automakers a lot of leeways including self-certifying their own vehicles with new technologies.
