Volkswagen's cheapest EV ever is the first to use Rivian software

After a decade off the burner, the Dan Brown-alike reads as self-possessed, hard-boiled, and a little playful. I think his sin against literature was (like most celebrities) rooted in overexposure, not anything fundamentally wrong with his style.

[dead]

Probably related: https://stories.rivian.com/meet-the-new-r1

> Our second generation R1 vehicles feature an entirely new electrical architecture and compute platform developed in-house by our hardware and software team. This significant update to our onboard computing system makes our vehicles more robust, less costly to produce and easier to service — all while improving the experience for our customers. Our new system also dramatically improves scalability for deployment in future vehicles.

> Core to the new system is a substantial reduction in the number of electronic control units (ECUs) used to control the vehicle, down from 17 different ECUs in our first generation to just seven ECUs in our second generation. This massive simplification has been achieved by shifting to a zonal architecture and by significantly increasing the computational capabilities of each of our ECUs. While infotainment, autonomy, vehicle access, drive units and our battery management system each have their own ECU, every other vehicle function is controlled by just three ECUs.

> Shifting to a zonal system enabled us to remove over 1.6 miles (2.6km) of wiring from each vehicle, shedding 44 lbs (20kg) of weight. This reduction in wiring, along with the elimination of 10 ECUs, greatly reduces production costs. Fewer components needing to be installed during assembly also improves manufacturing efficiency, allowing us to build vehicles more quickly and with better quality. With less components onboard, vehicles are easier to service and require us to stock fewer parts, improving serviceability.

Sandy Munro did a deep dive Rivian's hardware and software a few weeks ago with their lead engineers. He actually did a series of videos talking about all aspects of all the changes they did in their latest vehicle architecture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DC5AIXX1VA

In short, Rivian reduced the number of control units from 17 to just 7. Software components are allocated to the an available unit. So, most stuff in the vehicle no longer has dedicated processors but simply gets allocated to share hardware with all the other systems. Doing that means less wires are needed, less thing can go wrong, etc. And it all gets over the air updates.

They develop most stuff in house; so they are not dependent on suppliers providing software for their hardware. So, that means it's easier to change things, to update things, etc. without having to deal with suppliers.

I assume, they are talking about bringing similar changes to VW. Same OS, same kind of processing units, probably a lot of the modules, etc. So when VW talks about a software defined car, that's what they mean.

Due to the Republican-backed tarrifs, people in the US may not be able to buy it for awhile, if ever.

Is BYD competing in the US/CAN market for passenger automobiles? Presumably VW is building a more affordable EV for the rest of world market where BYD is selling cars?

I've seen some BYD busses, Facebook was using them when I was there, but I don't see any indication that their passenger cars have arrived in US/CA?

Clearly primarily the European market? Both EU and US has put on pretty high tariffs on Chinese EVs so they should have a much easier time competing with BYD.

$42K-$60K doesn't score as "affordable"

I'm normally all about local manufacturing, but I'm rooting for BYD to come in and splatter all the big car manufacturers.

The markups on EVs are ridiculous given how much cheaper they are to manufacture.

Perhaps for those who would not like to buy cars from China.

Chevy is still saying that when the Bolt returns in late 2025 its MSRP will be around $28-30k.

So... the Nissan Leaf?

For the US market $21,500 would be quite cheap.

Where do you get these prices from? The cheapest BYD selling in Germany is 30k, as far as I can see. With a 20k vehicle launching sometime in 2025.

21500 seems pretty cheap to me? Surely the most price conscious consumers would be looking at the second hand market instead anyway given how rapidly car value drops off once they're driven out of the lot.

Do the BYD ones comply with European crash/safety standards?

You can’t buy them in the US though. They might as well not exist.