One chip to rule an entire car?
Plus, a little ode to Peter Rawlinson.
Hello, dear subscribers. I'm writing this from Dulles International Airport, where I'm about to petition to change its IATA code from IAD to DIE, because I seem to keep getting stuck here. I am, indeed, stuck again, but with any luck, I'll sneak out of here in an hour or so.
That gives me just enough time to dash off an update on what I've been up to and where you can read me lately. Well, actually, I'm going to have to skew more towards the latter than the former this week because while I can say that I was hopping between Germany and Sweden this week, seeing a bunch of cool stuff, I can't actually say what any of that cool stuff was. Not yet, anyway, but most of it I can share soon. The rest... well, that'll be a little bit longer.
One Chip to Rule Them All?
The trend towards software-defined vehicles is having all sorts of fun consequences in vehicle design, not only ripping out decades worth of proprietary system engineering but also opening the door to some dramatic simplification of digital architectures.
Where once you needed a dedicated chip for every semi-smart feature in a car, now those features are being consolidated. Follow that trend far enough, and you'll get to a point where there's a single, all-seeing slab of silicon overseeing everything from Dolby Atmos to full autonomy.
While such consolidation in moderation definitely has its benefits (see: Rivian extracting 40-odd pounds of wiring from its second-gen R1 machines) there are some slightly disconcerting implications at play here too. Like, if Spotify crashes, will my car crash too? The answer is no, or at least probably not, but don't take my word for it. I spoke with a bunch of experts and execs to pull together my latest piece for MotorTrend.
And I promise I didn’t make too many LoTR references.
Best Wishes to Peter Rawlinson
I didn't write this piece about Peter Rawlinson stepping down as CEO at Lucid, but I did provide the picture of the man that The Verge used to headline its story, and I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts here about his departure from the company.
I first met Peter a little over 14 years ago. He gave me a walk-around of a pre-production Model S at Tesla's Fremont factory, which at that point didn't even have a functional lobby. I remember showing up at the massive, still mostly empty facility and walking around John Travolta style, having no idea where to go.
Anyhow, that conversation really sparked my excitement about the potential for functional design in EVs, potential that, in many ways, Lucid is delivering more effectively than his former employer -- or any other modern EV maker, for that matter.
You can read the piece I wrote way back then over at Engadget. I've interviewed him a bunch of times since then, most recently last summer for The Verge, where he both called hybrids a "blind alley" and said Elon Musk was "clearly distracted with politics." I'd say things have escalated a bit since then.
Anyhow, I just wanted to send some public kudos to Peter Rawlinson, a man who I would say has pushed EV design and development further than any other single person.
[p.s. I did get eventually home — about two hours later.]