TSMC to prioritize production of chips for cars, not your next graphics card

Lakados said:
We are still doing a similar breakdown here, we need to replace our bus fleet, 8 busses. We are still collecting data but we have our maintenance costs for our existing fleet and its predecessors going back to the 70's, based on the numbers and estimates for the all-electric fleet over a 10 year period the electric busses appear to be significantly cheaper, how much cheaper depends on fuel and electrical rates, we have solar on all our main buildings and that is sold back to the grid so if we are repurposing that to charge the busses we are selling less and there are the unexpected things that get pretty costly pretty quickly but given pricing for motors and batteries and such we are estimating that each bus we swap out pays for itself in 7 years given expected mean time failures and assuming 1 in 3 require battery replacements before their 10 years is up. If they all require battery replacements before that 10 year period the expected costs between them wash out. What we are waiting on currently is the nature of the batteries and if they are something we are able to maintain ourselves swap out dead cells and such or if they require full replacements. We are waiting on updates from International and Bluebird on that, as well as pricing for their diagnostic tools and software licensing as they seem to change that every GD year.

One of our biggest pushbacks is from the union as they are afraid going electric would require us to have fewer mechanics on hand as they are expected to have much fewer issues, and on that, they are likely correct. So that is a whole other issue surrounding the conversion but that is one between the Union and HR, they will likely push to delay the conversion just to avoid the whole scenario but I am not sure accounting is going to want to go that route.


Note: When I say pays for itself I mean the savings from going electric exceeds the cost of having purchased the diesel model.
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Problem with the batteries is they degrade after a few years and you will notice it and they will have reduced range in colder climates as well. Just make sure you get your staff fully trained up on the systems, as you don't want someone working on those that doesn't know what they are doing as leaving the system energized is a fatal mistake. Likely a all electric will be slightly cheaper then a diesel bus until battery technology catches up a bit more.
 
Gideon said:
Problem with the batteries is they degrade after a few years and you will notice it and they will have reduced range in colder climates as well. Just make sure you get your staff fully trained up on the systems, as you don't want someone working on those that doesn't know what they are doing as leaving the system energized is a fatal mistake. Likely a all electric will be slightly cheaper then a diesel bus until battery technology catches up a bit more.
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Our longest route 1 way is 112km with chargers on both ends. so the range isn't so much of the issue as the constant stop and go. But yeah it's going to be a stupid expensive project regardless of how we do this, so we are just trying to make sure we have all the data we can.
 
i've been saying it for 2 years now, BUILD ANOTHER FAB, someone. and i don't want to hear about how long it takes GET ON IT. this has gone on long enough.
 
d3athf1sh said:
i've been saying it for 2 years now, BUILD ANOTHER FAB, someone. and i don't want to hear about how long it takes GET ON IT. this has gone on long enough.
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Intel is building 2 new 3nm fabs and TSMC is building another 5nm fab all states side. They will be online in 2024. It has less to do with time and more to do with funds. The single new fab is costing TSMC 10 years worth of profits and was only made feasible because the US government offered up some $30B in funding.
 
Gideon said:
Problem with the batteries is they degrade after a few years and you will notice it and they will have reduced range in colder climates as well. Just make sure you get your staff fully trained up on the systems, as you don't want someone working on those that doesn't know what they are doing as leaving the system energized is a fatal mistake. Likely a all electric will be slightly cheaper then a diesel bus until battery technology catches up a bit more.
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another problem is you still burn fossil fuels or have some kind of environmental impact with un-disposable toxic waste and mining damage using slave labor to make the electricity to charge the batteries. oh and transportation of said heavy batteries and then there's already a ton of electric car batteries piling up and they aren't even in wide spread use yet!!? and good luck making a cross country journey in an electric car. but they don't want plebs travelling anymore anyway...
 
Lakados said:
Intel is building 2 new 3nm fabs and TSMC is building another 5nm fab all states side. They will be online in 2024. It has less to do with time and more to do with funds. The single new fab is costing TSMC 10 years worth of profits and was only made feasible because the US government offered up some $30B in funding.
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well, some good news for a change, didn't hear anything about that.
 
d3athf1sh said:
another problem is you still burn fossil fuels or have some kind of environmental impact with un-disposable toxic waste and mining damage using slave labor to make the electricity to charge the batteries. oh and transportation of said heavy batteries and then there's already a ton of electric car batteries piling up and they aren't even in wide spread use yet!!? and good luck making a cross country journey in an electric car. but they don't want plebs travelling anymore anyway...
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You can already drive from coast to coast using the super charger network. This has been possible for, what, 7 years at this point?
 
I wonder are the waste battery disposal and cleanup costs weighed into the calculations for so called clean transportation expense.
 
Endgame said:
You can already drive from coast to coast using the super charger network. This has been possible for, what, 7 years at this point?
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yeah i watched a blog of someone doing that, and it wasn't cross country, and every couple hours they have to stop and wait an hour or two for their car to charge. have you ever traveled and typed in a location in your GPS and wondered why it took so much longer when all you did was stop to pee a couple times and maybe something to eat or gas? dude, nevermind, you'll never win this argument. i'm not wasting my energy here (no pun intended)
 
d3athf1sh said:
i've been saying it for 2 years now, BUILD ANOTHER FAB, someone. and i don't want to hear about how long it takes GET ON IT. this has gone on long enough.
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The industry is appreciative for your insightful advice, as are world governments. Your informed guidance could lead the way out of this. We are all so incredibly thankful.
 
d3athf1sh said:
yeah i watched a blog of someone doing that, and it wasn't cross country, and every couple hours they have to stop and wait an hour or two for their car to charge. have you ever traveled and typed in a location in your GPS and wondered why it took so much longer when all you did was stop to pee a couple times and maybe something to eat or gas? dude, nevermind, you'll never win this argument. i'm not wasting my energy here (no pun intended)
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You ever drive 1000 miles with little kids in the car, or heck, a wife that hates driving? You’ll be stopping for an hour every time you get gas anyway, so the charge time is irrelevant. At least for a certain portion of those traveling.

Edit - it’s not even a matter of charging for “an hour or two”. 15 Minutes gets you 200 miles and 25 minutes gets you a full charge. By the time you get the wife and kids out of the car, finish the bathroom break, get a snack, and get them back in you’re looking at 20 minutes min, and more likely 45 mins. You’ll have enough charge at this point they will be asking to get out of the car again before you run out of charge.

Level 3 Charge time reference:
https://electrek.co/2021/07/06/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-tesla/
 
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Endgame said:
You ever drive 1000 miles with little kids in the car, or heck, a wife that hates driving? You’ll be stopping for an hour every time you get gas anyway, so the charge time is irrelevant. At least for a certain portion of those traveling.

Edit - it’s not even a matter of charging for “an hour or two”. 15 Minutes gets you 200 miles and 25 minutes gets you a full charge. By the time you get the wife and kids out of the car, finish the bathroom break, get a snack, and get them back in you’re looking at 20 minutes min, and more likely 45 mins. You’ll have enough charge at this point they will be asking to get out of the car again before you run out of charge.

Level 3 Charge time reference:
https://electrek.co/2021/07/06/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-tesla/
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Now I understand why the Germans put in the autobahn.

Or

In other words, the world needs more Ferraris with a back seat so you can just get there faster
 
Endgame said:
You can already drive from coast to coast using the super charger network.
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I've asked electric car boosters this question a couple of times, but never got a clear answer. How much longer would it take vs driving in a car? That is, what's the overhead time for charging?

Also, what if I want to go somewhere other than the interstates? [Edit: i see an answer was provided downthread.]
 
Lakados said:
Intel is building 2 new 3nm fabs and TSMC is building another 5nm fab all states side. They will be online in 2024. It has less to do with time and more to do with funds. The single new fab is costing TSMC 10 years worth of profits and was only made feasible because the US government offered up some $30B in funding.
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Are you sure Intel is building 3nm fabs? They couldn't get their 10nm(7nm equivalent) to work, so how would they get a 3nm process to work?

Everything I found states that Intel is buying the majority of fab time from TSMC for its 3nm process. But nothing about Intel building one.
 
1_rick said:
I've asked electric car boosters this question a couple of times, but never got a clear answer. How much longer would it take vs driving in a car? That is, what's the overhead time for charging?

Also, what if I want to go somewhere other than the interstates? [Edit: i see an answer was provided downthread.]
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If you want to go somewhere other than the interstate, it depends on exactly where you are. (Supercharger map: https://www.tesla.com/supercharger ) If you want to drive from NYC to Orlando without using the interstate and only want use Tesla chargers, you should be able to do so without much problem.

You should also be able to, say, take a Midwest N to S route without using the interstate, as you’ll cross an interstate at less than the drive distance of a full charge. However, if you’re driving straight though, why wouldn’t you use an interstate? if you’re stopping regularly you should be able to find somewhere to charge even if it’s not a super charger. If you’re really really going in the kind middle of nowhere drive where you see “last gas for 120 miles signs”, you could run into charging problems and will probably want to make a plan.
 
GoodBoy said:
Are you sure Intel is building 3nm fabs? They couldn't get their 10nm(7nm equivalent) to work, so how would they get a 3nm process to work?

Everything I found states that Intel is buying the majority of fab time from TSMC for its 3nm process. But nothing about Intel building one.
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Yeah they licensed the tech from IBM but it’s 2nm not 3nm.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/linley...-could-revive-intel-fab-tech/?sh=3cb273f84426

“Assuming Intel achieves this schedule, it could leap directly from 7nm in 2022 to 2nm in 2024. The company has already been working on its own 5nm GAAFET technology and should be able to integrate IBM’s advances into its roadmap. By working together, the two American companies can turbocharge Intel’s progress and put it back onto an equal footing with TSMC and, more importantly, AMD.”
 
learners permit said:
Good read on process node and transistor scaling challenges.
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I remembered that one, it was a good read. That particular challenge is what was nailing Intel's 10nm implementation as it turned out to be fundamentally incompatible with their Gate All Around (nanowire) implementation which all their chip designs had been based around which caused their delay and their later statements to decouple their design and manufacturing processes. From what I understand though they do have it successfully implemented and working and that was the fundamental fix that is letting them use IBM's 2nm process but yes the design and implementation process cost them 10's of billions and a few years to iron out. I will be very interested in seeing how TSMC, Samsung, and AMD implement them because they certainly do have them in the works but their tech conferences tend to not have the same degree of details as Intels.
 
Lakados said:
Intel is building 2 new 3nm fabs and TSMC is building another 5nm fab all states side. They will be online in 2024. It has less to do with time and more to do with funds. The single new fab is costing TSMC 10 years worth of profits and was only made feasible because the US government offered up some $30B in funding.
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Hopefully these fabs are being built somewhere where water is abundant and droughts dont occur, i.e. not places like California or the American sourhwest
 
applegrcoug said:
Yeah navigation has changed things big time. Not just onboard, but also on the phones. I'm a gen-Xer and can remember the days before on board navigation and garmin before that. I can remember using a map on those long trips.
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I still prefer the maps. I don't mind having a computer tell me when my turn is coming up, but I'll pick the route thank you very much.
 
travm said:
I still prefer the maps. I don't mind having a computer tell me when my turn is coming up, but I'll pick the route thank you very much.
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Does your map show which route has a accident? Road work? Speed traps? Nope.
 
Endgame said:
Great - break it down then and put real numbers to it. As I said, I don’t know the probability of a transmission failure of a 1981 civic vs a 01 Taurus, vs a 21 Corolla. I do know a Tesla has a big fat 0 in that probably though.
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Tesla's have all kinds of shit to break down that isn't in an 01 Taurus. Give it some time. Electronics are neat in that they work, until they don't. And they typical die at the same time. Imagine the mobo cap problems of the 2000s but in Teslas, unlikely, but not impossible.
 
vegeta535 said:
Does your map show which route has a accident? Road work? Speed traps? Nope.
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Neat in theory, I'll still take my map. When I find those things, again I, will make the decision on how to deal. Speed traps only catch speeders also, I could give 0 Fuchs about where they are
 
travm said:
Tesla's have all kinds of shit to break down that isn't in an 01 Taurus. Give it some time. Electronics are neat in that they work, until they don't. And they typical die at the same time. Imagine the mobo cap problems of the 2000s but in Teslas, unlikely, but not impossible.
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My pentium 200 from 1997 still works. More than I can say for most of the cars I’ve owned
 
Endgame said:
My pentium 200 from 1997 still works. More than I can say for most of the cars I’ve owned
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fair, but a Tesla is your pentium 200 x 10 million. Every car you've ever owned would be more complex, and likely used more as well.
 
cybereality said:
I agree, but I also buy a new GPU like every year too when my old one was probably fine.
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The difference is the highway is always the same. New highway developments do not demand an increase in horsepower by 20% or top speed by 50% each year. Its 65 to 75mph and has been that way for 20 years.

Gpus are completely different.
 
Can cost is the wording and sure there are many perishables on a gas engine that can be factored in but electrical components fail randomly too and generally cost considerably more than a maintenance service and cannot be planned for. How much do you suppose the replacement cost of the rear drive unit inverter pictured in this video would set you back not including labor?
 
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I guess my thing is I need a HD work truck and up here in canada you are not going to get a 3/4 ton for under 80K and when something goes wrong with them the downtime is insane because dealers cant get parts/ never seem to properly fix them.

My brother has a 2019 F350 that has been inservice for the same issue 11 times at 3 different dealers, none of them have been able to fix the problem and just keep guessing throwing parts at it, on the other hand my 86 K3500 can be fixed no issues with off the shelf parts from any auto store country wide. Yes it lacks a few creature comforts but those can be retrofitted with ease come winter off season.

I do love my 2017 civic tho, i hate to admit it but the backup camera has become a must have for me.
 
Verado said:
Imagine owning a car not under warranty. Must have missed out on crypto
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LOL. I've had my car for 7 years (got the 8 year warranty, which seemed like forever, but it's only 1 year left).

Honestly, it's fine. It's a Honda, very reliable. Take it to the shop frequently and no major problems. Only 30k miles since I've been working from home and barely drive anywhere.

I'll just keep it until it dies, or if something really new comes out that warrants it (like some new kind of energy system, real fully autonomous cars, that kind of thing). Otherwise I think it will last a long time.
 
harvestor said:
I guess my thing is I need a HD work truck and up here in canada you are not going to get a 3/4 ton for under 80K and when something goes wrong with them the downtime is insane because dealers cant get parts/ never seem to properly fix them.

My brother has a 2019 F350 that has been inservice for the same issue 11 times at 3 different dealers, none of them have been able to fix the problem and just keep guessing throwing parts at it, on the other hand my 86 K3500 can be fixed no issues with off the shelf parts from any auto store country wide. Yes it lacks a few creature comforts but those can be retrofitted with ease come winter off season.

I do love my 2017 civic tho, i hate to admit it but the backup camera has become a must have for me.
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You could retrofit a backup cam on you 3500. I'm jealous, I really want one of those. Even a 2500. I bet if a company could make a modern replica, meeting minimum legal requirements for a new vehicle it would sell
 
travm said:
You could retrofit a backup cam on you 3500. I'm jealous, I really want one of those. Even a 2500. I bet if a company could make a modern replica, meeting minimum legal requirements for a new vehicle it would sell
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Its getting done this winter once it doesnt get used as much, also swapping interior to one from newer truck and switching it to a dually using axles from a 2010 ford to get rid of locking hubs and a bigger GWR rear housing.

I think that a remake would sell well but emissions would ruin it.
 
harvestor said:
Its getting done this winter once it doesnt get used as much, also swapping interior to one from newer truck and switching it to a dually using axles from a 2010 ford to get rid of locking hubs and a bigger GWR rear housing.

I think that a remake would sell well but emissions would ruin it.
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They make some very reliable v8's nowadays, but applying the KISS principle and keeping the extraneous electrojunk to a minimum would be sweet. I'd take a fuel injected modern V8 over the old carbureted mess they had in those machines. Dont get me wrong they are reliable, but modern engines are better in every possible way.
 
travm said:
fair, but a Tesla is your pentium 200 x 10 million. Every car you've ever owned would be more complex, and likely used more as well.
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True, but my car that doesn't pretend to have self-driving won't drive me into a wall, either.
 
harvestor said:
I guess my thing is I need a HD work truck and up here in canada you are not going to get a 3/4 ton for under 80K and when something goes wrong with them the downtime is insane because dealers cant get parts/ never seem to properly fix them.

My brother has a 2019 F350 that has been inservice for the same issue 11 times at 3 different dealers, none of them have been able to fix the problem and just keep guessing throwing parts at it, on the other hand my 86 K3500 can be fixed no issues with off the shelf parts from any auto store country wide. Yes it lacks a few creature comforts but those can be retrofitted with ease come winter off season.

I do love my 2017 civic tho, i hate to admit it but the backup camera has become a must have for me.
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At work we’ve got a 2013 F350 and the mechanic got so fed up with it he stripped it completely eventually found the problem. A few bolts were loose and those being out of spec were causing stress failures all over the truck. Took him like a month to diagnose and disassemble/reassemble the truck though. Never would have happened if it weren’t for COVID he had the free time as the busses weren’t in operation and needing their weekly routine stuffs.
 
Lakados said:
Yeah they licensed the tech from IBM but it’s 2nm not 3nm.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/linley...-could-revive-intel-fab-tech/?sh=3cb273f84426

“Assuming Intel achieves this schedule, it could leap directly from 7nm in 2022 to 2nm in 2024. The company has already been working on its own 5nm GAAFET technology and should be able to integrate IBM’s advances into its roadmap. By working together, the two American companies can turbocharge Intel’s progress and put it back onto an equal footing with TSMC and, more importantly, AMD.”
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Anything you read on Forbes has to be taken with a grain of salt.

IBM is mostly a services company now (and not a very good one), so I will believe this when I see it.
 
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