IHS isn’t releasing the costs of the individual components as it typically does with smartphone and other teardown reports. “In this case, the display was so large it required some amped-up electronic support, so Tesla did all that work itself.” “In most cases, a touchscreen supplier will provide a lot of the supporting electronics, including its own circuit boards, in order to save the carmaker time and labor,” he said. The company designed as many as 10 of its own printed circuit boards for the functions controlled by the display and one devoted to the touch control experience itself. While the typical display used in a car is about seven inches, this one is so large it required Tesla to do a lot of customization. The full display itself was manufactured by Innolux, another Taiwan-based company, though Rassweiler said other companies, including Japan Display, a joint venture owned by Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi, probably supply Tesla as well. The reason is that the media control display uses a capacitive glass overlay manufactured by TPK, the Taiwan-based company that supplied the same technology to Apple for the first iPhones. That’s not the case here,” Rassweiler said. “Usually the touchscreens found in cars are frustrating to use. While a touch-enabled display inside a car is not generally considered a big deal, a 17-inch one is, and it’s about as responsive as those on smartphones. What’s the most costly part? The touchscreen. The company says the automotive market is its fastest-growing business, though it hasn’t said what percentage of overall sales it represents. Nvidia has made no secret of its relationship with Tesla. There are two of those in the Tesla - the second-most costly component among dashboard electronics. Nvidia packages the chips with other components inside what it calls a Tegra Visual Computing Module. “The volume tends to be lower but the opportunities for a profit margin tend to be higher.” But it has really focused on the automotive market,” he said. “Nvidia chips aren’t seen that often in smartphones and tablets. It is a big win for Nvidia, Rassweiler said. Tesla used one of Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chips to handle the primary computing work behind the massive 17-inch touchscreen display that dominates the center of the dashboard, known as the “Premium Media Control Unit,” and a second one to power the driver’s instrument cluster, which includes the speedometer and other indicators that the driver can select. ![]() They also saw a lot of chips from Nvidia, the company that made its name with graphics processors that powered games and other high-end video. ![]() “The first thing you see when you crack open the Tesla head-end unit is a lot of Tesla markings everywhere,” indicating that the company did a lot of custom design work on the electronics. “Usually, car companies turn over the design of their electronics to third parties,” like Harman Kardon or Panasonic, he said. So what did the analysts at IHS find? Tesla Motors approaches the design of its cars in much the same way that Apple and Samsung design their smartphones. But its electronics - the displays, the entertainment system, everything associated with tracking and controlling the environment inside the car - were essentially undamaged, Rassweiler said. The vehicle in question had been totaled in an accident. In a series of research papers, the first of which is expected to be published today, IHS will reveal the findings of a detailed teardown analysis of the electronics inside the dashboard of a 2013 Model S. It’s not every day that the opportunity to buy a Tesla Model S for the express purpose of taking it apart presents itself, but that is exactly what Andrew Rassweiler, an analyst with the electronics research firm IHS, has done.
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