In a recent video from Comma, we learn how it arrived at the design for its latest hardware, the Comma 3X. For those unfamiliar, Comma takes a very different approach compared to other companies working toward autonomous vehicles. Instead of designing the software and the hardware, and keeping the whole system inside a proprietary black box for maximum future profits, Comma supports an open source effort.
To get where they are, and to get where they’re going, they follow a product lifecycle, which he gives a nice flowchart for. They sometimes have to go through several iterations or prototypes before arriving at a final design. Even after a final design, there will still be warranty returns after it reaches customers.
Now, with the Comma 3X, he says they’re on the “downslope” of complexity. They plan to work with manufacturers to simplify what’s offered inside the device and lower costs, and they hope to arrive back somewhere closer to a smartphone, albeit one that’s tailored for driving cars an integrating into future cars, like the Aptera.
The 3X has a total of 136 unique parts, compared to the 203 parts the Comma 3 had. But, that’s still a lot to keep track of both in design and in terms of inventory, ordering, and substituting as needed. Shortages are still a problem, so they needed to be ready to change parts to stay in production. They use a number of software tools to not only track all this, but check for errors and omissions.
After testing and compliance measurements in certified labs, field testing sometimes brings them back to the beginning of the process to start all of this over . This doesn’t stop until they have something that passes all of the testing and allows them to move on to mass production. But, even then, they still track everything in case of failures so they can try to figure out what went wrong.