Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:00 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #80

twblalock wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know of the car industry, coding standards are very low. I don't think any car companies would look good if their code was audited by professional software engineers in other fields.

Then you don't know the motor industry very much as it has very strict coding standards like ISO 26262, the code has to be audited internally and by certified 3rd parties with every release to meet the development cycle requirements of the standards. http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test-tools/group/by-... The industry also has specific coding standard for every language that is used in embedded systems like M…

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

cnvogel wrote: post #40

bcantoni wrote: post #23

I'm assuming the development process for embedded auto software like this would be pretty rigorous, meaning it would be fairly difficult to sneak in code like this. I also assume that testing of emissions software like this would involve a lot of lab/road testing with the vehicles against the EPA test profile and therefore a lot of people would be involved. Suggesting this is the stealthy work of just a couple of sof…

The investigations regarding Toyotas(?) unexplained/unintended acceleration suggest otherwise. The code was apparently pretty bad, halfheartedly reviewed and just unmaintainable. While there the software seemed to have (a huge number of) errors put in by mistake, of course most independent reviews should also spot intentional mischief. I don't claim that VW had comparably crappy code, but "industry practice" likely w…

Post by steego » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #49

hoag wrote: post #34

I actually suggested this theory a few weeks ago: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/volkswagen-different-theory-w...

I don't understand. Why would software guys fear the results of some chemistry-based process? They don't seem to have any control over that. The ones fired would have been the mechanical engineers that designed the engine, aren't they?

Post by johansch » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #79

johansch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When this CEO of a company with 600k employees says "it's some software engineers", I assume he might actually be honestly referring to what we would call engineering managers, perhaps with hundreds of indirect reports, 2-3 levels down from the CEO. I find this plausible... (Particularly since these hearings seem designed to score political points rather than to find out what actually happened.)

However plausible it may be, it is still not excusable. The company should have processes in place that can verify the claims it makes. Plausible deniability is really just a claim of neglect. Edit: I'm being rate-limited, so I'll respond to the points below right here: >What processes should be in place, exactly, to do what? How about driving a vehicle in the manner most of their customer's do and examining the emis…

Post by Dav3xor » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #80

twblalock wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know of the car industry, coding standards are very low. I don't think any car companies would look good if their code was audited by professional software engineers in other fields.

Then you don't know the motor industry very much as it has very strict coding standards like ISO 26262, the code has to be audited internally and by certified 3rd parties with every release to meet the development cycle requirements of the standards. http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test-tools/group/by-... The industry also has specific coding standard for every language that is used in embedded systems like M…