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Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

arstechnica.com

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Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#121

Post by asdfman123 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #98
taneq wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time you get cross-disciplinary stuff done by people significantly lacking in experience in one of the disciplines, you get stuff like this. Programmer art (shudder), artist code (double shudder), EE software, software engineer circuit board layout, mechanical engineer wiring... Smart people will figure something out but it always looks janky to specialists in the figured-out field.

And the same applies for people criticizing the fields they know little about. I'm pretty sure that not all electrical engineers in the world are idiots and that there's a solid reason why they've chosen the grid frequency as a standard way of doing it. One thing that comes to mind is that the crystal oscillators frequency is very temperature sensitive, so probably not ideal solution for using in ovens?

But often times the "good reason" is that the engineer can quietly solve a problem in their cubicle without fighting an epic political battle that affects multiple departments. From that engineer's perspective, it's a perfectly rational choice.

And that engineer who writes code might be a brilliant engineer and competent coder, but they just haven't been on many software projects before and they don't see how damning that decision could end up being.

It works and everyone is happy, but it's a wart that people have to build around for the next 20 years.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#122

Post by im_down_w_otp »

mrguyorama wrote: post #103
ivanhoe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the same applies for people criticizing the fields they know little about. I'm pretty sure that not all electrical engineers in the world are idiots and that there's a solid reason why they've chosen the grid frequency as a standard way of doing it. One thing that comes to mind is that the crystal oscillators frequency is very temperature sensitive, so probably not ideal solution for using in ovens?

It's because it saves several dollars on the BOM, and really an oven probably doesn't need a hyper accurate clock

This is the reason.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#123

Post by jerrysievert »

koffiezet wrote: post #96
WhompingWindows wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE engines are not innovating, it's true, but the context is not explained in your post. ICE engines are going to be replaced by electric motors, which are far simpler to maintain and source parts for, and are inherently (due to physics) much more energy-efficient. Given climate and potential revenues for new ICE R&D drying up, you're going to see all the research dollars in 1) batteries and electric drive-train, an…

> ICE engines are not innovating, it's true Guess true variable valve timing and electrical turbo's and are no innovations?

if you call 1919 a recent innovation - VVT first appeared in ICE then, and made a resurgence in 1958 and again in the 1990's. electric superchargers have been around for a while as well, though not as prevalent due to the energy requirements. changes in the car electrical systems themselves have been allowing those to move forward, not innovation per se.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#124

Post by molteanu »

stefanoco wrote: post #106

My two cents: - I'm asking myself why there's no reference to Autosar ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR ) which is not an operating system (whatever this means in this context), but yelds a sort of a standard architecture in the car and among third parties. It's a real mess, but it works in this sense. - rumors exist about VW and other manufacturers pushing for using ADA (more specifically Spark), anyone aware…

Yes, it is a mess. At over 15.000 pages, AUTOSAR specifies not general utilities, libraries, battle tested data structures used in the automotive field or whatnot, but actual automotive components that in theory can be developed independently and combined to build the whole car. XML being the medium of choice for this standardization doesn't help either. You're left with tools upon tools that modify XML files and generate C code based on those files and very little opportunity to actually look/modify those C files by hand, even in trivial circumstances. In short, the AUTOSAR idea, from what I've experienced, is to hire an army of mouse-clickers that can use shiny tools to assemble and configure every aspect of the car. They would not learn C or any programming, but learn the actual standard and know what you need to click or check in each and every instance. The tools would then take care of bringing in the code and generate the header configuration files for you.

Anyway, not mentioning AUTOSAR might be a sign that its days are numbered, perhaps?

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#125

Post by dreamcompiler »

koffiezet wrote: post #96
WhompingWindows wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE engines are not innovating, it's true, but the context is not explained in your post. ICE engines are going to be replaced by electric motors, which are far simpler to maintain and source parts for, and are inherently (due to physics) much more energy-efficient. Given climate and potential revenues for new ICE R&D drying up, you're going to see all the research dollars in 1) batteries and electric drive-train, an…

> ICE engines are not innovating, it's true Guess true variable valve timing and electrical turbo's and are no innovations?

Both have been overtaken by events. They're not going to show up in many mainstream cars before ICE becomes obsolete. But TVVT might be very useful in applications where electric motors won't yet work. ICE airplanes, for example.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#126

Post by carapace »

teddyh wrote: post #27

Of all the possibilities, shouldn’t VW be the least trustworthy actor to make software for cars? EDIT: I am, of course, referring to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

Yeah, my first thought was, "Will it lie to me about my car's emissions?"

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#127

Post by mikeyouse »

solidr53 wrote: post #22
skc wrote: post #13

And by new they really mean Linux, right?

The article mentions they will use Android as the base platform. > Senger also revealed that VW Group will be using Android for future versions of the MIB infotainment platform, in large part because of the robust third-party app ecosystem with that OS versus Linux. Huh? Android is running on a modified linux kernel. But I get what he means...

There's a competing automotive tech stack called "Automotive Grade Linux" which is being adopted by most of the Korean automakers, many of the Japanese ones, Daimler, etc. That implementation goes far beyond infotainment and the head unit, though it has hooks for both so they might not be in strict competition. VW potentially can just use their Android-based infotainment system on top of a different stack.

Interestingly, VW just joined AGL:

https://www.automotivelinux.org/

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#128

Post by alexis_fr »

PorterDuff wrote: post #105

It's just my own ignorance speaking (probably), but I can't say that I like the idea of Android getting near/intertwined with mission critical systems. Hopefully 'infotainment' implies something that is well clear of 'stopping' and the like...although I'd just as soon that they dropped the 'tainment' part and simply provided an interface for diagnostics, HVAC, &tc. What bugs me the most about the 'tainment' part is t…

The same was probably said 15 years ago about the computerization of the car engine and their rapid deprecation. Did the average lifespan of a car decrease since then? How ridiculous is it to drive a 4WD into the desert, full of electronics that can’t be repaired and where a single chip can cost 300$ and has to be shipped from mainland America...

So yep, with car computerization they reduced the lifespan from 30 to 12 years, and with infotainment they’ll reduce it to 8 years. Same length as a Tesla warranty.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#129

Post by avn2109 »

opencl wrote: post #118
mrguyorama wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it saves several dollars on the BOM, and really an oven probably doesn't need a hyper accurate clock

Grid frequency actually is hyper accurate in a lot of places. i.e. in the Western US the grid is regulated such that a clock running off it will never deviate more than 2 seconds from the atomic clock derived National Bureau of Standards time [1]. Compare to a typical quartz oscillator which will gain or lose around 15 seconds per month. [1] https://www.naesb.org//pdf2/weq_bklet_011505_tec_mc.pdf

This comment should be higher up in the thread.

Re: Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system

#130

Post by fsociety »

Etheryte wrote: post #7

The key takeaway for me here is that they want to build an Android-based OS that will run both user applications and, say, your traction control on the same stack. Given the very mixed history of Android security, updates, and more, I simply can't see how this would end well.

The writing in-between the lines is that all car manufacturers want to run everything on a single-board computer. Perhaps the only exception is some things deemed mission critical such as the dashboard - issue being who defines what is mission critical - which will run on a separate "safer" SBC. This allows them to save quite a bit of money per a car, not just in SBCs but also potentially in wiring. Not sure it's a good thing but it is the direction things have already gone.

Cutting out other suppliers will be huge cost savings for Volkswagen if the plan works out too.

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