Volkswagen’s plan to create a new car operating system • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by tt » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

nexuist wrote: post #150

tt wrote: post #149

Once an OEM opens up its vehicle data and control to Android (and/or Google Automotive), it's game over for them. The OEM becomes a commodity hardware maker. Plenty of analogy with mobile phones manufacturers. The OEM will not make a dime after the sale of the vehicle while Google will build and strengthen a development platform to enable third-party applications and services and profit from them (something Google kn…

>One way out of this is for the major OEMs to band together and create their own standardized platform that works across OEMs. At minimum, that platform should expose a single standard interface to all third-party service providers. This already exists, and it's why there's a slew of Bluetooth-enabled apps on the app stores that let you self-diagnose your own car. It's called OBD-II and it's federally mandated on eve…

The OBD interface is too cumbersome (vehicle owners have to mess with hardware installation, etc...) and is more geared towards aftermarket devices and software. This effort must be at the core of each OEM and be completely seamless to the end-users and even third-party developers.

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

#152

Post by spanktheuser » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

I'm also aware of a project from a major automotive supplier to attempt the same thing. From my understanding it's unlikely to succeed because manufacturers view suppliers as commodity producers of components they find boring like brakes, steering systems, sensors, transmissions, safety systems, fuel pumps, etc. Not as anything resembling a true partner. Not to mention that it would require competitors to collaborate closely in the production of a highly complex piece of software.

That said, how many times have we seen this story in other industries?

1 Legacy corporation is warned that an integrated, consumer-friendly software architecture for [multi-billion product line] is needed, and failure to produce one creates an opportunity for an insurgent competitor and/or commodification by adjacent supply chain players.

2 Leadership laughs and ignores mounting evidence of just such a threat emerging for up to a decade.

3 Lo and behold, prophesied competitor finally emerges and finds immediate market success.

4 Legacy company announces that they'll bring a competing solution to market, promising investors that they'll produce a similar quality OS, but across 39 models, uniting 457 separate component suppliers AND the entire post-purchase product support infrastructure. They're starting today and promise to launch in 12 months.

5 Legacy company lights billion dollar bonfire to distract investors while CTO frantically tries to source a robust embedded operating system with consumer-grade interfaces and feature set.

6 Best case, no one who has such an OS will license it. Worst case, Google will.

7 Leadership jumps ship, legacy company craters or slowly slides into irrelevance, and CEO later gives interviews about how absolutely no one could have seen this coming, with a sidebar complaining about software engineering salaries.

Honestly, this whole narrative is becoming a bit boring at this point. VW is at stage 5. The fact that its leadership consists entirely of charlatans is self-evident.

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

#153

Post by ilikehurdles » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

vgoh1 wrote: post #20

LeonM wrote: post #6

I think this is a result of automotive technical progress slowing down. And I don't mean that in a bad way. For the past 100 years, we have been developing better and better cars, with both breakthroughs and incremental improvements in the drivetrain, safety, comfort, reliability, etc. Now though, cars are consolidating. Most car companies only have a handful of 'platforms' on which they build various models. For exa…

I wholeheartedly disagree that automotive progress, on the mechanical side, has slowed down. The ride quality, handling, fit and finish, noise & vibe, chassis rigidity, fuel economy, reliability, have all been improving. Go back 10 years, go back 10 years before that, etc., and you will see incremental improvements. Beyond that, look at how much more "stuff" comes in cars today, but for the same amount of money. That…

There have been significant mechanical improvements under the hood. Dual clutch transmission enabling things like (very quick) paddle shifting has trickled into a lot of cars over the last decade. Gasoline Direct Injection has also seen rapid adoption. Hybrids were a small niche not too long ago, let alone EVs. Turbos seem a lot more common as well.

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

#154

Post by jacques_chester » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

srbby wrote: post #80

dagw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Queue discussion about Linux being a kernel and not an operating system.

cue

Cue queue to correct queue

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

#155

Post by Zhenya » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

chicob wrote: post #114

"But you also have to open up all the car's sensor data [to Google], and when I say all, it really is all sensor data" This is revealing. I'm glad my tractor GPS/guiding system does not run Android.

Android and Google services are 2 different things.

1 is an opensource OS, the other is proprietary services.

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

#156

Post by Zhenya » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

dognotdog wrote: post #77

castratikron wrote: post #60

>some models simply won't run if the infotainment system is broken; the navigation GPS provides the vehicle's master time counter, and without that, the powertrain won't function :O

Balkanization is about right. In my experience developing driver assistance systems, there are enormous efforts spent on political turf wars instead of proper design and engineering. This is not surprising, as the team structures, at least as of a few years ago, were traditionally set up with tradtional manufactirng in mind, around parts and control modules, while the functionality exploded (within 1 or 2 generation…

You ship your org-chart.

You feel that in today's infotainment and electronics integration in vehicles.

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

#157

Post by Zhenya » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

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.

Android is not an RTOS. They will have to hypervise it, most likely, on something that guarantees response time.

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

#158

Post by jobu » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

alexis_fr wrote: post #128

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 1…

There has to be a balance. Electronic fuel injection (EFI) is far more reliable and adaptable than even the best carburetors. Electronic safety systems may have reduced some of the longevity of a vehicle, but the alternative is higher chance of injury or death.

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

#159

Post by incanus77 » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

Zhenya wrote: post #155

chicob wrote: post #114

"But you also have to open up all the car's sensor data [to Google], and when I say all, it really is all sensor data" This is revealing. I'm glad my tractor GPS/guiding system does not run Android.

Android and Google services are 2 different things. 1 is an opensource OS, the other is proprietary services.

Want to run Google Maps on this system? You must use Google services as a whole.

Don’t want to? Look up the numbers on how many global providers of maps data there are...

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

#160

Post by ravedave5 » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

I wonder if this is fallout from Tesla. They must have a huge advantage in a way here having a clean sheet architecture only a decade old. Between this and superbottle I think the idea to use suppliers as little as possible may pay off.