161–170 of 257 posts
> Senger also revealed that VW Group will be using Android for future versions of the MIB infotainment platform Yikes, can't they find an OS that isn't laden with adtech?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you think of a better platform? What's the alternative?
Pure OS, https://pureos.net/ And if that's not sufficiently capable perhaps VW can invest into making it so.
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…
That said, the people who work on infotainment have to take safety very seriously too. Even just static visual imagery can cause distracting optical effects if it's high contrast or the right shape/pattern. Anything with motion or audio presents very real risks.
If you take the 30k foot view, tbh, the auto world seems kinda nuts. We buy objects that are a sizeable fraction of our annual income if not more, that very rapidly depreciate, and then 20 years later we toss them out as scrap metal to recyclers.
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 gen…
In my case it was AUTOSAR in name only. Our higher bosses thought we were running AUTOSAR, but the lower you went, the understanding was firmer and firmer that what we actually ran was custom software.
Oh, the days numbered part - nah, I don't think so. AUTOSAR is for very low level stuff, I think unholy combinations will live on for a long time. AFAIK all the component (like hardware, Bosch for instance) vendors only provide AUTOSAR components for integration. Not sure, it was a few years ago I was in the loop.
A low level system for all critical features, this should be coded as safely as possible and run on a slow almost unbreakable computer.
A selfdriving features module, doing all the computations that are too intensive for the low level system. The low level system must be able to detect malfunctions in this system and act accordingly.
An infotainment system, just assume that it has been hacked when designing the other systems. It should be simple to prove that this system cannot take over the rest of the car.
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…
This is a great post, but it could really use a list of actual examples from other industries.
10,000 people that sounds like an overkill
Now multiply that by every component that has a CPU in it (every electronic component in the car) and getting to 10k software engineers as seems quite easy.
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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…
Vehicle manufacturers are just giving customers what they want. My family recently bought a new car (a Volvo FWIW) and for the first time we really didn't care about horsepower or fuel efficiency or anything really related to vehicle performance. It was all about the electronics and safety features.
...and they're giving it to them good and hard.
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…
Manufacturers want you to have reasons to upgrade. Manufactured obsolescence is absolutely a feature to them. Don't want to keep driving your sufficient vehicle after 5 because "it's insecure and doesn't run the latest OS"? That's a guaranteed revenue stream if they can get enough of the other manufacturers go to along.
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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...
My 4-year-old car came with an infotainment system using HERE maps. It's laughably bad compared to Google Maps, and here's why:
1) The HERE maps aren't auto-updated. You have to go to some trouble to download updates twice a year, and then install them on the car with a USB stick. You only get 3 updates for free, and after that you have to pay a huge price for each update. Google Maps is updated constantly with new roads, construction outages, even when a street is going to be blocked for a parade.
2) The business data on the built-in system is sparse. With Google Maps, pretty much any brick-and-mortar business that exists is on there. And I can easily see the business's operating hours too, and it'll warn me if I'm going to get there too close to closing time.
3) Searching is far easier. Finding a destination on the built-in system is like something from the 90s, and you generally need to start with a state, city, etc. With Google Maps, you just start typing a name and it pops up suggestions, which usually gets you the place you want very quickly.
4) No traffic updates on the built-in system. It has no way to get traffic data; Google Maps has this by default unless you're in a "dead zone".
I could go on and on.