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Software is eating the car

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Software is eating the car

#471

Post by justicezyx »

reader_mode wrote: post #313

I got the feeling that car companies treat SW like a cost center, asses in seats kind of mentality. They don't pay well, you work on uninteresting stuff and corporate ladder is likely a dead end. So I doubt they (traditional car companies) are going to get better at software any time soon.

I talked to quite a few car manufacturer in China:

Shanghai auto

Changan auto

First Auto

As part of my research into automotive software and exploring opportunity for disruption.

They were all on the hype train of "software defined cars". Definitely not just a cost center. Of course they are still figuring out how to do software, and learning from people in the internet industry.

Re: Software is eating the car

#472

Post by justicezyx »

prova_modena wrote: post #272

As someone in the industry of supplying parts to keep older cars running, I view the increase of automotive software and electronic complexity as ensuring a future crisis of maintainability. Availability of parts and service information has always been an issue for aftermarket repair/modification of vehicles. However, as long as there are enough vehicles and committed owners around to create a small market for repair…

How big or profitable is your business or the industry of maintaining old cars?

Re: Software is eating the car

#473

Post by fomine3 »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #32

Maybe not a "dumb" car, but yes, I would like to see more good analog options if the digital alternative is getting screens in cars that look utterly embarrassing compared to yesteryear's netbook-sized screen fad. If you're going to put tech in my car, you better go all the way. I'm talking a huge screen, fast multicore processor or redundant systems, touchscreen to UI update response times under 5ms. None of this no…

I believe 5ms E2E is impossible. https://danluu.com/input-lag/

Re: Software is eating the car

#474

Post by havocsupreme »

A bit of a naive question I admit, but how do you even test hundreds millions of lines of code to ensure they all fit perfectly when different ECUs have different suppliers, and by customizing the car you can have different types of chips? Just curious how integration of all the components is done.

Also, there seem to be a lot of recalls due to software issues, so I wonder if there's any open source or anything close to it that has tools such as CI or VCS for newer electric car companies that use ECUs from different OEMs?

Re: Software is eating the car

#475

Post by toast0 »

fomine3 wrote: post #453
northwest65 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mechanical door lock Power central locking doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > manual windows Electric windows doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > no car stereo Car stereos do not need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. > no power steering Power steering doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. Hel…

> * doesn't need a microcontroller, Really?

> mechanical door lock

Push button, engage solenoid, who needs a microcontroller?

> manual windows

Push button, turn on motor, limit switch to turn off the motor when you get to the end. Microcontrollers make pinch detection and calibration nicer though.

> no car stereo

Tons of examples here, a stereo built today would most likely have electronics and/or a microcontroller because it's cheaper than an analog FM radio, but an old one will still work fine.

> no power steering

On my 1978 vehicle. I believe this is hydraulic with a belt powered pump to reduce the user torque on the steering wheel. No electronics, certainly not a microcontroller.

> no cruise control

On my 1978 vehicle. No microcontroller there, just some vacuum linkages. Maybe a bit of electronics to turn things on and off, the switch certainly felt like an electric switch.

None of these things require a microcontroller. Because it's cheaper, almost all of them use a microcontroller on modern cars; thermostats on lower models would probably be the most likely to be a simple system without a microcontroller.

Re: Software is eating the car

#476

Post by Areading314 »

With WFH one could expect the total miles driven per year to decrease drastically due to less commuting. This would make the lifetimes of cars longer and lead to lower demand -- a second way in which software is "eating" the car.

Re: Software is eating the car

#477

Post by petepete »

jonplackett wrote: post #221
dylan604 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which DSLR no longer has an aperture and shutter speed knob? I know the MFT mirrorless lost most of the controls, but did the latest Canon/Nikon really do this? My DSLR is eons old, so this is just baffling to me.

I haven't used one for a while so this may have been fixed. But I've never seen a DSLR with the same type of touch manual controls as an old SLR. Someone correct me if I'm wrong and tell me where to buy one!

I believe you want a Nikon DF or (and yeah, I know they're not DSLRs) any Fujifilm X series.

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/dslr-came...

Re: Software is eating the car

#478

Post by adrianN »

numpad0 wrote: post #440
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. Judges tend to respond very poorly to "but you didn't say Simon Says" style arguments.

How can we transform the society to fix that then? /s

Simple, replace judges with AIs. Possibly on the blockchain. Code is law.

Re: Software is eating the car

#479

Post by adrianN »

toast0 wrote: post #475
fomine3 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * doesn't need a microcontroller, Really?

> mechanical door lock Push button, engage solenoid, who needs a microcontroller? > manual windows Push button, turn on motor, limit switch to turn off the motor when you get to the end. Microcontrollers make pinch detection and calibration nicer though. > no car stereo Tons of examples here, a stereo built today would most likely have electronics and/or a microcontroller because it's cheaper than an analog FM radio,…

You can save a lot of cabling when you have central message bus shared by different components where a microcontroller decides whether a particular message is meant for this solenoid or that motor.

Re: Software is eating the car

#480

Post by toast0 »

patpending wrote: post #69
arpyzo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a 2014 Subaru Impreza and my brother in-law a 2017. I've driven both extensively. Sometime during those years, Subaru switched from knobs and levers to a touchscreen and the controls are so much worse! 1. The controls on the 2014 are obvious, easy to find, and my choices are readily apparent. In the 2017 I have to search for them and often guess their meanings. If I'm actively driving, I just give up because it…

I have a similar problem with my 2017 Pacifica that replaced my 2005 Voyager. Using the touch screen to control the heat and air-conditioning is extremely slow in the Pacifica, and you can't do it without looking at the screen which can't be used with gloves. There are physical buttons and knobs for a few of the controls, but it seems that they're just talking to the same software as the touch-screen, so they're just…

It might depend on the trim of the Pacifica? But for the hvac controls that have buttons (fan speed, driver/passenger temps, mode) the physical controls seem responsive enough and I don't use the touchscreen ones, except maybe sometimes for defrost if I can't find the button; cycling through the modes can be painful. You can't get the different zones back in sync without the screen though, which is annoying.

And going from lo to hi takes forever, too. At least the fan speed knob seems good enough. The touch screen in general is decidedly not great; it's better than my C-max (sync2) in many ways, but I really like how the sync2 was designed --- they clearly considered how to make it useful, but then implemented it in the slowest environment possible.

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