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Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

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Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many ways this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. An organization thinks software engineers aren't very important. And it doesn't pay the sort of salaries you need to get the top talent. So it doesn't have any top-tier software engineers, and their software team struggles to deliver valuable projects. And you can see this in their hiring. All full of interns. I remember when VW was advertising a “software school”. T…

> do you know how bad German universities are? I am surprised from this quoted comment. Are German unis really bad? Why is there such a perception?

Yea, I am German myself and I really do not get this comment. I‘ve studied abroad and US universities / colleges are laughably easy in comparison. Grade inflation is a real thing and the result of inflated college fees.

Most US courses did not count as credit for my masters because they are too easy to get 100% in and they rarely cover even half of the average course load at TUM.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#272
post #235
post #60

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Calling their structural safety great seems like an overstatement -- I can't find a Dacia model on EuroNCAP that doesn't have sketchy dummy kinematics, and one new model (Spring) performs startlingly poorly in crash tests The best appears to be the 2021 Dacia Logan[1] which has a crash test littered with "marginals": > [...] structures in the dashboard presented a risk of injury to occupants of different sizes and to…

Dacia Spring is actually a Chinese car. It's called Dongfeng Spring and is available on Alibaba. Dacia makes cheap cars. They're okay but they drive like a cart, the chairs are crappy and the clutch pedal is quite annoying in how it feels.

I drove a brand new SEAT this year as a rental which had a clutch that was almost impossible to actuate smoothly due to a very bizzare non linear bite profile. I wonder if it's similar for Dacia cars.

The only Dacia stuff I'm personally interested in is the stuff with the new Renault hybrid drivetrains

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. It's still a massive improvement over the cars built before 2000 which would decapitate you with the steering column from a fender bender.

That is good news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIUQq7t6brM

This is what I meant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xidhx_f-ouU

The "same" model is car is vastly improved in terms of safety in this past decade over anything prior. Look at the results.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#274

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"leave the car with all smart keys, go at least 50 meters from the car, wait for 15 minutes" Some engineer actually coded for this - LOL.

Tesla does the same. Mine stopped working on the highway (it let me get off it though) and on the gas station, this was its v suggested way to reset. But as this was in the dead of night in the freezing winter, I had a lot of doubts before doing this. When a guy with a crane arrived, I finally left the car and was not able to open it again.

This is not true. The Tesla infotainment system can be restarted - even during - by holding both steering wheel buttons for 5 seconds. I've never had a problem with it (I've never had a problem with the infortainment system, I have had other problems with the vehicle) but I've tested this while driving and it does not affect the drivability of the vehicle.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen big telco not having any internal dev - only bad management. When their partner do not deliver, or very slowly because they’re cheap, they make “escalation”… So it’s even worse than not valuing the work. It’s destroying it. (By the way, it’s not only telco, but also food distribution, small business…)

Nothing more ridiculous, then a tribe of MBAs dancing around the one software engineer whos project they run into the ground - making "pressure"

There is a meme for that:

https://devmynd-production-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/...

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#276
post #34

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It is well worth any Tesla driver's time to spend two minutes reading the list of voice commands. Once you have a grip on the vocabulary and structure you can just tell the car to do what you want for dozens of common tasks. (Hint: It's a "seat warmer", not a "butt heater".) That's the good news, the bad news is that I still haven't figure out how to turn off the stupid cowbell when I accidentally bonk the right leve…

> It's a "seat warmer", not a "butt heater". “Heat my ass” works fine for me.

"Open the butt hole" works as well. Well, it doesn't turn on the seat heater, but it does open the charging port.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#277

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To a point where Microsoft should consider acquiring Atlassian because they are so similar in this regard

Nice, then how comes everyone and their grandparents are running Jira and MS Office? The latter across FAANG as well (maybe not the G with an in house competitor).

That's really not an indicator of quality. They lack competition. There is some correlation there but that's a different story.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#278
post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

How on earth can someone be offended by their son in laws good salary!?

I think its very spread out at least in Europe in my experience. Hell even my own brother is envious on my salary because he got a engineering degree (vs my IT degree), so "by right" he should have a higher salary than me. Aside from the fact that he's employed by the local government to move paper from a desk to desk or rubber stamp documents. My parents also think the same as being civil engineers themselves. Paraphrasing: doctors, lawyers and engineers should have the highest salaries whatever job they do, everyone else should just fight over leftovers.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#279

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Is it really though? I ve been going around european companies and its all work till you drop 80h culture and no holiday, cause we need a guy on standbye. That stuff only ever exists on paper.

Which companies in which countries? I'm in Germany and I have never ever seen or (from friends and acquaintances) heard of vacations not taken due to pressure from the employer. It's about as common as an employer arbitrarily deciding to transfer less than the agreed amount of salary at the end of the month - maybe some very dubious employers have done it at some point, but it's not something to worry about. What is…

Im in germany, and the pressure is there. Old employer at least gave vacations, but shifted them as needed. New employer basically denies vacations categorically, cause nobody else can take care of the system.

All this talk about labour laws etc. its like people hallucinating, cause in my world this just aint real.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#280
post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

I’ve also done software in automotive at one of the classic European car co’s.

You’re spot on.

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