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Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

media.mbusa.com

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Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#341

Post by mantas »

ryandrake wrote: post #83
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big and well paid doesn’t equal quality. The fiasco of id3 is the best example. Or the whole Audi/VW drama. It doesn’t change the fact that their management just doesn’t get software. Pouring more money over that and hiring more “talent” isn’t going to change that.

Most hardware companies are not known for good software. They treat software like it's just another line item on the BOM: Like a bolt or a screw. Procure it as cheaply as possible, scoop it into the product on the assembly line, and make sure it passes a few checkboxes and you're done. Unless they see software as a core differentiating product feature that drives purchases, their quality bar is going to be "barely go…

These days even most software companies ain't known for good software :D

There's very few quality software products these days. And that's usually just a temporary state before eventually a product gets messed with :(

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#342

Post by krig »

throwaway290 wrote: post #279
jobjobjobjob wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ontario and it's very common to be driving on packed snow for a few days after new snowfall. You get barely any road markings at all. You just use common sense and memory to try and act like the lane dividers, turning lanes, stop lines are still there. It must be the same in many parts of the US as well. With winter tires and the right attitude its perfectly fine! But yeah if you can't see the road markings due to…

> You just use common sense and memory to try and act like the lane dividers, turning lanes, stop lines are still there Isn't this what road signs are for?

Here in Sweden, even the road signs are frequently covered by snow. I’m sure it’s a similar situation in Canada!

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#343

Post by whopdrizzard »

nforgerit wrote: post #166

German Software Engineer here. I'd rather chop off my left pinky than working on any software product any German car manufacturer is developing: 1) Their management hierarchies only consist of MBA suits that think short term and treat their engineers like apes in a zoo. This frequently leads to engineers actually behaving like apes in a zoo. 2) German culture is deeply based on thinking in silos. They divide everythi…

I've been working a few years in various SW-related roles in the broader MB ecosystem. It helps to understand those german car manufacturers are not monolithic entities, there is a confusing system of subsidiaries dealing with software, often overlapping in scope and competing over projects. Hence, a MB software engineer would often work at DFS, DMS, MBition, FreeNow or one of those shops. By design those do not adhere to corporate standards and they emulate start-ups, i.e. k8s, aws, slack, table tennis, bro culture, beer.

It's a curious setup because most of those subsidiaries ("corporate startups") are huge money sinks and produce little of value. Salary is decent/good, the offices are lavish, and the tech can be interesting. The downside: you cannot shake the feeling of being on a large playground with rich, generous but eventually indifferent parents. I'd say in germany, it's a good place for juniors to pick up some technologies and skills, quite a few former colleagues ended up at prestigious tech companies later.

Core technology like autonomous driving, Engines, CAN, etc... is developed in-house with more rigor, compliance and process, and the disregard for "software engineering" is also due to those agile software subsidiaries producing sloppy 2nd tier, unsuccessful auxiliary technology like apps, services or entertainment stuff. Unlike maybe Tesla, MB or BMW could not afford the reputational damage for selling half-broken autonomous driving.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#344

Post by dsr_ »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #226
dsr_ wrote: post #54

A friend just bought a Mustang and showed it off. The driver's dashboard is a somewhat configurable screen. All I could think of was that a 1970 Mustang, treated moderately well and maintained regularly, is still a useful car fifty years later. In fact, if it's survived, the asking price is within spitting distance of a new Mustang. Is there any chance that a 2023 Mustang will be a useful vehicle in 2073? Will any 20…

> Is there any chance that a 2023 Mustang will be a useful vehicle in 2073? Do tou mean that EV SUV that some MBA called a Mustang? Do you think that battery pack will be useful 50 years from now?

In fact, my friend bought an ICE Mustang. The judgement was that the EV is overpriced unless the cost of gasoline skyrockets in the next 5-7 years or the price of electricity plummets.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#345

Post by dghughes »

SoftTalker wrote: post #101
lh7777 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if trad…

> Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.

There also should always be an option to turn off traction control on gravel roads too. You want the gravel to pile up in front of tires it slows you much faster.

And snow is a pain too. Ford Transit vans were terrible for no manual over ride maybe it's all Ford since I doubt Transit has its own unique system. I used to drive a Transit for work the little goofy looking vans. I couldn't make it through a 12 inch high pile of snow the van kept cutting the engine power. I had to back up hit the gas put it in neutral and coast though the tiny little snow pile. You could pull the fuse to disable the traction control but it also shuts off ABS and the airbag. Useless piece of crap van.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#346

Post by leephillips »

I don’t know if this was written by a computer or a person, but the result is the worst kind of corporate-speak.

“MB.OS is designed to connect the major aspects of the company's value chain.”

I gave up trying to extract any meaning from this article pretty quickly.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#347

Post by jacquesm »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #334
rwky wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try driving on non major roads (and some major) roads in the UK. They often have no markings because they've worn away!

As a Kiwi moved the the UK, I &%$ hate the roads here. They're fun to drive on still, but there's an over-reliance on painted road markings, which are often not repainted, if they're even visible they disappear when it's raining, or just you know, when there's traffic and the car in front of me is covering it. It's the absolute fucking worst on gyratorys and other complex roundabouts where I have no idea which fuckin…

Those mini roundabouts in the UK can be hilarious. A regular crossing with a black dot in the middle and suddenly it's a roundabout. A non local is utterly without a chance to navigate that in a non heart-stopping way.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#348

Post by osrec »

izacus wrote: post #318
jesterson wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this actually turn me off buying MB again. I used to have a lot of MB cars back in 90s- 200xs - C-klasse, S-klasse, and then a number of V-klasse and every time it was a pleasure in every sense. Never had any unreasonable problem with them. Buggy software? It was unheard.

Then again, this comment also calls EQS ugly (which it aint) so maybe take it with a grain of salt? :P

I think you're the first person I know who likes the look of that car.

Edit: For over 100k GBP, there are other significantly better options.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#349

Post by adornKey »

b0afc375b5 wrote: post #309
adornKey wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a young guy writing good software for us while he still was going to school. We still use it to get things done in production. Then he went to university. He came back for a summer job. He had the sudden urge to ditch everything he used to do and to use the newest unproven technology. Also he had a serious urge to install everything from Microsoft. Then he created a piece of slow software full of flaws and per…

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing. Not trying to blame anyone here. Did no one guide him? Just by virtue of him being a young student, surely his unproductive proclivities were easily correctable? Was he averse to mentoring?

He already did great things in the past. I liked him a lot before university.

There is too much self-esteem in those young guys. And they blindly trust every new framework that shows up on the market. Also they have excellent grades in university and get offered a lot of money. Somehow guys from management and HR like them. For me there was not much chance to mentor anything.

I could talk more about young guys being problematic... but to me this was extraordinary and somehow related to the things people complain about Mercedes software.

For me two things seem to be dysfunctional: 1) University today and in this case the University closest to Mercedes headquarter 2) HR (as usual...). Things like "practical experience with multi-threaded UI performance improvements" in a CV somehow clicks with HR. At the moment I have to deal with a guy who dislikes databases and instead of adding a column to a table wants the database-server internally to query his webservice when someone selects something from the table. I bet Mercedes HR will love this when he writes a nice line about that in his CV...

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#350

Post by bayindirh »

dghughes wrote: post #345
SoftTalker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.

There also should always be an option to turn off traction control on gravel roads too. You want the gravel to pile up in front of tires it slows you much faster. And snow is a pain too. Ford Transit vans were terrible for no manual over ride maybe it's all Ford since I doubt Transit has its own unique system. I used to drive a Transit for work the little goofy looking vans. I couldn't make it through a 12 inch high…

Our Ford cars have a little button which disables all stability program functions, except ABS.

Strange that the van doesn't have it.

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