121–130 of 848 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having an engine problem on a back road is one thing, having a software-system-integration-what-the-hell problem on a Autobahn at 180 km/h +/- is a different story. And yes, I do not want my family in the car at that moment.
Yea if it affects brakes, acceleration, or steering it's a huge huge problem.
This was something that really hit me when the Internet allowed game developers to ship a game that wasn't done. You got the game, and the first thing you did was download a "patch" that was at least as big as the CD the game came on (several hundred MB). I've got "released" Windows98 games on CD that are essentially unplayable because what was shipped on the CD was unplayable and without the update server on the network sending out those critical fixes, its never gonna work. For game archivists that means finding a fully patched install and then preserving that.
This is a shitty experience that serves manufacturers but not their customers. I don't expect it to get better any time soon but I wish it would.
Why does your car need an internet connection? I don't use the built in maps since my phone has a map and a connection. what is the killer app of a connected car? businesses might want to watch their fleet but does anyone else care
* giving me the current fuel and battery levels in the app
* giving me an ETA on when charging is finished
* locating my car
* telling me if the car has been sitting there for a few minutes with ignition off but doors unlocked, giving me the option to lock them remotely
* telling me about open windows, giving me the option to close them remotely
None of them is really crucial, but for a hybrid or EV, getting the ETA for when the charge is finished is pretty useful.
I've long wondered why no car manufacturer has gone for an open source model. Certain things should absolutely be locked down (for example, the airbags and other critical safety features) but there is absolutely no reason the HVAC and Infotainment system need to be closed source. Open it up and let hackers go crazy, then just "borrow" the best options out there for next year's model and everyone wins!
I am awaiting a hatchback or sedan like this: https://www.slate.auto/en Give me a car that is perfectly 100% autonomous, or give me a car with three gauges and basic controls only. Everything else is an uncanny valley: all the downsides of complex tech without being useful enough to justify it. Until then I like my Nissan Leaf: physical controls, phone just docks with infotainment screen, and reliable.
You can an intuition pretty quickly for what it does and what it doesn't, and in certain situations it really takes a lot of attention off your plate (stop-and-go traffic, and long distances on the highway).
> These legacy companies have poached big hitters from Apple, Tesla and Google. They’ve sunk billions into it. Part of the problem might be poaching high title people from embedded tech companies while not doing anything for developer compensation.
One of these things is not like the others. Tesla, for good or ill, needed to write a full stack for their EV. Not only did they need to do it, but they did in fact do it and ship it and develop it over several years. Recruiting a Tesla software guy is probably the best choice between these three. And he'll cost you less. Both Google and Apple have car software, and who knows if Apple actually developed a full stack…
And so did traditional manufacturers, they just had the benefit of being able to phase it in if they so chose. Or they could have done a hard cutover, either way, the failure is on them for ignoring the benefits of the Software Defined Vehicle discussed in the article.
> It's unclear what getting one of the android automotive developers would do for you.
Do they do vehicle control systems or just infotainment?
> they needed to use Unreal Engine to show you what your own car looks like and spin it around in. 3-D deserves some kind of salesmanship Nobel prize.
I mean that's exactly the kind of thing that makes Tesla fanboys rave endlessly about their car. It just needs to be decoupled from the actual software system, like any UI.
Somewhere in the last decade I became a curmudgeon who yells at clouds. I'd like a car with zero screens, no internet connectivity possible, and maybe one audio input and a radio. Also I drive a manual, which here in the US seems to be almost unheard of. As an aside, what's next? You can't buy a chef's knife without wifi?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are safety standards for automobile software: ISO 26262. Software for steering or braking systems is of high quality. It's not the same team that does the infotainment.
My car randomly braked today because it thought a car on a side road was pulling out. Not just sound the alarm but actually apply the brakes. Fortunately I didn't have a tailgater behind me. I disable the "land assist" every time (which often tries to steer me into wildlife or other cars and was clearly not built for use on a single track country roads with hedges and random verges), but this was the first time in 3…
Vertically integrated companies do this very differently. Tesla pioneered this. The Chinese copied this and at this point you also have companies like Rivian and a few of the legacy manufacturers that are doing the same. Effectively they in house all the software and e.g. Rivian runs the software on a handful of hardware subsystems instead of having hundreds of chips with their own firmware for things like the wind screen wipers, the software that controls the windows, the AC, the keyfob, AI driving features, and so on.
I mention Rivian here because they just did a deal with VW to start doing the same for them.
The issues here are not just technical but cultural. I used to work in Nokia when it was in the (slow) process of figuring out that they were a software company rather than a hardware company. Then Apple and Google came along and they were slow to adapt their internal processes and management. Apple makes firmware that goes on their phone. They provide OTA updates. There's only one supported version of that firmware: the current & latest one. It's the same for all phones they still support with updates. Nokia did the opposite. They forked their software for each product variant (dozens per year). And they did not do OTA upgrades. So most of their phones weren't updated at all (by users), and would typically ship with bugs that had already been fixed on other branches of the software. And it would ship on the schedule of the manufacturing process, regardless of the state of the software. With all the obvious consequences. Nokia got a well deserved reputation of shipping half baked software.
By the time MS bought them out, they had learned and improved a lot but Apple and Google were running circles around them by then and it did not matter anymore.
You see the same with car manufacturers currently. It's all about the buttons and the bling. They have a gazillion of upsells, features, special trims, and what not. And it all adds up to a whole lot of nothing if the software experience isn't great. That's why VW is paying billions to Rivian to fix that for them.
Their cars are too expensive, have too many chips and wires, and their software just isn't good enough. And they don't have ten years to figure this out for themselves. That's what Rivian is supposedly fixing for them.