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Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

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Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#411

Post by majormajor »

moduspol wrote: post #371
majormajor wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Base Maverick is a Not everyone wants to spend 40-80k on a bloated luxury-truck-ized F150 when they only need to carry something oversized maybe once a year.

I think the market for base Mavericks is pretty small. At that point it's really not providing much value over an SUV with rear seats that fold down. I agree not everyone wants to spend 40-80k, but that doesn't mean they want to spend $20k for a small no-frills EV in the shape of a truck with not many other similarities. I like the "starts out cheap, then upgrade it later" premise of Slate, and I like that it's elect…

AWD is only standard on the fanciest Maverick trim and not an option picked by the couple of folks I know with them. But that + the bed length doesn't seem to be stopping them from loving their trucks. Tacos also start at 5' IIRC.

But if you have even just those once-a-year "need a truck bed" needs the gap between "SUV with fold down seats" and "actual truck" is pretty substantial.

I think the set of truck buyers with either:

* just occasional needs for a bed, without a need to put sheet goods flat or such (if you have that just get a minivan these days ;) )

* a fashion-driven desire compared to a van or SUV vs a practical-driven one

is substantial compared to the set of "needs a professional-grade truck" buyers.

The set of professional-grade buyers hasn't changed much in thirty or forty years, but the former two sets have exploded.

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#412

Post by mrheosuper »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #374
AlotOfReading wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not practical to produce a car that never needs updates. That would be a bug-free system, which is impossible. Since they're going to ship updates anyway, a lot of focus is on minimizing the cost and hence OTA. For what it's worth, I work in this industry and the general rule of thumb is that every increase in validation from QM (standard quality) up to the various levels of safety critical code has up to 10x th…

> It's not practical to produce a car that never needs updates. That would be a bug-free system, which is impossible. Since they're going to ship updates anyway, a lot of focus is on minimizing the cost and hence OTA. What was wrong with ECU and ABS etc software prior to the OTA era that we're now apparently entering? I've had plenty of cars--too many--and outside of a few warranty repairs involving re-flashing ECU/A…

They are not complex, so less breaking point to begin with. Also some bugs are considered not critical enough to do recall, they can be fixed when the owner return their car for maintainence. But now even those small bugs will be fixed by OTA update

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#413

Post by mrheosuper »

encom wrote: post #33
AlotOfReading wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not practical to produce a car that never needs updates. That would be a bug-free system, which is impossible. Since they're going to ship updates anyway, a lot of focus is on minimizing the cost and hence OTA. For what it's worth, I work in this industry and the general rule of thumb is that every increase in validation from QM (standard quality) up to the various levels of safety critical code has up to 10x th…

>That would be a bug-free system, which is impossible. Yes, but code that doesn't get written does not have bugs. And I don't want to control the rear window defroster, wipers, climate control, fog lights or whatever, on a touch screen menu buried 7 levels deep while going 130 km/h. It's bad enough that coffee makers, light bulbs and tooth brushes now have updatable firmware.

the people that design UI/UX is not the same people that write software

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#414

Post by jmb99 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #220
FrankWilhoit wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who actually can do it are not underpaid. These days they are brought in to do cleanup. They can name their price and pick their assignments.

>The people who actually can do it are not underpaid. The pipelines to create more such people are sorely lacking though

Only if you’re looking for top dollar when you graduate. Which unfortunately a lot of people are. It makes sense, most people pick this field for the salary and not out of passion (like the vast majority of professions).

But if you take a couple C/assembly/systems electives, look for internships at hardware companies, build a couple of toy projects on the side, and graduate with even a modicum of embedded experience, there will be companies that will hire you, pretty much guaranteed. You won’t be making 250k out of the gate, but you should still be making a more-than-livable salary (and frequently in a lower cost of living area than, say, the Bay), and if you pick companies correctly, you can be working with and learning from some truly genius engineers.

The pipeline’s there, it’s just not attractive (read: $$$$$$$) enough to pull in most people in the industry.

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#415

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #342
gerdesj wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although things are a bit shit in many places, I do love our planet and the weird and wonderful ways it works. Were car horns disabled (broken deliberately) in Chongqing?

20 years ago each city/province was basically its own closed market. So if you were driving a car in CQ, it was probably bought and even made in CQ. They simply required that the horns be disabled. China internally is much more of a free market now, so I’m not sure how they could just disable horns anymore, although you still can’t get away with driving an outside register vehicle inside a city for very long without…

Was actually quite surprised by how "civilized" the driving was in our recent China trip. Don't think I heard a horn once in probably 20h or so as a passenger, did find the drivers up in Heliongjiang a bit bold with their lane weaving but in Beijing they drove great!

Clear rules, and consistent enforcement works.

Noticed something similar with littering, right now they have to employ an army of old folks to pick up cigarette butts. But I suspect once people come to expect clean surroundings that enforcement of littering fines can become a thing and the culture around respecting public spaces will slowly change. We even caught a young kid full on lecturing their grandparent for spitting on the street.

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#416

Post by hnburnsy »

mbac32768 wrote: post #394
jwr wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> customers simply don't believe good interfaces are worth the money I guess I'm in the minority, then, but as a data point: I own a VW ID.4 and I'd pay significantly more to get software that isn't such a burning dumpster tire fire. And no, the excuses provided in this thread don't cut it. To be clear: it doesn't even annoy me anymore that the infotainment is slow and crappy, I've gotten used to it and I just never…

> I would pay more for a car where the software department is somewhat competent and knows what they're doing. I have a Tesla Model Y and I was thinking of downsizing to an ID.4 and you just scared the shit out of me.

The ID 4 is coming off a recall and sales stop because the doors would open when in motion if the handles got wet.

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#417

Post by ska »

analog31 wrote: post #407
acheron9383 wrote: post #199

As someone who works professionally on embedded software devices that update over the internet, car companies are stuck not because they can't get software talent, but because they have no ability to actually build the electronics alongside the software, which is ultimately what constrains embedded software. Without the right hardware, the constraints are just insurmountable, you can not do X feature because board A…

>>> But you can not just roll all your own electronics in a year. Naturally, there must be some scale threshold where this is true, so I don't doubt your experience. And my workplace doesn't make anything as elaborate as a car, or with such stringent reliability specs. But my experience is that hardware is always finished before software.

FWIW in my experience building both, hardware is always finished first because it’s cheaper to change the software later in the cycle. Much like drywallers patching over electrical/plumbing sins, software fills gaps …

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#418

Post by cusaitech »

brightball wrote: post #408
acheron9383 wrote: post #199

As someone who works professionally on embedded software devices that update over the internet, car companies are stuck not because they can't get software talent, but because they have no ability to actually build the electronics alongside the software, which is ultimately what constrains embedded software. Without the right hardware, the constraints are just insurmountable, you can not do X feature because board A…

It was encouraging to hear an exec from Ford recently say essentially this in an interview. The legacy manufacturers seem to realize that Tesla is eating their lunch because of their lack of vertical integration. It’s not going to be an easy problem to solve but will be interesting to see what effort achieves.

Was it the one with Verge?

Re: Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

#420

Post by metadat »

brightball wrote: post #408
acheron9383 wrote: post #199

As someone who works professionally on embedded software devices that update over the internet, car companies are stuck not because they can't get software talent, but because they have no ability to actually build the electronics alongside the software, which is ultimately what constrains embedded software. Without the right hardware, the constraints are just insurmountable, you can not do X feature because board A…

It was encouraging to hear an exec from Ford recently say essentially this in an interview. The legacy manufacturers seem to realize that Tesla is eating their lunch because of their lack of vertical integration. It’s not going to be an easy problem to solve but will be interesting to see what effort achieves.

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