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Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

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Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#11

Post by wilg »

dopylitty wrote: post #7
yazzku wrote: post #4

Software in cars and OTA is the stupidest thing in recent years. Like the damn laptop riddled with mediocre software wasn't already frustrating enough, let's fuck up cars too.

To be fair cars as currently designed are a pretty stupid idea to begin with. Let’s just waste energy carrying around 5000lbs of car at ridiculous speeds to move around a 200lb person.

This is a terrible argument against cars. You could say the same for a train, let's waste energy carrying around 1,500,000 pounds of train to move around 120,000 pounds of passengers.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#12

Post by 10000truths »

dopylitty wrote: post #7
yazzku wrote: post #4

Software in cars and OTA is the stupidest thing in recent years. Like the damn laptop riddled with mediocre software wasn't already frustrating enough, let's fuck up cars too.

To be fair cars as currently designed are a pretty stupid idea to begin with. Let’s just waste energy carrying around 5000lbs of car at ridiculous speeds to move around a 200lb person.

Scooters and motorcycles are much more efficient in this regard, but uptake has been very limited in Western countries when compared to the pervasive use in Southeast Asia.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#13

Post by steelframe »

Software is such a powerful tool that I understand motor vehicles having as much code in them as they do. What I don't want is for that software to be shoddy or for it to spy on me. I also want complete control over whether or when it changes, and I want to understand the nature of and reason for the updates, just as I do for my Linux laptop on which I use apt-listchanges before accepting upgrades.

For example:

apt-listchanges: Changelogs

---------------------------

bind9 (1:9.16.48-1) bullseye-security; urgency=high

  * New upstream version 9.16.48
   - CVE-2023-4408: Parsing large DNS messages may cause excessive CPU
     load
   - CVE-2023-5517: Querying RFC 1918 reverse zones may cause an assertion
     failure when "nxdomain-redirect" is enabled
...

glibc (2.31-13+deb11u8) bullseye; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/any/local-qsort-memory-corruption.patch: Fix a memory
    corruption in qsort() when using nontransitive comparison functions.
...

imagemagick (8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.3+deb11u2) bullseye; urgency=medium

  * Fix CVE-2021-3574: memory leak was found in TIFF coder
  * Fix CVE-2021-4219: a special crafted file could lead to a DOS.
  * Fix CVE-2021-20241 / CVE-2021-20243: divide by zero in
    some coders (Closes: #1013282)
And so forth. If something makes me raise an eyebrow I can go look at the source code to see what's up. I also like for upstream maintainers and other members of the community being able to do that same. Having that process in place helps keep everyone honest. Why not have this for my car's computers too?

For the install I would rather download a signed image onto a USB drive and flash from that versus letting my car communicate with the mothership indiscriminately. I also want to downgrade at any time with a previous known-good image when there's something about the update that I don't like. For example, if it sends my car's console unit into a bootloop.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#14

Post by huytersd »

infecto wrote: post #10
dmoy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's even what, 7000 or 8500lbs car? Which is even crazier when you consider road wear scales on the 3rd or 4th power of weight. (Edit: 4th power, damn) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law So a 8500 car does 64x as much road wear as my small sedan.

Wrong https://twitter.com/ajisuzu1/status/1681123111364620294?s=46 TLDR; From a road wear perspective there is no real difference between a heavy EV and a lightweight smaller ICE. Edit: Not sure why I get downvoted so heavily. It is just a fact that the weight difference between an EV and comparable ICE has no measurable difference to road wear. People like the above poster just like to touch on the fourth power law…

No one can read that thread.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#15

Post by Spinfusor »

TheBlight wrote: post #6
csours wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same things with phones. A phone should just make calls, it doesn't need software.

After the deluge of spam calls I receive daily I'm somewhat inclined to opt for the opposite direction. No more phonecalls and just using apps for communication.

At this point I would like to be there. Telecom companies don't seem to care about spam calls much.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#16

Post by kelp »

steelframe wrote: post #13

Software is such a powerful tool that I understand motor vehicles having as much code in them as they do. What I don't want is for that software to be shoddy or for it to spy on me. I also want complete control over whether or when it changes, and I want to understand the nature of and reason for the updates, just as I do for my Linux laptop on which I use apt-listchanges before accepting upgrades. For example: apt-l…

I've also often thought about what an open source car software stack might look like, but with different motivations. I'd love to be able to see more diagnostics about what the car is actually doing and to add 3rd party extensions.

For me, I don't want to have to tinker too much, but I want to be able to. I think the ideal would be something like SteamOS on Steam Deck where you can get into the system, and you can change or add things. But the default is just having it all take care of for you.

That said, cars have all sorts of regulations about how certain things work. I have no idea how any of the above ideas would interact with those regulations.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#17

Post by nijave »

steelframe wrote: post #13

Software is such a powerful tool that I understand motor vehicles having as much code in them as they do. What I don't want is for that software to be shoddy or for it to spy on me. I also want complete control over whether or when it changes, and I want to understand the nature of and reason for the updates, just as I do for my Linux laptop on which I use apt-listchanges before accepting upgrades. For example: apt-l…

Imo the current continuous update while letting customers beta test new updates starts to fall apart as the cost of the hardware increases.

Bricking am expensive smart phone is infuriating, but bricking an expensive household appliance or even more expensive automobile is a non starter.

The signed image on USB seemed to be the norm from maybe 2010-2020 but it seems cellular connectivity has gotten too cheap and telemetry too valuable...

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#18

Post by esalman »

wilg wrote: post #11
dopylitty wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair cars as currently designed are a pretty stupid idea to begin with. Let’s just waste energy carrying around 5000lbs of car at ridiculous speeds to move around a 200lb person.

This is a terrible argument against cars. You could say the same for a train, let's waste energy carrying around 1,500,000 pounds of train to move around 120,000 pounds of passengers.

You need lot more lbs of cars to move 120k lbs of passengers, that's the argument in favor of trains.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#19

Post by wilg »

esalman wrote: post #18
wilg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrible argument against cars. You could say the same for a train, let's waste energy carrying around 1,500,000 pounds of train to move around 120,000 pounds of passengers.

You need lot more lbs of cars to move 120k lbs of passengers, that's the argument in favor of trains.

Yeah about twice as much. But it's still a bad argument because pounds don't really matter.

Re: Safe and reliable production changes, and how Rivian recently got this wrong

#20

Post by sarchertech »

huytersd wrote: post #14
infecto wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong https://twitter.com/ajisuzu1/status/1681123111364620294?s=46 TLDR; From a road wear perspective there is no real difference between a heavy EV and a lightweight smaller ICE. Edit: Not sure why I get downvoted so heavily. It is just a fact that the weight difference between an EV and comparable ICE has no measurable difference to road wear. People like the above poster just like to touch on the fourth power law…

No one can read that thread.

TLDR paved roads are generally designed to handle large trucks and construction equipment. On such roads passenger vehicles (even heavy electric vehicles) have a negligible impact on pavement life.

The difference in road wear between a 2k lbs. vehicle and an 8k lbs vehicle is too small to matter.

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