Earlier quoted context omitted.
When a car company is losing money on every car sale. C level execs going to cut corners
This is a bad take.
This is an inadequate comment.
Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
201–210 of 386 posts
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know I know but then there's a cable from where the phone is to the middle console where the aux port is. But true, it'd for sure be better sound quality.
> I know I know but then there's a cable from where the phone is to the middle console where the aux port is. This doesn't seem unmanageable, no?
Not at all but not the best option for people that care about convenience over quality.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
What amazes me is that any grown up person thinks it is a good idea to update vehicles as if they were telephones Owners should have to bring the vehicle into a shop to have changes made, and they should be very rare. This lazy, control freakery of the worst kind Something very bad is going on happen and people will die before we realize that it is a stupid dangerous practice
As the update only affects infotainment and not critical systems, it seems like a reasonable tradeoff to me. Just because a car can fail in ways that kill people doesn't mean all parts of a car are equally critical.
This isn't true. If you look at the release notes for any of Rivian's updates they all include vehicle related firmware changes. This is not simply infotainment.
Beyond that "infotainment" includes driver critical information - like the speedometer which, for many affected, means there's no working driver screen.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#204It's crazy to me that this is possible in the first place. Standard practice is to have a fleet of test vehicles that are effectively production except in an early release group. Or, you know, having an A/B boot partition scheme with a watchdog. Things that have been around for decades at this point. Disclaimer: Former Googler, Worked closely with Automotive.
What amazes me is that any grown up person thinks it is a good idea to update vehicles as if they were telephones Owners should have to bring the vehicle into a shop to have changes made, and they should be very rare. This lazy, control freakery of the worst kind Something very bad is going on happen and people will die before we realize that it is a stupid dangerous practice
The art of shipping software—like on a disk, where once it’s out the door, it’s out the door and you may never get another shot—is dead or dying. Even in some embedded areas of the industry now.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#205It's easy to underestimate how hard and expensive it is to build, deploy, and remotely upgrade software that runs reliably on a fleet of diverse cars (different models, different years, slightly different components from batch to batch, etc.). It makes updating a mobile phone OS look trivial in comparison. So far, only Tesla seems to be able to update car software remotely, regularly and reliably. I'm certain it's ne…
> All things considered, physical buttons and dials are probably easier and cheaper, because they don't require software updates! I am pretty sure there is a market for a dumb modern car, but no one is building it. I am thinking of an electric car without anything "smart" in it. Modern safety features can stay, if they work completely self contained and without requiring an external connection ever over the lifespan…
I’d buy that car today.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#206It's crazy to me that this is possible in the first place. Standard practice is to have a fleet of test vehicles that are effectively production except in an early release group. Or, you know, having an A/B boot partition scheme with a watchdog. Things that have been around for decades at this point. Disclaimer: Former Googler, Worked closely with Automotive.
What amazes me is that any grown up person thinks it is a good idea to update vehicles as if they were telephones Owners should have to bring the vehicle into a shop to have changes made, and they should be very rare. This lazy, control freakery of the worst kind Something very bad is going on happen and people will die before we realize that it is a stupid dangerous practice
On the other hand, we update irreplaceable spacecraft billions of miles away with new software.
It should be fine to push software updates out, as long as the correct safety and fallback procedures are in place. It simply has to be designed to handle failure and procedures need to be in place to mitigate risks.
It sounds like that wasn't the case here. Also, why wouldn't you have a small initial release pool when you have such a large potential for disruption?
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#207This maybe crazy but if you're writing software for hardware that cost tens of thousands of dollars it should be impossible to brick it with an update, especially if that update is OTA.
The future is going great.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#208It's easy to underestimate how hard and expensive it is to build, deploy, and remotely upgrade software that runs reliably on a fleet of diverse cars (different models, different years, slightly different components from batch to batch, etc.). It makes updating a mobile phone OS look trivial in comparison. So far, only Tesla seems to be able to update car software remotely, regularly and reliably. I'm certain it's ne…
> All things considered, physical buttons and dials are probably easier and cheaper, because they don't require software updates! Almost all automotive control modules have firmware, whether that firmware is parsing touchscreen inputs or a rotary encoder.
Well sure, but the rotary encoder can’t get moved to a different menu tree by a software update, and I can use it without taking my eyes off the road. I know which I prefer.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the sentiment, but think about the alternatives. There are a few different kinds of updates that can be applied, each with their own protective layers. Infotainment updates, like what happened to Rivian aren't that dangerous. You lose "convienience features" like maps, air con, etc, but generally nothing that could kill you or someone else. Then there's system updates, which is where danger noodle things…
>Infotainment updates, like what happened to Rivian aren't that dangerous. You lose "convienience features" like maps, air con, etc, but generally nothing that could kill you or someone else. Also speedometer, which is hardly a convenience feature.
The dashboard panel is working, at least according to Twitter updates. "Only" affects the infotainment console.
Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rivian does have a test fleet, and they test it for weeks before releasing. This particular issue is because they apparently distributed the firmware signed with the wrong cert. Not a bug in the software itself. That is independent of testing the software, but still a distribution issue.
Yeah, but how did the vehicle not just reject the wrong cert and refuse to flash the update?
The firmware is probably not just a signed package but signed binaries in the package as well. One is probably signed with the wrong cert.
This would not cause the updater to fail unless it verified the certs of all the binaries in the package, which most don't