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A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

jalopnik.com

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Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#41

Post by mutagen »

With more and more functionality moving into software, is Munro or anyone else doing anything along these lines with the firmware and software in vehicles? Are manufacturers as interested in evaluating the process and design of their software as they are with the physical pieces of the vehicle? Do copyright and sometimes murky legalities around reverse engineering software prevent the equivalent teardown (disassembly) and analysis of software components?

Despite being known for kaizen processes implemented as Plan -> Do -> Check -> Act or 5 Whys, Toyota's issues with unintended acceleration were partly blamed on flaws and spaghetti code in the RTOS controlling their Electronic Throttle Control System in some models:

https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende...

That's just one example. There's the CAN bus car hacking via OnStar and more examples out there. Would this kind of analysis help more than say, simply implementing better software development methodologies?

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#42

Post by gwern »

rsp1984 wrote: post #39
sxates wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those companies is a multi-million dollar client for them, and one is not.

BMW certainly doesn't pay them to rip apart an i3. Their competitors do.

BMW certainly might:

> Plus, the engineers told me, the cost models are proven. Some manufactures, they said, actually hand their own parts to Munro asking them to use their model to see how close they can get to the actual cost of manufacture. Munro says their numbers always come very close, and that they’ve even been accused of having insider information. Munro isn’t just there to help engineers learn about how the competition designs and assembles its cars, it’s also there to help automakers—who really should be called “auto assemblers”—figure out if they’re getting ripped off by their parts suppliers. Knowing exactly how much it costs to build a wheel bearing, for example, can act as leverage for negotiation against a supplier of that part. At the same time, suppliers also go to Munro to learn. If, for example, one of their competitors is selling a part for what seems like impossibly too little, the supplier might ask Munro to tear it down and figure out how the competitor is saving cost.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#43

Post by m0th87 »

mutagen wrote: post #41

With more and more functionality moving into software, is Munro or anyone else doing anything along these lines with the firmware and software in vehicles? Are manufacturers as interested in evaluating the process and design of their software as they are with the physical pieces of the vehicle? Do copyright and sometimes murky legalities around reverse engineering software prevent the equivalent teardown (disassembly…

Here’s a talk of someone who’s reverse engineered CAN buses and made a python library to help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bZNhMcv4Y8&app=desktop

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#44

Post by blinkingled »

Luc wrote: post #9

A fun comparison: Munro on the BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA Munro on the Tesla Model 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCIo8e12sBM

That's laughably bad of Tesla - the thumb wide gaps in the body, the gluing rubber parts on glass seals because the original one was way out of tolerance, door rattle, one door having two ways to open but not the others - the screen that goes you have activated alternate door opening mechanism or some such thing - all pretty embarrassing. Never mind the insane difficulty to open the hood in an accident which looks like a real safety issue.

Also who in the 2018 world designs trunk doors that would take two hands to close for kids, smaller/older individuals? The non power operated trunk on my CR-V closes with a finger!

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#45

Post by Shivetya »

blinkingled wrote: post #44
Luc wrote: post #9

A fun comparison: Munro on the BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqiBWfsDTAA Munro on the Tesla Model 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCIo8e12sBM

That's laughably bad of Tesla - the thumb wide gaps in the body, the gluing rubber parts on glass seals because the original one was way out of tolerance, door rattle, one door having two ways to open but not the others - the screen that goes you have activated alternate door opening mechanism or some such thing - all pretty embarrassing. Never mind the insane difficulty to open the hood in an accident which looks li…

I do not understand how there is no manual mechanism for opening the rear doors from the inside, how does that even happen?

His comments about the outside door handles were at least prefaced with his own physical limitation but the state of that car is mind boggling. This is on top of the known promised features and oversight with regards to the programming of the display. I did notice on reddit there is a story of a III having cratered its engine. http://teslaweekly.com/first-model-3-motor-failure-reported-...

All in all 2017 wasn't their best year so hopefully 2018 will see a turn around but even max projections are well under 200k cars this year

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#46

Post by blinkingled »

Shivetya wrote: post #45
blinkingled wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's laughably bad of Tesla - the thumb wide gaps in the body, the gluing rubber parts on glass seals because the original one was way out of tolerance, door rattle, one door having two ways to open but not the others - the screen that goes you have activated alternate door opening mechanism or some such thing - all pretty embarrassing. Never mind the insane difficulty to open the hood in an accident which looks li…

I do not understand how there is no manual mechanism for opening the rear doors from the inside, how does that even happen? His comments about the outside door handles were at least prefaced with his own physical limitation but the state of that car is mind boggling. This is on top of the known promised features and oversight with regards to the programming of the display. I did notice on reddit there is a story of a…

>manual mechanism for opening the rear doors from the inside

Brother of my close friend literally burned to death in a Hyundai with no manual override for unlocking/opening doors. Granted he had modified the car's stereo system with custom speakers and the roadside mechanic did not do a good job with it which caused short circuit/fire. But had he been able to manually open the doors he would still be alive today. And to think Tesla is all batteries that have strong chance of starting a fire - ugh.

If car body construction tech was new you could cut Tesla some slack but given all of these issues have been fixed by pretty much all manufacturers years ago - I have no sympathy for Tesla there.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#47

Post by mschuster91 »

com2kid wrote: post #38
vuln wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember when the DoD banned use of any DJI drone due to it phoning home everything to China?

That should've been obvious. To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense. From just a pure telemetry perspective, knowing where people are flying the drones at is useful for product development and marketing. (In response, DJI did release a privacy mode that doe…

> To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense.

Not exactly. Issue a map file with the no-fly zones as shapes (as easy as possible to save on space) and embed it with a creation timestamp. Force an update every 30 days - have the app download the file and upload it to the drone. Manipulating the drone time won't work as it gets its time directly from GPS.

Also these patch files should not clock in too much - the entirety of Europe's streets can be squeezed into ~3 GB (download size of full Navigon EU map set)... I'd assume a 512MB flash chip would be sufficient to store all the world's no fly zones.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#48

Post by mschuster91 »

salgernon wrote: post #23

I wonder if they acknowledge any responsibility if their tear-downs reveal recallable design defects? Not that I'd want them to be persecuted, but they'd be in a great position to notice that something may be under-spec'd for a given workload. The article also didn't mention any reverse engineering of the software - I'm sure someone could clone the physical parts of an i3 and have a vastly substandard product because…

> I wonder if they acknowledge any responsibility if their tear-downs reveal recallable design defects?

Why should anyone be held responsible to find a flaw in a 3rd party product and not report it? It might be considered unethical if a life-threatening issue, yes, but IMHO there is no way to attach legal responsibility.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#49

Post by xemoka »

plantain wrote: post #20
com2kid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us DJI hires high quality Chinese engineers. Their software is better than what American consumer drone companies manage to push out, and they can push the latest tech to market insanely quick, as GoPro learned the hard way when they found out DJI was a half generation ahead of them on drone tech. DJI has great customer service, an amazing insurance plan that provides pie…

This is patently untrue - DJI has some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced, especially for a 1000$ device. I spent two months calling every other day trying to resolve a hardware issue and ended up issuing a chargeback before getting any attention. Go read the DJI hardware/software support forums. Never. Again.

They're great for a toy or a hobbyist, but companies or anyone who relies on the drone tech should look elsewhere. I can relate to awful customer support and even strange software problems that are refused to exist by DJI.

Re: A Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out How They're Built

#50

Post by Arbalest »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #7

Haynes makes manuals for every car just about (in the US at least), and I'm pretty sure they do a complete tear-down and rebuild for each one. https://haynes.com/en-us/

That's a teardown that a mechanic can use, this is about a teardown an engineer (or engineering team) can use.
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