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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

#551

Post by DanielHB »

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…

I worked in similar systems and you are 100% right. 80% of the time was spent on communication protocols between the different boards and microcontrollers. QAing and solving issues from short-sighted dozens of unique custom protocols that worked in non-standard ways (every time a component needs to talk to another component a new protocol was invented).

When you have dozens of communication lines required between different parts of the system it becomes just as complicated as your average micro-service cloud. Really, a car is a distributed system with dozens of "services". An analogy is that each microcontroller-microcontroller communication use their own custom binary-encoding API that runs on multiple different, incompatible versions of HTTP.

We actually spent considerable amount of time just developing our own custom protocol for communication that could run on all sorts of different physical interfaces (CAN, ethernet, modbus, etc) as well as a series of proxies between devices (so component A can talk to component C through a proxy in component B). And if we had to use a custom protocol from an external manufacturer we had to wrap it into our own custom protocol.

That protocol was actually used for our cloud data reporting as well, so eventually all our data communication would use a single unified protocol from micro-controller to IoT Linux to cloud data-ingestion pipeline to database.

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

#552

Post by kev009 »

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…

This is weird because the microprocessor industry owes a lot of early success to automotive companies. Motorola 6800, Intel 8061 (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/virtual-vaul...) etc. Quoting wikipedia: "the name "Motorola" by linking "motor" (from motor car) with "ola" (from Victrola), which was also a popular ending for many companies at the time, e.g. Moviola, Crayola"

TI has some powerful automotive SoCs like the AM69A/TDA4AH (https://www.ti.com/ds_dgm/images/fbd_sprsp79b.svg) that target the industry.. 8 Cortex-A72s, a full GPU, multiple Cortex R5Fs that can lockstep, and a bunch of powerful C7000 DSPs. The SDK is probably not awesome as embedded BSPs tend to be but the SoC should be workable. That should be plenty of compute.

So what is really going on, and what happened?

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

#553

Post by KSteffensen »

HelloNurse wrote: post #524
Thorrez wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I drove in Italy for a week and a half and didn't notice excessive honking. I did notice tons and tons of tailgating.

Honking is a harmless replacement for solving disputes with handguns. You probably drove in low-stress environments.

There is a low-stress driving environment in Italy? Where's that?

Milan is the only place I have ever been where reversing on the high way is a reasonable solution to missing an off-ramp.

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

#554

Post by rapsey »

vachina wrote: post #521
whiteboardr wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get out if you can! Spent 7 years at the three pointed star within design and UX - one day, when i’m over all i had to witness and experience i’ll write a book about the downfall of the german automotive industry. It’s all politics and due to constant battles and changing ownership throughout departments they won’t ever have a solid foundation. And i dare to assume that this goes for most of the automotive industry.…

Yeah, and then those contractors (like Continental) has sub-contractors (like Akka) and they have sub-sub-contractors (some random Indian software company) working on the side mirror winding logic. In German cities with automotive industry, you’ll find thousands of these satellite companies.

And in Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, etc.

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

#555

Post by rapsey »

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.

Go for a Hyundai.

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

#556

Post by Digit-Al »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #273
pnw wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Tesla, a 21 year old company that has shipped seven million cars across the world (including the worlds best selling car) a "newcomer"?

They only really became relevant ~ 10 years ago, I don't think they began selling lots of cars until ~2018 or later.

Also, as many of the well known manufacturers have been going for 40 to 60 years, and some of them for over 100 years (Rolls Royce, Ford, Mercedes, etc...) then 25 years is a newcomer :-)

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

#557

Post by DanielHB »

loeg wrote: post #485
latchkey wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting IG videos in my feed for a company that sells after market fixes because older Teslas have such poorly designed electronics, that they fail in common ways. The memory goes bad because they write useless logs to a chip, and it eventually fails. End users are beta testing... https://www.instagram.com/reel/DINADISyP0f/

> The memory goes bad because they write useless logs to a chip, and it eventually fails. I worked for a $ ~billions revenue software storage vendor who had the exact same issue (excessive logging wearing out under-spec'd flash drives).

We had the exact same issue as well haha

These kind of problems only happen years after the software roll out so no one cares when you are under time pressure.

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

#558

Post by raxxorraxor »

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…

As an embedded developer I usually point to the fact that there is generalist hard and software available for the primitive problem an infotainment systems needs to solve. At least for that side I don't see how generalist pc hardware wouldn't suffice and fit probably 95% of use cases.

At least that is how I build my self-made system, which is quite awesome compared to solutions you generally see in cars. Not for the average consumer, but classic car makers can do much better with a bit of courage.

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

#559

Post by LeonM »

metadat wrote: post #420
brightball wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

I don't understand this sentiment.

Should all VW drivers have a "I hate Hitler" sticker on their car too?

Because in case you aren't aware: VW was started by the German Labour Front (part of the Nazi party). Adolf Hitler himself oversaw early development of the first models.

Why the need to apologize for the CEO of the company that you buy products from? Should we also have an "I hate Foxconn" sticker on every Apple device?

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

#560

Post by CelestialMystic »

jimt1234 wrote: post #443
winddude wrote: post #257

as a car guy and software engineer I just want to say car's need way less software, way more separation of concerns, more standardisation and more open platforms, but most of the money is made on service, so the manufactures are incentivized to make closed systems.

Not necessarily less software , but more open software. There's been a lot of legal action around "right to repair" recently - I think there was a major decision regarding John Deere tractors a few years ago. But honestly, when it comes to cars, I haven't seen any significant decisions. I hope I'm wrong. Not 100% sure.

Not less software, no software. Have a quick flick through this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQlFIl18x9g

Obviously I don't expect you to watch all of this but to have the lights working you need to program a computer to do so. This guy had problems just sourcing the right "module", then it has to be programmed. The car is basically an ornament until they fix it. This vehicle is about 20 years old and seems to be in reasonable condition for its age and would otherwise be perfectly fine to drive on the road. Now he is lucky to be friends with a guy that has access to the BMW software and has decent knowledge of how the software works.

Contrast that to my 1994 Land Rover Defender. There isn't a computer in it at all. The most complicated electronics is probably the wiper circuit and (which is partly mechanical). To fix electrical issues you use a multi-meter and adding/removing fuses. My toolbox is spanners, screwdrivers, socket set and a multi-meter. I managed to fix my vehicle in a car park at 11pm, with no prior experience of repairing this vehicle.

If you want things to be able to be repaired by normal people they have to be simpler and typically that means everything has to be modular with a well define spec or easily reproducible for a person in his shed with easily available tools. The trade off is that it won't be refined.

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