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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

#561

Post by drcongo »

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…

Back when there were all the rumours of an Apple car, I was hoping that this was actually what they were working on.

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

#562

Post by gizmo »

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…

Electronics are responsible? Really? Is this why the car radio interface lags and barely responds to input? Is this why the maps apps is terrible? Car infotainment systems are comically terrible even in areas that are 100% controlled by the OEM. Carplay works by reducing the infotainment screen to a dumb terminal. Car manufacturers could have done this themselves, you know.

I completely agree that vertical integration and building your own software stack from the ground up is the correct approach, but that's not the root cause of the problem. A better explanation here is that when all brands have awful infotainment systems then there is no consumer choice that forces competition.

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

#563

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

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 seems like it is also a „purchase department got the cheapest crap instead of something reasonable“ problem. You don’t need to actually make your own electronics if the specs are decent and the features match your needs.

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

#564

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…

Just to add one more thing to your point, if embedded devs work really hard and make the code work faster/better all reward you get is an _even_ more underpowered chip for the next version.

Hardware procurement is cut-throat, sometimes they have mandates to reduce component costs and the procurement people WILL reach them. Often procurement > product in the power dynamics so no matter how bad the product gets those people still do it because the software gets the blame for bad product, not procurement who forced a bad chip to be used.

The infotainment is usually the #1 chip to be cut down because it is often the single most expensive electronics part in the system that can be "easily" swapped for a different part.

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

#565

Post by philipallstar »

omega3 wrote: post #235
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. Why? A year is a long time and it's a solved problem. In any case even if you allow the "a year is not enough" argument why didn't they start 5 years ago?

> In any case even if you allow the "a year is not enough" argument why didn't they start 5 years ago?

It's because these companies are more about vendor management and regulatory compliance than building things. It's a totally different mindset.

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

#566

Post by ponector »

rustcleaner wrote: post #531
bzzzt wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about the rest of the world, but the EU requires e-call (automatic emergency call after an accident) for all new cars now so you can't sell cars without an LTE chip.

... but you can be a bro and make sure that hardware is close to the surface somewhere for easy access, its presence isn't required to start and operate the car (either firmware check or the immobilizer performing metrics), and its removal does not cause an obvious and annoying alert during operation (IE removal should not make the car appear to be in a 'degraded' state per its indicators). You are complying by insta…

It is mandatory to have and it is in checklist during annual vehicle check. Without it it is not street legal. And the car should show an error in case the module is removed/failed.

Those safety add-ons are there for a reason.

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

#567

Post by mihaaly »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #336
averageRoyalty wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the concept, but the question I have is why? These companies have huge wallets, and can surely scoop up a smaller automative microcontroller company and bring it in-house? It seems like a problem than enough money could solve quickly, but they've been doing horribly at this for decades now.

I work in one of the big three - the culture here is more waterfall and less agile. They decided at some point ‘we don’t need to be experts in building systems, we should only be good at spec’cing them and putting them together’ This leads to a mindset of relying on suppliers for changing even one line of code and at their mercy. Talent leaves because they didn’t get to do any of the fun stuff. And you’re left with b…

Isn't the trouble that agile is not compatible with things that has to be thoroughly made, 'finalized before release', like in every mission critical production? Casuality and the dyamic free spirit primised has much much less space here.

This is not sexy. This is important.

Needs different mindsets than the software folks grew up along in the past decades. Yes! Yes! There are much much more sexy topics to focus on for an agile software maker, that yields better looking results seemingly instantly. Compared to the boring finalization and coordination - oh, you devil bastard, coordination - heavy activities.

Don't take me seriously, speculating heavily.

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

#568

Post by reanimated »

wlesieutre wrote: post #444
deergomoo wrote: post #231

I want a 7-10” central display that spends 99% of its time showing CarPlay but also has a radio if I need it, the backup camera when I’m in reverse, and lets me change a couple of settings for convenience features like auto locking etc. Everything else can be dials, knobs, and buttons. My Mazda3 is perfect for this and I’m quite sad that I’m almost certainly not going to be able to find anything like it by the time I…

Halfway through reading this comment I was thinking “Yup that’s why I like my Mazda3.” Fingers crossed that they can keep it up with an EV transition. In the MX-30 they did an HVAC touchscreen, but perhaps the years long gap between that and their next EV will be an opportunity to reflect on how stupid that was. (Ignoring Chinese joint ventures that just use someone else’s platform)

I would love to have both. The scroll wheel is convenient when I’m driving, but the touchscreen would make entering a new address much easier, as it’s very annoying to do now by scrolling, and voice dictation doesn’t work well in my language.

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

#569

Post by raxxorraxor »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #213
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 understand the concept, but the question I have is why? These companies have huge wallets, and can surely scoop up a smaller automative microcontroller company and bring it in-house? It seems like a problem than enough money could solve quickly, but they've been doing horribly at this for decades now.

They did the opposite for decades in the hope to save some bucks, they outsourced everything so only business people remained.

Worse this really grew into a culture of entitlement where only a ready to use product is acceptable. There is no R&D anymore, there are people looking to buy solutions that don't exist for car makers.

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

#570

Post by DanielHB »

mmmBacon wrote: post #354
whatever1 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also works the opposite way. If the software roadmap does not inform the hardware requirements, then minimization of the bill of materials will lead to the selection of crappy hardware chips.

If you’re making very low end HW maybe this is true. Because HW is something that you put into the real world there are other constraints such as power, cooling, space, security of supply, ability to ramp, cost, reliability, etc. The calculus for HW selection is much more involved than simply SW. Good SW/FW can be performant on much less capable HW but it does mean that SW engineers need to understand more about the…

> Good SW/FW can be performant on much less capable HW but it does mean that SW engineers need to understand more about the HW.

It also takes much more time and requires a different set of talents. Often just using a bigger chip is better than investing the R&D.

The best analogy I can make is trying to make your own custom rendering engine and then code the UI in it or just use a browser and writing JS. Even if you do make it, your own custom rendering engine will probably cut a lot of features like fancy animations.

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