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Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war

insideevs.com

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

#571

Post by fooker »

ak217 wrote: post #191
anon7000 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mazda has done a great job at this so far, very minimal screen which automatically just shows CarPlay, and buttons for all the normal car stuff, which also isn’t overdone. The only flaw is the scroll wheel to interact with the screen, which is just slightly too clunky in apps with too many options

Mazda also managed to squander a huge brand and structural advantage by falling into lockstep behind other Japanese automakers in underinvesting in EV manufacturing infrastructure. Now they have to rely on their JV partner Changan to lead the way in producing EVs, giving up the core structural strengths that Mazda previously had in designing and building their own components - including software and controls, which i…

> underinvesting in EV manufacturing infrastructure.

This has been a fantastic decision, as a large number of EV manufacturers have gone bankrupt.

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

#572

Post by knifie_spoonie »

homefree wrote: post #478
unethical_ban wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mazda from 2014 has this innovative feature: a digital control mechanism for my climate control, with real knobs! No more navigating menus and swiping across touchscreens to adjust temperature. And if I want to change the direction of the airflow? I just move the vent!

Yeah those suck - the vents often break, they’re ugly, they don’t work as well. The Tesla vents are great, the ui is good or can use voice. Other companies that attempt what Tesla does do it poorly with bad software.

I've driven many cars over the years. Not once has a vent ever broken.

Which cars are you driving where they break often?

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

#573

Post by chii »

DanielHB wrote: post #551
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 dif…

> (every time a component needs to talk to another component a new protocol was invented).

i'm sure that every time this happens, it individually makes sense to do it at the time.

This is a microcosm of how large systems get developed in small pieces, by different people, over a long(-ish) period of time. It's the same in the software world too i think, but presumably has a lot more consolidation than cars (as software for cars might be less common, and thus employees moving between companies is unlikely to make any sort of cross-pollination like there would be for FAANG-like companies).

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

#574

Post by speeder »

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.

I worked at BMW. I knew there was a project in there, using a certain ECU that was being quite problematic (as in, project being slightly late because ECU was a bit buggy and sometimes crashed when it was supposed to have almost 100% of uptime for legal reasons).

You ask: Why BMW doesn't just buy the ECU manufacturer?

Well... the company that was selling the ECU to BMW, is BIGGER than BMW. Even if BMW sold 100% of its assets and stock, it wouldn't have enough money to buy the ECU manufacturer.

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

#575

Post by ta1243 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #32

Terrible mobile website for what its worth. Two sentences per in paragraph ad and I couldn’t fully read the article because it bogged my se2 down to a crawl. How I wish I could jailbreak this phone and install a real adblocker but alas not on magic version number.

> Access InsideEVs and over 450 other websites as e.g. motorsport-total.com and formel1.de without banner ads, personalized tracking and video ads for only 3,99 € per month.

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

#576

Post by mihaaly »

zelos wrote: post #523
mdavid626 wrote: post #518

Looking back at the last 10 years how my fellow developers write code, the last thing I want is software defined vehicles. No one is rewarded for writing good code or for handling all the edge cases. People are rewarded for getting things done. The problem is, that this approach works e.g. for non-critical web applications, but not for cars, which are dangerous, heavy object traveling at high speeds. Every car I've d…

Automated Emergency Braking has made driving significantly safer, according to the statistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_emergency_braking_sy...

Statistics work on generic population but mush away a lot.

People are careless and inattentive beast of animals in our modern societies. Things are done for them, expected this way, they do not need to pay attention that much, which has lot of merits and advantages for the advancement of humanity. Dumb solutions doing as told and need to be handled expertly can be dangerous for modern people. Developing automation right (emphasis is here, big emphasis!!) is very necessary.

But unfinished and sloppy developers are killing careful people. Not show in the statistics, saving more bad drivers than killing good ones overridden by shit software cars.

Need to do it right with no collateral casualties.

I believe the tone of the conversations are into this direction anyway: please, pretty please, do it right! Not the current sloppy way! This is a dangerous game not mobile messaging platform, needs different mindsets than average software development approaches.

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

#577

Post by ta1243 »

lmm wrote: post #467
jim180 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to my wife, while driving at about 110km/h…luckily no one was behind her.

Braking at any point is safe with a competent driver behind. There's a reason we know our stopping distances and don't follow excessively closely.

Alas half of drivers are worse than average.

I'm one of them. Yet I still haven't had a situation where "lane assist" or "front assist" has actually been a good thing.

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

#578

Post by darkwater »

stef25 wrote: post #492
gerdesj wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excessive horning (made up word) is not just a Vietnamese thing. Italy is probably Europe's worst offender, with Greece a close contender. I'm not so familiar with Asia, but I get the impression that the entirety of Indian and most of Chinese drivers feel the need to lean on the horn with gay abandon (fnarr). In Britain the horn is generally reserved for "fuck that was close: I think you are a bit of a tosser" or "yo…

In Asia it's mainly used to signal your presence, like when you're overtaking someone. Just a little tap of the horn. Just the fact that you hear it say in the right corner behind you will make you not swerve in that direction. It's almost subconscious and really does improve safety imho. You can't possibly visually scan for all vehicles around you. The result of course is that there's a non stop cacophony, in places…

When I got my driving license too many years ago in Italy, they taught me that a brief honk when taking over in interurban roads is actually mandatory (but nobody did it). I don't know if that rule stayed the same as they harmonized more and more the road rules to the European ones.

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

#579

Post by pjc50 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #343
garyfirestorm wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They decided at some point ‘we don’t need to be experts in building systems... So they've just chosen death. Fantastic, great to hear.

Well, yes. The legacy car companies are ossified. They want to keep churning out minute variations on the same cars, and regard software as a thin layer for the entertainment system. They don't want to adapt to EVs, which force a redesign of the car as a whole. They're going to get run over by Chinese companies unless they can beg for tariffs to prop up their un-innovation.

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

#580

Post by ponector »

SoftTalker wrote: post #205
ratatoskrt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...why? Seems pretty sensible to me?

Almost everyone has a phone you don’t need a second one built in to your car.

Will your phone be easily accessible after a crash with rollover?
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