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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

#591

Post by raxxorraxor »

ta1243 wrote: post #101
HPsquared wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are safety standards for automobile software: ISO 26262. Software for steering or braking systems is of high quality. It's not the same team that does the infotainment.

My car randomly braked today because it thought a car on a side road was pulling out. Not just sound the alarm but actually apply the brakes. Fortunately I didn't have a tailgater behind me. I disable the "land assist" every time (which often tries to steer me into wildlife or other cars and was clearly not built for use on a single track country roads with hedges and random verges), but this was the first time in 3…

That happens decently often. This is the reality for all systems aside from braking system in trucks perhaps, which are more sophisticated.

The decision to do an emergency break is the same problem fully self-driving cars need. You need to interpret sensory input and have a model of the environment.

Ironically some genius made these systems mandatory despite them being a safety concern. Granted, they tend to work if someone really falls asleep behind the wheel.

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

#592

Post by raxxorraxor »

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.

That is unrealistic. If you expect the brake perhaps but the most competent thing to do in case of an emergency brake is doing nothing.

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

#593

Post by whstl »

jabl wrote: post #496
bluGill wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In india if you hit someone after sounding your horn you are not at fault as you gave warning and they didn't move. (It is far more complex than that but as always the real truth is too complex for a comment box - if you are trying to drive safe it is close enough, but this isn't a license to murder), As a result all drives will honk their own if there is any possibility someone might cross in front of them. India is…

Was something like 20 years since I was in India, but IIRC at least back then they didn't have a "priority to the right" traffic rule, but rather some kind of "the one who first honks has priority". Traveling in a taxi felt suicidal, drivers just honked when approaching an intersection and continued blithely. Based on a quick googling, this seems to no more be the case, and there is a 'priority to the right" rule.

I saw something similar when visiting Latin America a few years ago, in a neighbourhood friends lived in. Some people would just go full speed in residential streets and hold the horn while crossing intersections because I guess that's what's gonna keep their car intact?

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

#594

Post by whstl »

brabel wrote: post #491
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.

Italy is really 2 countries, north and south are quite distinct.

What's the difference between them in terms of driving?

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

#595

Post by lompad »

LeonM wrote: post #559
metadat wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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…

[flagged]

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

#596

Post by kilburn »

knifie_spoonie wrote: post #572
homefree wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know what kind of breakage was the parent talking about.

My experience is that as the car gets older it is common for the vents to lose the capability to stay pointed where I place them. As in: you point them where you want and they flip back all the way to one side as soon as you let go.

(Hot climate here, with several months of "a/c set to max during the whole trip" per year)

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

#597

Post by GenshoTikamura »

ponector wrote: post #580
SoftTalker wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Let people decide if their fear of death warrants all kinds of surveillance on them and not shove that down their throats as in "we know that many of you would opt-out of being tracked so we made it mandatory", alright?

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

#598

Post by Johanx64 »

whatever1 wrote: post #318
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 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.

Blaming hardware people rubs me the wrong way.

People just use android and javascript front-end.

It's not crappy hardware by miles, crappy hardware as a category doesn't even exist these days.

It's hardware that can run everything necessary hundreds of times over, but shitty bloatland sloppy javascript it + android bloat it can not.

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

#599

Post by pydry »

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…

This makes it sound like the problem is that they either lack a person with architectural responsibility for the cars' electronics as a whole or that person lacks the skills necessary to do their job.

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

#600

Post by raxxorraxor »

mrheosuper wrote: post #389
smartmic wrote: post #30

So I have serious thoughts about driving “software defined vehicles” in the future. I mean, and the article has confirmed this sufficiently, the core competence of the established car manufacturers is not software. I don't trust the newcomers like Tesla or the Chinese manufacturers for the time being. In my opinion, the same standards should apply to software in motor vehicles as in the aviation industry. And there c…

Aviation standards allow boeing building their infamous 737-Max

It was Boeing that intentionally hid the importance of a system much more relevant than flight characteristics of a plane. That is an intentional violation of the spirit of the safety checks.
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