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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

#761

Post by gorkish »

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 had one of the most popular published projects on mp3car.com back in the heyday. It actually got me into a few strange meetings with companies that were actually building this stuff, like Clarion. I had literally designed, built, and installed a superior product to what they shipped as a one-off for fun in 3 months, but to them I was just a token enthusiast.

The vocabulary that these people started throwing out was absolute nonsense. It was pretty evident that "vehicle informatics" was fucked the second someone said those words out loud. And here we are more than 20 years later and still no closer to getting it right. Despite being seemingly well regarded, even Tesla's in car systems are just awful. And it's more impossible than ever to fix, modify, or replace on your own.

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

#762

Post by datavirtue »

bsder wrote: post #328
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.

Because the auto companies outsource everything , lay the risk onto the outsourced companies and expect that some significant percentage of them will go bankrupt every year. With that kind of adversarial relationship, you are never getting anything above the barest minimum of competence.

Smells like Boeing.

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

#763

Post by rad_gruchalski »

timewizard wrote: post #760
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m certain you aren’t that important for anyone to care. Yes: it reports your location to a third party. When you have an accident. So you can get help. And of course it can be verified. At the end of the day it’s a sim card in a passive mode. Maybe you don’t know how to verify it. There are millions of them driving around. I’m sure someone more qualified than you would have already reported if they were tracking in…

> I’m certain you aren’t that important for anyone to care. Storage is cheap. We know the NSA hoovers up everything it can and puts in a database. This is facile reasoning. > So you can get help. How many accidents resulted in fatalities because 911 couldn't find the victim? What's the percentage on that you think? Is there _no other way_ to get help other than this system? > I’m sure someone more qualified than you…

> You're just full of confidence. Pray tell where it comes from. What makes you believe this is true?

I trust in people who look for this stuff as a daily job, or because „they’re here to get you”. Because you know a sim card in the open is really easy to verify. And there are thousands of them driving around but also easily approachable sitting targets in every possible setting.

But you double down. I find this discussion pointless.

> How many accidents resulted in fatalities because 911 couldn't find the victim?

You’re missing the point of the eCall system. Think out of the box. What if there is no witness? What if everyone in the car cannot get help

Everyone who could reach out for help, received it. Can you tell the same about those who weren’t able to contact first responders in time? Maybe they’re still missing! It’s called survivorship bias.

Sounds like you are trying hard to be obnoxious.

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

#764

Post by slipnslider »

awongh wrote: post #638
DanielHB wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For american cars at least, I read that one of the reasons this process exists is because car companies want to work around union rules for manufacturing by outsourcing components of the cars to subcontractors that they can make deals with. Ultimately it's a price control strategy to pit these suppliers against each other to lower costs. But it means that designing these electronic sub-systems isn't just a question o…

>price control strategy to pit these suppliers against each other to lower costs

Apparently that rabbit hole goes super deep in which the large auto manufacturers in the US throw their weight around and force suppliers into selling parts at cost or with razor thin profit margins. And on top of that, they force the suppliers to eat the loss when it comes to cyclical business demand (e.g. storage costs for over-producing during low demand and increased labor costs during times to under producing from high demand)

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

#765

Post by vel0city »

jabl wrote: post #737
jameshart wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By priority to the right do you mean a French style priorité a droite? Or American style stop sign priorities? Neither system describes how Indian traffic works, which is much more of an iterated cooperative fluid dynamics simulation, with the main rule being ‘don’t drive into people who are in front of you’. And they drive on the left, so priority to the right makes no sense.

> By priority to the right do you mean a French style priorité a droite? Or American style stop sign priorities? I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_to_the_right That is, unless there are other signs overriding it (like yield or stop signs), you must yield to someone coming from the right in an intersection. > And they drive on the left, so priority to the right makes no sense. Not sure that matters. The im…

I do agree consistency is probably the most important thing, but deciding which side should go first can have differences based on if you're driving on the left or the right.

Imagine a 4-way stop of 1 lane each way roads. Cars drive on the right in this example. One car rolls up traveling from west to east and another car from south to north.

If we give priority to the right, meaning the south->north traffic, they end up out of the way of the other car sooner than the car on the west to east traffic. They only need to cross halfway before they're unblocking the other traffic. If we give priority to the left, meaning the west-east traffic, the west-east car needs to cross the entire road before they start to unblock.

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

#766

Post by vel0city »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #710
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!

The Tesla vents are definitely a debatable choice. I like them, but I acknowledge they are mostly an aesthetic choice. Many Tesla removals (stalks, etc.) come with a cost savings, but I don't really see it with vents. You're probably adding parts in the form of little motors and wires to power them. But they do fit with the theme of autonomy. Software can remember their position for each driver, or could hypothetical…

Lots of car brands have only a few sizes of vents across several different models of cars. Look at the interiors of all the various GM cars across their different brands especially in the 90s and 2000s, and they're all essentially the same vents.

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

#767

Post by Marsymars »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #424
smogcutter wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very obviously a rhetorical exaggeration.

Yes sometimes it’s a dollar or two and it really adds up quick. Sometimes 10’s of dollars. That door speaker can be few dollars cheap - you may get 2% more THD in a frequency band… the conversations can be really reduced down to ‘meh subjectively not noticeable’ but will save us a million. Add few of these things and now you have a shitty radio system but 5 mil in bank.

Speakers are a bit of a funny one, because, with the important condition that the amp needs to not be crap, they’re pretty straightforward to upgrade for the end user.

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

#768

Post by Marsymars »

cornholio wrote: post #494
mikepurvis wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in a loaner 2025 Volvo right now and I’ve honestly been pleasantly surprised with the Android Auto setup. I thought I’d never again use anything other than phone projection, but nope — I can install Google Maps and Spotify and sign into both, and then my profiles and everything are right there including search history, and it’s actually more seamless and integrated than switching between CarPlay and the native/ou…

Give it five years and it will be guaranteed garbage. Spotify will refuse to run on an unsupported older Android without the latest DRM API, while Google Maps will crash your system randomly, requiring you to disconnect the car battery to jumpstart it again. Volvo will offer you an upgrade of their proprietary device at the low price of $1899. It's puzzling to see this push for general computing on devices that need…

> Google Maps will crash your system randomly

They’ve at least got some incentive to keep this working so they can keep showing you ads.

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

#769

Post by Marsymars »

eek2121 wrote: post #628
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…

Agreed! They also want to treat it as a new revenue stream rather than as a value add, which ultimately hurts them. We end users don’t want to pay a subscription for our car. Especially for things we already get for free on our phone.

> We end users don’t want to pay a subscription for our car. Especially for things we already get for free on our phone.

I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I pay for ad-free navigation.

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

#770

Post by Marsymars »

ericmay wrote: post #250
jeromegv wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking millions of cars driving at a speed that can kill people both inside or outside the car. Anything you can do to reduce those distractions is a net positive for society. Less death. As for criminalizing texting, I’ve heard enough people getting caught and getting big fines that it works enough for me to dissuade me from doing it.

If you live in America it’s just not enforced. Even cops do it. I don’t do it because I just don’t need to but you can watch people doing it for yourself if you pay attention. If you’re focused on less death, sure we can criticize infotainment screens, but the energy is much better spent in demanding enforcement and in whatever we need to do to reduce car usage. Otherwise you’re kind of wasting your time, unfortunate…

In Canada at least, cops have special dispensation to be allowed to use their phones while driving.
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