Short answer to the lede: no, the industry cannot cope. Or rather, it will limp along with bloatware, bugs, and malware exactly the same way we see desktop OSes bloat, or the way we see routers and set-top boxes hacked to become botnets.
In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code has always bloated.
Damn. I just want a car with as FEW knobs/buttons/levers as necessary. Literally: make it as simple as possible. Like an golf cart! Is anyone else out there with me? I feel like Walter from The Big Lebowski regarding this: has everyone just gone crazy?
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than one I'm getting a click-through license to use.
I have a more optimist view about the industry being able to cope just because we have two more industries that have gone the same transitions, aeronautical and aerospace.
Back in the day airplanes where just knobs and levers, and we didn't have the reliability that safety that we have today.
With aerospace, I mean, software engineering as a discipline started with aerospace!
If we write "starup code" (i.e. CRUD web app) for cars we'd still be in huge trouble, but if the automotive industry can adopt the redundant systems, enforce VERY high levels of software testing, and other practices for those other industries I think we could see some interesting things coming from the industry
Car guy here. Yeah, I’m with you. My favorite car was a ‘96 Tercel with mechanical steering and a 4-speed manual. It even had manual roll-up windows. It had less than 100 HP, but it was simple as hell to operate, very fun to drive, cheap to maintain, and extremely reliable up until I sold it with nearly 400k miles on the odo. I put an aftermarket stereo and speakers in it and I was set. Only reason I sold it was because my wife hated it and a friend needed a cheap reliable car for his idiot son who proceeded to neglect and destroy it quickly after taking possession.
Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that.
If you want the simplest car possible, you can look at models designed to sell in volume worldwide. I'm talking the Hyundai Venue crossover, Hyundai Accent subcompact sedan, Honda Fit/Jazz hatchback (recently discontinued for the US), Ford EcoSport crossover, etc. They are designed to be serviced in poor conditions. They will tolerate removal of electronics like the infotainment because some countries' base models have simpler configurations. In the case of the Honda Fit, the climate control dials physically move the ducts! And repair documentation and parts will be plentiful because there's a large market for parts suppliers to compete. Also look at body-on-frame fleet vehicles like a base Ford Ranger or F-150, but be ready to forgo stuff like cruise control.
There are EV equivalents too, like the Chevy Bolt and Hyundai Kona EV that offer range in the 200s of miles with make driver assists as an optional upgrade. Even with complicated powertrain electronics, EVs are still more reliable than ICE cars because any iffy software is made up for by lack of mechanical parts. The repair procedure is the same as mechnical parts - just swap the faulty part out for a working one, and the "upstream" supplier will probably take the broken module to reflash software or frankenstein together half-working PCBs to make another refurbished module to sell.
If you're worried about remote compromise, it's pretty easy to avoid IMO. Open the dashboard and yank the cellular antenna, and never pair the infotainment to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (or just yank the 2.4 GHz antenna). Those are basically the only avenues for wireless attacks into a vehicle unless you count the TPMS and key fob radios, which seem too simple and low-bandwidth to offer an attack surface. And if an attacker can access your car's physical ports, they could already attack you in other ways like by weakening the brake lines. Other new electronics, like MOSFETS instead of relays in the BCM, have actually made the car more reliable so they should be fine. Other newly standard features like blind spot monitoring are (1) solid state, so they won't fail often and (2) tolerate failure or complete removal.
Yeah, I like the tech behind Tesla but am turned off by. 1) The large, distracting screen in the front of the car. 2) The subscription model of the car's firmware.
If electric cars ever become widespread I hope I can find a used one engineered without that stuff. Otherwise I may have to stop buying cars.
Two months ago I sold a dead-simple Toyota truck I'd driven for 14 years and bought a new, loaded Honda. The difference in the complexity is of course astonishing. The yota didn't even have usb. You could climb into the engine compartment and sit there. The Honda has pretty much everything a modern car can have, and you can't even see empty space in the engine compartment.
I _could_ get on your "just give me simple" bandwagon. A part of me was proud of the low-tech, rusty durability of the Toyota, I admit it. Still, I'll also admit I like most of what the Honda can do. I like the phone integration and that I can toss it down on a pad and it will charge while I drive. I like that the wipers, headlights and high beams all activate when needed without input from me. I like that it remembers my seat and mirror settings and restores them when I enter the car. I like keyless entry and remote start. I like the backup camera. I like adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking, and lane keeping assist. I like torque vectoring all wheel drive. Heated and ventilated seats are awesome.
Of course, if I were to try to keep this car for 14 years I might regret it, I don't know. Honda makes good cars but there's a boatload of stuff to break, lol. I think I might be better advised to trade it in at five years or so, but I do like the tricks it can do.
I drive an old car partly for this reason. I've never had a car younger than 10 years old. My previous reasoning when I was younger was that I don't want to deal with the inspection requirements that come with OBD2 cars. Now I'm not so much worried about that with all the extra nonsense they're putting into them. My favorite car ever was older than I was, I loved it, an old ramcharger with power windows.
My current one has some "modern" archaic crap in it that was all the rage when it was built, it's GM so it has the OnStar buttons in the rear view mirror that are useless, along with complementary antenna on the roof. It's stock stereo controlled the alarm, it has all sorts of compartments that are nowadays mostly useless and IMO just an excuse to cram something in every spot. A lot of the "features" are just dead fads. The seats have lumbar shit in them and warm up. The warmer is useful in the winter I guess. Still with the bloat it is significantly better than the Frankensteins that commercials have convinced people they need nowadays.
My next car is either going to be a ~1995 4runner or a ~1994 diesel f-350 that I build myself. I do miss the corner windows.
I'm definitely in the same boat wrt complexity. My pickup has just enough extra electronics to be a quality of life improvement over a model that lacked those features. It doesn't try to drive for me and second guess my actions in unexpected ways. It doesn't give me unfathomable warning beeps that only serve as a distraction trying to figure out what's causing the beep.
At the same time it's important to recognize there's a difference between software bloat and growth. Security fixes often cause code to grow (checks, verifications, etc). That growth isn't bloat. The previous version of the software was exploitable because it lacked the checks that were added. Adding drivers or better handling edge cases in drivers grows code but isn't bloat.
Even "bloat" that's only added on-disk size (a secret Tetris game in some code) that doesn't affect normal code flow isn't the same as bloat as adding some advertising telemetry in the middle of a critical code path.
Not all code growth is bloat and not all bloat is equal.
I don't mind complexity but what I can't stand is having to access that complexity through touchscreens. Without the tactile feedback of a knob or button I have to take my attention off the road to see where I need to press on the screen. That's a major step backwards in auto safety, IMO.
And don't get me started on the lazy manufacturer design trend of bolting a tablet to the dashboard and calling it a day.
I agree with you about wanting a car without pointless stuff bolted on. When it comes to the things required to actually move the car, there's an interesting inverse relationship between visible levers and internal complexity though. Each lever removed is moving complexity from your brain to some physical system. Like an automatic transmission removes the gear shift and adds the more complex automatic transmission. In the limit, one can imagine the "simplest" interface of a virtually empty self-driving pod, which of course is actually an extremely complex system.
Being as good as the desktop experience would be amazing. Realistically it will be much, much worse than the desktop experience because the auto companies are far, far worse at software than even 1990s Microsoft. You are talking about an industry where OTA updates are considered a major and challenging technology and multiple instances of bricking have occurred.
I'm with you. I will not buy a vehicle of any kind that is sending telemetry or tracking without my express written consent. This includes ICE cars made after 2018 that may have ODB3 and send GPS, emission, speed and other data to 3rd parties. I accept that I will be paying a premium to keep older vehicles running. I am about to donate my old truck to a charity and will get a less old truck after I leave California.
' For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off."
'
Hear, hear!
As a software developer, I'll take a car without a computer, or with as little computing as possible any day! I do understand that fuel injection and abs are great stuff, but those could be ultra low cost asics, and, frankly, computing need not apply anywhere else.
Cars like Microsoft Word have a broad feature set because needs are broad. For those of us who want reliable, inexpensive, self service-able transportation there are fewer choices. My guess is because the majority are entranced by sexier things: smart features, driver assist, and safety features of dubious quality.
Well that's two different things. Intrinsic versus extrinsic complexity.
The user experience may get simpler again, but the technology inside is likely to get more complex. Electrification might mean simpler mechanisms and fewer moving parts, but the software will get ever more complicated.
Now in a way it's usually a good thing, if all the complexity of something is hidden and users can treat it as though it's simple. But we'd probably all agree that extra complexity in software that can kill us if it goes wrong is worrying. The only way we know to write safe software is to make it as simple as possible, and write it slowly and expensively. SIL-rated software has already reached the automotive sector. But it seems like the sheer demand to make cars more complex (especially for self-driving) will outrun our ability to make them safe.
In a parking spot, I never turn the steering wheel without the car moving forward or backwards. It's bad for the tires. But what drove the lesson home for me (pardon the pun) is when I drove a rental car with no power steering, sometime in 1990 in Europe.
If the car is not moving, and you try to turn the wheels with no power steering, you feel massive resistance from the road-rubber interface. When you let the car move this way or that, even just a little bit, that resistance dramatically eases.
To hell with power steering; what's it good for?
Power steering and brakes are dangerous because they are powered from the engine. In an emergency situation, exactly when you need the controls to respond in the expected way, your engine may die. Suddenly, you have no braking power, and the steering is all weird.
I'm with you on this one. I think perhaps my favorite car interface to date is my '01 Camry. Let's look at the HVAC system:
Three knobs: temperature, speed, vent selection.
Three buttons: a/c, recirc, rear defroster.
That's it. The entire system. It's a 20 year old design at this point. I have never once thought that I, a mere mortal, could improve on the design in any meaningful way.
The buttons and knobs are big enough that I can work them w/ my huge gloves on, I do not need special gloves that work w/ a touchscreen, the buttons are not context sensitive, and I can hit all the controls in the dark without even looking. Another point, which I've now learned I had taken for granted, is that no software update will ever mess w/ my muscle memory. Those switches cannot be programmed to do anything else in software, as they're physically wired to the functions they control.
The beauty of the system above is that the physical controls are the state machine. I can literally feel the state the HVAC system is in. Nowadays that state machine is all in software, and I have to hunt through menus, look at a display, sometimes multiple displays, just to figure out what state I left the system in. That's just unacceptable.
I'm pretty sure the TJ-era wranglers (1997-2006), and the Cherokee of the same period hit a sweet spot. Dead simple, no frills, durable as hell, utilitarian but not uncomfortable. Everything after that is continual bloat - bigger overall size, more luxury options, more technology in general. But that's what people want - luxury, comfort, safety... I get it, but I love the experience of my TJ.
One of our cars is a 2004 Toyota Tacoma with everything analog except the radio, and I vastly prefer it. If it just had a usb plug so I could play music from my phone, it would be ideal. Oh, and oddly, the radio doesn't have a clock. Bizarre.
It I can 100% everything better than our 2016 Subaru Outback with it's annoying touch screen console.
Plus my nieces and nephews are amused by the actual manual window openers.
As an embedded software person who is also into cars, I am definitely going to be looking for something older for my next car. I have the luxury of not needing to drive it every day, but I like the idea of something I have at least a hope of repairing myself when it breaks.
Hey I'm with you. Not just in cars but for gadgets around the home. Coffee makers, microwaves, fridges, thermostats. Please give me as few moving parts as possible, the consequences of decisions made outside my control are a huge unknown with potentially large impacts.
Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse than the systems they replace or augment.
The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors.
Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming on the brakes in a situation where that was totally unexpected and caused a perfectly safe situation to turn into a critical one. If not for playing ping pong for many years I highly doubt I would be writing this. After the first instance I had the whole car checked out to see if there was any fault in the system, the answer was that it was all working perfectly (that time the car had braked whilst on a very narrow bridge sending the car into a skid which I managed to correct before going over the side). Three weeks later it did it again, this time apparently because an advertising sign in a turn generated such a strong radar return that the car thought I was about to have a frontal collision. Again, out of nowhere an emergency stop.
I sold the car and got one where the most complex piece of software is the aftermarket radio, it has ABS and an ignition control computer but nothing in the way of 'advanced safety features'.
My vehicle actively trying to kill me is something I can do without.
So: as far as I'm concerned much less software on board of cars, open source it all if possible and roll it out much slower so we can get the bugs out.
Serious question - what alternatives are left for those of us who want a dumb car? I've spent the last three months finding out I can't get solar panels installed without a high-fidelity power-monitor tap connected to the provider's cloud, logging every appliance I use and what it's doing. Same deal with cars - they are on the internet and they generate evidence used to convict, and geofencing is coming. Other than stockpiling cars from 2010 - will we have alternatives?
I'm amazed that in this entire article Autosar wasn't mentioned once. The giant 2 ton elephant in the room here is automotives reliance on god-awful "kitchen sink" style standards. Try reading through the various Autosar docs and ask yourself if you expect robust bug-free code to be written to comply with it.
There needs to be a complete cleaning-of-house in automotive software.
I2C, Flexray, Ethernet, CAN/CANFD & OBD, LIN, what are we even doing?
ARXML, FIBEX, DBC, fuckin kill me.
"Unmanaged complexity" a.k.a "we've never thrown away a single technology or standard even once"
The problem with this is that auto companies are not software companies. They may have good engineers there, but they are hamstrung with a culture that considers software as an add on cost center at best.
Perfect example: I have no way to report software bugs to Honda. I've found a few and collected detailed reproduction data. The best I can do is give it to a sales rep in the service department and hope they send it "up to corporate".
Compare that to Telsa, which has bug reporting built right into the software in the car, as well as bug bounty program.
And then there are updates. Honda found a bug where the speedometer would just crash and not show your speed anymore. This is was pretty bad, but I had no idea about it until I went into the dealership. There was apparently a recall but I would have had to find that myself, I didn't get a notice. Honda has no built in facility to notify people of software updates and recalls. And then once I found out, the only way to fix it is for a dealership to apply the update. There is no over the air update and no way for me to apply it myself.
Car companies need to learn how to be software first, or things will get very dangerous.
I have to admit I was unnerved the first time I got in a car with an electronic hand brake - certainly something I would not want if I were buying a car. Especially as there was a "Microsoft" logo next to it (presumably for the terrible in car entertainment system which was touch screen only)
The encroaching of software into cars does remind me of the old joke though.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued the following press release -
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics -
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "car NT", but then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Maybe not a "dumb" car, but yes, I would like to see more good analog options if the digital alternative is getting screens in cars that look utterly embarrassing compared to yesteryear's netbook-sized screen fad.
If you're going to put tech in my car, you better go all the way. I'm talking a huge screen, fast multicore processor or redundant systems, touchscreen to UI update response times under 5ms.
None of this nonsense where you're getting some baby embedded system and the screen updates over 30-50! ms. Shame on these manufacturers. In 50 milliseconds at 65 miles per hour, I think you've moved like over 4 feet. That's ridiculous.
Say you've got an interaction that takes 150ms. At highway speeds you've moved the entire length of a car.
This stuff is simply unacceptable. I mean to the point where I want regulations on how slow your crap software can be. If I'm moving 4,000 lbs down the road, I don't want to be distracted. I want the exact same responsiveness as an analog physical switch or knob.
What is interesting is that graph half way down: in 2010 the software cost of the car was 35% and they project by 2030 it will make up 50% the cost of the car.
As a consumer, I don't want anything but Apply Play or Android Auto in my car with a display. Why not cut costs and go a different direction? Am I really in the minority of consumers?
150 million lines of code in a Ford F-150? How is that even possible? A Volvo with 100 million lines including 3 million functions. This sounds like generated code to me. I can’t believe this is handwritten or even necessary.
A bit of a naive question I admit, but how do you even test hundreds millions of lines of code to ensure they all fit perfectly when different ECUs have different suppliers, and by customizing the car you can have different types of chips? Just curious how integration of all the components is done.
Also, there seem to be a lot of recalls due to software issues, so I wonder if there's any open source or anything close to it that has tools such as CI or VCS for newer electric car companies that use ECUs from different OEMs?
I've been exploring building my own car from scrap. This wsj sort of motivated me (1). The ideal would be no electronics at all. An issue I have with new cars are monitors, I hate them they are distracting. My eyes are pretty sensitive to computer screens etc. Maybe, I'd settle for just a radio. "Maybe" because you then get looking at a cd player then all the sudden you want the further desire to control what you listen to and before you know it you are talking about mp3/digital and more computerization/softwaring of the car.
The first question is... what do I want? The second is the more complicated issue of getting it done. However it has always been a dream of mine since being a kid and watching the Home Improvement sitcom in the 90s.
Once again, a plea for moderation from those calling for a return to analog gauges. Remember that outside of Tesla, automakers are generally pretty conservative and most computing in cars outside the head unit is decentralized MCUs that don't connect to the internet. And within the head unit, CarPlay/Android Auto has moved most of the work to phones.
Peter Hubers tome The Bottomless Well considers software as the apex of the energy pyramid. Each level of the pyramid- animal, wood, coal, gas, electricity, nuclear, software- (I may have recollected the order not entirely correct) is more usable and powerful than the one below it.
You can see this pyramid in the evolution of the automobile: mostly petro-mechanical, then a growing fraction electrical, then an increasing fraction software.
I was not fully convinced by the book is that computing is a type of refined energy, but can agree with some of arguments for it. Other computer utilization like mass data centers and crypto currency support computing as the new wave of industrialization.
As an aside: Hubers thesis is the world will never run out of energy because we are constantly improving it, for example with or as software. Furthermore the amount of work per capita has grown with the quality of energy, and shall continue to increase in future.
In an electric car the motor control software can be quite tiny compared to traditional engine control. A lot of them are also direct drive, so no transmission controller.
Now battery charging is a bitch. The standard communication between a Level 2 charger and a vehicle is IMHO designed by committee. It uses power-line communication even though it's not over the high voltage/current wires in the cable. That means special chips, firmware, and TCP/IP. Sounds like a startup solution rather than just plain automotive CAN connection.
Anyway, most of the software isn't worse than an ICE car. Also, most of it will still be running on micro controllers, not fancy Linux systems. Detroit still knows how to do embedded but they're starting to get corrupted with ideas from all this autonomous stuff.
What if cars were like TVs? Some would be smart with integrated software, and some would be dumb and require a "stick" to make it smart. I'd certainly be tempted to buy the dumb version and have the flexibility to try different software experiences.
I remember back in the early days of Linux how we'd say that using a proprietary OS is like owning a car with the hood welded shut. It seemed so obviously ridiculous. Yet, that's basically where we're headed now.
In some ways that's a good thing: EVs require much less physical maintenance. (At least, their drivetrains need less maintenance.
Whether the rest of the car does depends on the manufacturer.)
But on the other hand, depending on how heavily locked-down the car is, it'll be hard to do third-party modifications and older vehicles are going to be at high risk of having security vulnerabilities as soon as software maintenance for old vehicles stops being a priority for the manufacturer.
What worries me the most is the usage of flash storage backing huge swaths of the functionality in the car. I suspect 10 years from now we will have cars where everything between the dashboard and glove-box does not work because the flash has worn out.
[+] [-] SavantIdiot|4 years ago|reply
In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code has always bloated.
Damn. I just want a car with as FEW knobs/buttons/levers as necessary. Literally: make it as simple as possible. Like an golf cart! Is anyone else out there with me? I feel like Walter from The Big Lebowski regarding this: has everyone just gone crazy?
[+] [-] vannevar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _benj|4 years ago|reply
Back in the day airplanes where just knobs and levers, and we didn't have the reliability that safety that we have today.
With aerospace, I mean, software engineering as a discipline started with aerospace!
If we write "starup code" (i.e. CRUD web app) for cars we'd still be in huge trouble, but if the automotive industry can adopt the redundant systems, enforce VERY high levels of software testing, and other practices for those other industries I think we could see some interesting things coming from the industry
[+] [-] temporallobe|4 years ago|reply
Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that.
[+] [-] andrewia|4 years ago|reply
There are EV equivalents too, like the Chevy Bolt and Hyundai Kona EV that offer range in the 200s of miles with make driver assists as an optional upgrade. Even with complicated powertrain electronics, EVs are still more reliable than ICE cars because any iffy software is made up for by lack of mechanical parts. The repair procedure is the same as mechnical parts - just swap the faulty part out for a working one, and the "upstream" supplier will probably take the broken module to reflash software or frankenstein together half-working PCBs to make another refurbished module to sell.
If you're worried about remote compromise, it's pretty easy to avoid IMO. Open the dashboard and yank the cellular antenna, and never pair the infotainment to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (or just yank the 2.4 GHz antenna). Those are basically the only avenues for wireless attacks into a vehicle unless you count the TPMS and key fob radios, which seem too simple and low-bandwidth to offer an attack surface. And if an attacker can access your car's physical ports, they could already attack you in other ways like by weakening the brake lines. Other new electronics, like MOSFETS instead of relays in the BCM, have actually made the car more reliable so they should be fine. Other newly standard features like blind spot monitoring are (1) solid state, so they won't fail often and (2) tolerate failure or complete removal.
[+] [-] bobajeff|4 years ago|reply
If electric cars ever become widespread I hope I can find a used one engineered without that stuff. Otherwise I may have to stop buying cars.
[+] [-] markbnj|4 years ago|reply
I _could_ get on your "just give me simple" bandwagon. A part of me was proud of the low-tech, rusty durability of the Toyota, I admit it. Still, I'll also admit I like most of what the Honda can do. I like the phone integration and that I can toss it down on a pad and it will charge while I drive. I like that the wipers, headlights and high beams all activate when needed without input from me. I like that it remembers my seat and mirror settings and restores them when I enter the car. I like keyless entry and remote start. I like the backup camera. I like adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking, and lane keeping assist. I like torque vectoring all wheel drive. Heated and ventilated seats are awesome.
Of course, if I were to try to keep this car for 14 years I might regret it, I don't know. Honda makes good cars but there's a boatload of stuff to break, lol. I think I might be better advised to trade it in at five years or so, but I do like the tricks it can do.
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
My current one has some "modern" archaic crap in it that was all the rage when it was built, it's GM so it has the OnStar buttons in the rear view mirror that are useless, along with complementary antenna on the roof. It's stock stereo controlled the alarm, it has all sorts of compartments that are nowadays mostly useless and IMO just an excuse to cram something in every spot. A lot of the "features" are just dead fads. The seats have lumbar shit in them and warm up. The warmer is useful in the winter I guess. Still with the bloat it is significantly better than the Frankensteins that commercials have convinced people they need nowadays.
My next car is either going to be a ~1995 4runner or a ~1994 diesel f-350 that I build myself. I do miss the corner windows.
[+] [-] giantrobot|4 years ago|reply
At the same time it's important to recognize there's a difference between software bloat and growth. Security fixes often cause code to grow (checks, verifications, etc). That growth isn't bloat. The previous version of the software was exploitable because it lacked the checks that were added. Adding drivers or better handling edge cases in drivers grows code but isn't bloat.
Even "bloat" that's only added on-disk size (a secret Tetris game in some code) that doesn't affect normal code flow isn't the same as bloat as adding some advertising telemetry in the middle of a critical code path.
Not all code growth is bloat and not all bloat is equal.
[+] [-] BigTuna|4 years ago|reply
And don't get me started on the lazy manufacturer design trend of bolting a tablet to the dashboard and calling it a day.
[+] [-] cylon13|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobiekr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgreenwood|4 years ago|reply
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/pnw/microsoftjoke.htm
And 25 years later here we are...
' For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off." '
[+] [-] frosted-flakes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dusted|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olivermarks|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulryanrogers|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rm445|4 years ago|reply
The user experience may get simpler again, but the technology inside is likely to get more complex. Electrification might mean simpler mechanisms and fewer moving parts, but the software will get ever more complicated.
Now in a way it's usually a good thing, if all the complexity of something is hidden and users can treat it as though it's simple. But we'd probably all agree that extra complexity in software that can kill us if it goes wrong is worrying. The only way we know to write safe software is to make it as simple as possible, and write it slowly and expensively. SIL-rated software has already reached the automotive sector. But it seems like the sheer demand to make cars more complex (especially for self-driving) will outrun our ability to make them safe.
[+] [-] kazinator|4 years ago|reply
If the car is not moving, and you try to turn the wheels with no power steering, you feel massive resistance from the road-rubber interface. When you let the car move this way or that, even just a little bit, that resistance dramatically eases.
To hell with power steering; what's it good for?
Power steering and brakes are dangerous because they are powered from the engine. In an emergency situation, exactly when you need the controls to respond in the expected way, your engine may die. Suddenly, you have no braking power, and the steering is all weird.
[+] [-] carlosf|4 years ago|reply
It was a cheap Renault. Malfunctioned twice in ten years. Repair was trivial both times.
Sometimes I think about having a car again, but the sort of stuff you described makes me super nervous.
[+] [-] drbawb|4 years ago|reply
Three knobs: temperature, speed, vent selection. Three buttons: a/c, recirc, rear defroster.
That's it. The entire system. It's a 20 year old design at this point. I have never once thought that I, a mere mortal, could improve on the design in any meaningful way.
The buttons and knobs are big enough that I can work them w/ my huge gloves on, I do not need special gloves that work w/ a touchscreen, the buttons are not context sensitive, and I can hit all the controls in the dark without even looking. Another point, which I've now learned I had taken for granted, is that no software update will ever mess w/ my muscle memory. Those switches cannot be programmed to do anything else in software, as they're physically wired to the functions they control.
The beauty of the system above is that the physical controls are the state machine. I can literally feel the state the HVAC system is in. Nowadays that state machine is all in software, and I have to hunt through menus, look at a display, sometimes multiple displays, just to figure out what state I left the system in. That's just unacceptable.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jrwoodruff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gilbetron|4 years ago|reply
It I can 100% everything better than our 2016 Subaru Outback with it's annoying touch screen console.
Plus my nieces and nephews are amused by the actual manual window openers.
[+] [-] textman|4 years ago|reply
This truck is so software bloated.
[+] [-] wyager|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostpepper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] politelemon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hellbannedguy|4 years ago|reply
It was a Dodge Dakota. He demanded a free Service manual from the salesman.
Conversation with my dad in my car after the sale.
Son---I demanded a Service manual because that truck has a computer, and I don't like computers. Always ask for a Service manual.
(The salesman would probally laugh if you requested a Service manual today.)
Son---I'll put in my own stereo. That overpriced factory cd player is a waste of money.
Son---power windows are just something that will break at the wrong time. If I ever get to the age I can't physically roll down a window; shot me.
Different time?
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors.
Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming on the brakes in a situation where that was totally unexpected and caused a perfectly safe situation to turn into a critical one. If not for playing ping pong for many years I highly doubt I would be writing this. After the first instance I had the whole car checked out to see if there was any fault in the system, the answer was that it was all working perfectly (that time the car had braked whilst on a very narrow bridge sending the car into a skid which I managed to correct before going over the side). Three weeks later it did it again, this time apparently because an advertising sign in a turn generated such a strong radar return that the car thought I was about to have a frontal collision. Again, out of nowhere an emergency stop.
I sold the car and got one where the most complex piece of software is the aftermarket radio, it has ABS and an ignition control computer but nothing in the way of 'advanced safety features'.
My vehicle actively trying to kill me is something I can do without.
So: as far as I'm concerned much less software on board of cars, open source it all if possible and roll it out much slower so we can get the bugs out.
[+] [-] mthomasmw|4 years ago|reply
https://www.fox13news.com/news/evidence-showing-drivers-spee...
[+] [-] waiseristy|4 years ago|reply
There needs to be a complete cleaning-of-house in automotive software.
I2C, Flexray, Ethernet, CAN/CANFD & OBD, LIN, what are we even doing?
ARXML, FIBEX, DBC, fuckin kill me.
"Unmanaged complexity" a.k.a "we've never thrown away a single technology or standard even once"
[+] [-] jedberg|4 years ago|reply
Perfect example: I have no way to report software bugs to Honda. I've found a few and collected detailed reproduction data. The best I can do is give it to a sales rep in the service department and hope they send it "up to corporate".
Compare that to Telsa, which has bug reporting built right into the software in the car, as well as bug bounty program.
And then there are updates. Honda found a bug where the speedometer would just crash and not show your speed anymore. This is was pretty bad, but I had no idea about it until I went into the dealership. There was apparently a recall but I would have had to find that myself, I didn't get a notice. Honda has no built in facility to notify people of software updates and recalls. And then once I found out, the only way to fix it is for a dealership to apply the update. There is no over the air update and no way for me to apply it myself.
Car companies need to learn how to be software first, or things will get very dangerous.
[+] [-] iso1210|4 years ago|reply
The encroaching of software into cars does remind me of the old joke though.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued the following press release -
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics -
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "car NT", but then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
[+] [-] andrewmcwatters|4 years ago|reply
If you're going to put tech in my car, you better go all the way. I'm talking a huge screen, fast multicore processor or redundant systems, touchscreen to UI update response times under 5ms.
None of this nonsense where you're getting some baby embedded system and the screen updates over 30-50! ms. Shame on these manufacturers. In 50 milliseconds at 65 miles per hour, I think you've moved like over 4 feet. That's ridiculous.
Say you've got an interaction that takes 150ms. At highway speeds you've moved the entire length of a car.
This stuff is simply unacceptable. I mean to the point where I want regulations on how slow your crap software can be. If I'm moving 4,000 lbs down the road, I don't want to be distracted. I want the exact same responsiveness as an analog physical switch or knob.
[+] [-] jonshariat|4 years ago|reply
What is interesting is that graph half way down: in 2010 the software cost of the car was 35% and they project by 2030 it will make up 50% the cost of the car.
As a consumer, I don't want anything but Apply Play or Android Auto in my car with a display. Why not cut costs and go a different direction? Am I really in the minority of consumers?
[+] [-] seltzered_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geonic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmote00|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] havocsupreme|4 years ago|reply
Also, there seem to be a lot of recalls due to software issues, so I wonder if there's any open source or anything close to it that has tools such as CI or VCS for newer electric car companies that use ECUs from different OEMs?
[+] [-] pjmlp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johntfella|4 years ago|reply
The first question is... what do I want? The second is the more complicated issue of getting it done. However it has always been a dream of mine since being a kid and watching the Home Improvement sitcom in the 90s.
(1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-odyssey-to-recreate-a-rare-j...
[+] [-] kumarsw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peter303|4 years ago|reply
You can see this pyramid in the evolution of the automobile: mostly petro-mechanical, then a growing fraction electrical, then an increasing fraction software.
I was not fully convinced by the book is that computing is a type of refined energy, but can agree with some of arguments for it. Other computer utilization like mass data centers and crypto currency support computing as the new wave of industrialization.
As an aside: Hubers thesis is the world will never run out of energy because we are constantly improving it, for example with or as software. Furthermore the amount of work per capita has grown with the quality of energy, and shall continue to increase in future.
[+] [-] phkahler|4 years ago|reply
Now battery charging is a bitch. The standard communication between a Level 2 charger and a vehicle is IMHO designed by committee. It uses power-line communication even though it's not over the high voltage/current wires in the cable. That means special chips, firmware, and TCP/IP. Sounds like a startup solution rather than just plain automotive CAN connection.
Anyway, most of the software isn't worse than an ICE car. Also, most of it will still be running on micro controllers, not fancy Linux systems. Detroit still knows how to do embedded but they're starting to get corrupted with ideas from all this autonomous stuff.
[+] [-] josefresco|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elihu|4 years ago|reply
In some ways that's a good thing: EVs require much less physical maintenance. (At least, their drivetrains need less maintenance. Whether the rest of the car does depends on the manufacturer.) But on the other hand, depending on how heavily locked-down the car is, it'll be hard to do third-party modifications and older vehicles are going to be at high risk of having security vulnerabilities as soon as software maintenance for old vehicles stops being a priority for the manufacturer.
[+] [-] aidenn0|4 years ago|reply