[vincekerrazzi]

After working with them for nearly a year, it’s even worse than you think.

Half the team didn’t have basic understanding of git, and exactly none of the team designing the “smart charge” scheduling had or even had driven an EV.

The complete incompetence of every vehicle OEM team I worked with outside of Tesla and Rivian is part of the reason I left that job.

[jve]

You are just confirming my suspicion on that car manufacturers have terrible software divisions. Outside of some new EVs which have software one of major selling points.

Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side? I mean it's 2025, they lag behind at least a decade, but software development (infotaiment) practices seems like dark ages.

Except for MCU - from user perspective they just work.

[constantcrying]

>Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side?

VW is now at their second billion dollar attempt to fix their software. It's not like they aren't trying.

Also consider how software development works at hardware companies. It is all outsourced, inside the company you have "engineers" who are "managing" the requirements" and in "best cost countries" you have the dev teams, communication is hard and the actual devs are not particularly skilled and definitely not paid to care, they just have to do the requirements.

Tesla was revolutionary because they had Software developers, which they paid normal software developer salaries. VW has just sunk Billions into Rivian to have them do the software.

[worthless-trash]

> Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side?

Because they use the fight-club metrics for software too:

A x B x C = X, where A is the number of vehicles in the field, B is the probable rate of failure, and C is the average out-of-court settlement.

The company does not initiate a recall (or fix) if the calculated value X is less than the cost of the recall itself.

Edit: If anyone from a car company wants competent software engineering management to build a better team, HMU, I can put you in contact with someone. It'll never happen though.

[HotGarbage]

Because everyone is making $300k+ at MAGA and they're offering half, if that.

[raverbashing]

> Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side?

Because MechE are even worse than EEs at doing software (and yes, having worked at EE companies it was 90% cluelessness)

(also let's not pretend that HW companies ran by SW people don't have multiple issues neither ;) )

And as per other commenter

> Because everyone is making $300k+ at MAGA and they're offering half, if that.

Yes. That as well

[rkomorn]

> Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side?

I've wondered this but it does seem to me that the companies that do the best software also seem to be the newer companies that were driven by investors instead of sales/profitability.

Can classic manufacturers afford the kind of spending it takes to overcome inertia and make quick strides on the software side when it likely won't move the needle on sales anywhere near as much as it costs them?

Edit: for me, it's similar to what we see in the "flying taxi" maybe-autonomous eVTOL field: Airbus gave it a shake, but there are at least half a dozen startups bankrolled by VCs outspending them on a prayer they'll be the one to succeed.

[nebula8804]

Who have you worked with? Any thoughts on Toyota or Mazda? I heard that while Mazda is quite conservative in car design (still use buttons, less futuristic design) they appear to have a extensive data collection operation which surprised me given their conservative nature in literally everything else.

[general1465]

Sounds like Microsoft designers working on Windows, while using MacOS.