Volkswagen has given a name to its pain, and it is ‘software’ | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen has given a name to its pain, and it is ‘software’

theverge.com

> Plus, automakers like VW have high aspirations for new revenue sources beyond just selling cars, and those, too, depend on software. These include features like connected cars, leveraging data, subscription features, integrating e-commerce and augmented reality into vehicles, virtual assistants, and other features that could redefine how we think of cars entirely.

I'm tired of being a revenue source, along with the associated non-consensual surveillance, telemetry, and updates.

I'd love a car company that was happy with the revenue of selling me the car in the first place, and would fuck off after that.

Honestly, they were never that in the first place. Even a few years ago when I worked in the industry they were more interested in using the vehicles as a means of capturing car loans. Upgrades and accessories are essential. As is preying upon anyone whose loan has ventured into positive-equity and rolling them into a new vehicle. The vehicles themselves are basically loss-leaders. They don't actually take a loss (usually) but they aren't the business, they are the bait.

source: worked as a developer on multiple inventory and pricing systems for OEMs.

What do you mean positive equity?

Loan balance = $15k Vehicle worth = $30k.

Eg if they sold the vehicle now, they would come out with money as opposed to the vehicle being worth less than the remaining balance on the loan.

It's when the value of the vehicle is higher than the outstanding loan. So basically, if you sold off your car you could pay off your loan. Because cars immediately depreciate when you take them off the lot and never go to zero. it's an interesting set of curves.

The idea is as soon as someone hits positive equity they can trade in that vehicle and use that as a down payment for a newer one. The idea is that you have a larger down payment and now for the same monthly payment can get a nicer model of vehicle. They present this as "free" because it's the same monthly payment. What they don't mention is that in your current vehicle you may be 12 months away from paying off the vehicle and never paying anything for it again, and now you are back to 48 months or whatever your term is. The idea is to never let you off of making payments and seeing car payments as a monthly expenditure like your utilities instead of as a financed purchase like a home. It's about that MRR.

It's been this way for decades, I've seen old film clips of Iacocca talking about it, I think in the early 80s not long after the Chrysler bailout. Probably even predates that.

Not just VW. Others including Subaru having touchscreens that have lag between press and response.

Most cars I've looked at use an infotainment screen instead of push buttons for functions like climate control. This is why I'm still driving my 2014 vehicle.

It's unacceptable to have buggy and slow software controlling essential parts of the interior of a car.

Auto makers should throw out touchscreens and return to buttons.

Buttons are expensive.

Not too much.

Specifically wiring harnesses and installing them are expensive. Touchscreens require less wires, since less buttons means less wires, which saves amount of money/time, and % chance of defect, per car.

What? There need not be wires for each individual button... they could all be mounted on a single PCB that dumps activity to a CAN bus.

Who cares. It doesn’t matter. Touchscreens in cars suck.

A button means: a pin in a microcontroller or in a multiplexer, a pin on the connector, enbironmental tests (water splash), ESD tests, etc. All those cost development money.

In brief, a touchscreen is meaningless and doesn't work until you show something on it. When you show something, that something will cost development money.

Just to put an anecdatum -- I have a 2020 Subaru Forester, and it has physical buttons for everything BUT infotainment. Media etc is in a touchscreen, but climate controls, wipers, etc -- all are still physical buttons.

Anecdote but I have a 2019 Audi E-tron and the software is insanely bad. They have made some improvements in the app but in the car itself is just an unholy mess. When I first got the car, it would remind me for oil changes and try to route me to gas stations. Simple features like time of use charging is buried 5-6 "clicks" deep in a menu, and must be triggered every time you park.

I'm not sure what sort of structural failures occur for this buggy mess to make it out the door but it has to be very systemic and quite bad for nobody to have raised their hand and say "Guys, this isn't ready for customers."

A decade back, I heard an anecdote about a Palm (90s device with less computing power and pixels than your microwave) engineer whose job was making sure every option was up to 3 stylus taps deep. I'm amazed at present day UIs violating this.

> I'm not sure what sort of structural failures occur for this buggy mess to make it out the door

Sounds like typical companies that treat software as cost center and not "real work" like hardware/biotech/etc

> Anecdote but I have a 2019 Audi E-tron and the software is insanely bad.

Sounds like a typical Audi. It’s crazy how bad their software is. Had a 2022 A4 rental earlier in the year, it was worse than 2014 golf 7. Crazy.

The fundamental problem that car companies have wrapping their head around the fact that writing the software is harder than building cars.

It's not an add on. The car is becoming a vehicle for delivering software.

If you don't realize that the software is a primary product, you won't survive.

I really really wanted to end up buying a VW ID.x but all the car reviewers reported for years (and demonstrated on video) how slow and laggy the software was.

And VW took this long to acknowledge it.

I have a Tesla and would be happy to replace it with something else but the only EV replacement platform I’d even consider at this time is Kia. Especially if Kia came out and offered a Supercharger charging version…

I've had an ID.3 since launch and I think the quality of the car far outweighs the software issues. They are numerous but minor.

VW have started releasing a new version of their software that is supposed to address some of the problems with laggy responses and freezing. I believe that is starting to deploy in the EU first.

I bought an ID.4 Pro Performance just before the summer and after about 15.000km I can say that the software is not great at all. I could perfectly live with the delays, sometimes it takes many seconds for something to happen after pressing on an item on the screen, but there are many other problems.

I am no longer able to log into the car with my We Connect account. No error message after login, but the car keeps on telling me that I have to log in. However, I still can control charging with the We Connect app using the same account and I can drive, so who cares?

The speech recognition (which could solve the non-button issue) often triggers when listening to music on the radio. It mostly doesn't trigger when I want it to saying "Hello, ID". Pressing the right place on the steering wheel (not a button I can feel without looking at it) seems the best option to trigger speech recognition. When it's first activated, the only thing that sometimes works is turning on heat in the drivers seat. Gives me a nice and comfy feeling. Other than that, we don't communicate.

The ID.Drive Travel Assist sees lots of traffic signs that aren't there. At the most extreme, I was driving 100km/h on an open road. Suddenly the car "saw" a 30km/h sign that wasn't there and started braking. On my daily commute, I have to drive a road at 40km/h for some kilometers. Travel assist keeps on insisting that there are lots of 30km/h and 50km/h speed limit signs. Day after day. My uneducated guess is that crossing roads with other speed limits are triggering speed changes. IDK. Sometimes the travel assist does not work at all - no matter how many speed limit signs I pass nothing happens until restarting the car. So I more feel like being the assistants assistant.

I am still not able to use the "buttons" for turning on the wind shield or rear window heating without taking my eyes from the road (not part of the touch screen, they're located at the left side of the steering wheel). Guess I never will be.

The navigation is ok. Mostly works without ending up in a blocked road. Not always the smartest choice of way. Keeps my brain cells activated, I like making my own decisions anyway. Also, shows me logos ("ads"?) for McDonalds, Burger King, Esso, Shell and other sights on the road. Easy to see the places I want to avoid.

Charging mostly works. Hooray!

I've concluded that using the screen while driving is distracting anyway (so I wish there was not screen at all - except for maybe navigation and radio). When traveling alone, I mostly don't use the screen. When traveling with others, I outsource adjustments.

Would I buy the same car again? Not sure. Battery range is fine. Besides the software, I really enjoy driving it. From a usability point of view, I prefer driving my old e-Golf.

A bit of a strange article. Of course they are right that VW is struggeling. But to suggest to only favour tech monopolist solutions is from a strategic standpoint a really bad idea.

And it is very surprising that nowhere in the article is mentioned that VW - in comparison to other auto makers - at least, has a plan. They specifically bundled all the software operation into a new company, CARIAD. If that will work is a different question.

They could offload the ui to Apple &google and then have a long term plan of bringing it back in house.

Last time I talked to them software was their only pride. They wanted define themselves as software company...

Who are the people who wrote these buggy software?

Za Germans.

Yes. Are you sure, sir. Bless you.

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