Comment by pornel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pornel | Hacker News Reader

Like nearly all legacy auto makers, they're institutionally incapable of writing decent software.

Whats an example of a “non legacy” manufacturer that has perfect software?

Im currently in the process of selling my Tesla (“non legacy manufacturer”) back under lemon law because of constant hardware and software issues like windows intermittently refusing to roll up (despite 6+ service center visits), windshield wipers not working, random alerts about “faults” they allegedly can’t locate in their logs, getting alerts on my phone that windows are left open when they’re not, lane departure warnings when the setting is turned off and i am not departing a lane, loud popping noises on speakers followed by infotainment “crashes”, etc.

A lot of that almost sounds like something is shorted in the wiring in the car, and the software doesn't understand that something is physically wrong.

So there is an unexpected input which will cause whole module to crash and reset. That sounds awful lot like a crap software writing.

Imagine if you would press too many keys at once on your keyboard causing Windows to BSOD and restart....

>Imagine if you would press too many keys at once on your keyboard causing Windows to BSOD and restart....

... or send too many ethernet packets. oh, wait ... /s

Even the best software can’t counter a hardware fault.

That's a lemon. That's unacceptable of course. We do know from millions of teslas sold that they work fine over the mass of cars. They are made by people, they'll have problems, they will break. But the sum of experiences is good outcome. The opposite seems to be the case with the ultium cars.

Lots of hardware companies (not just auto makers) don't understand software. They treat it like just another line item on the BOM, like a bolt, a windshield wiper blade or a door panel. The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price, they scoop it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line, and then never think about it again. This is how we get things like our TV's (pre-Google/Apple) on-screen menus and our printer's setup UI.

Calling printer setup interfaces a "UI" is being kind, imo.

They call Windows 10, 11, Android, iOS an UI so it is fair. /s

Those UIs are built on some sort of system. Some form of design. Good or bad, there is an intent.

Printer UIs seem to be written by idiots, with their eyes closed.

> The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price, they scoop it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line, and then never think about it again.

Are you implying that car manufacturers are window shopping for off-the-shelf software to run the core embedded logic of their complicated and highly specialized electric motor vehicles? And there is such a plethora of OTS offerings they can go with the lowest bidder?

I worked for a company that provided such software to auto manufacturers, and I assume we had competitors, so yes.

That's exactly what that person is "implying", and that person is correct. But with the caveat that this applies much more to things like infotainment than to things like engine control. Lots of car software is purchased off the shelf and then customized slightly for branding purposes. But obviously some manufacturers do write their own software. For instance, as far as I'm aware, Tesla's software is all written in house (someone can correct me if I'm wrong here).

The fact that DDWRT is still better than the shit Netgear puts out blows my mind. You're a billion dollar company, just copy their UI.

> The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price

You're talking about Microsoft Office 365, right ?

Software for your car (except Tesla early models) is written by SW engineers (not coders), under strict quality requirements, with very big time pressure. And it is tested. And it is an item on the BOM because, if it does not work, it is not released.

So Rivian is now legacy automaker, bricking it's infotainment via update - https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/14/a-software-update-bricked-...

That was an epic screw up. Hopefully the only one that ever happens to them. New auto (tesla, rivian, ?) have generally avoided them.

Some of the details that got out about what happened at Rivian:

Problem cause #1: to push an update, you had to cut and paste various version numbers together onto a command line. Someone messed that up, oops, meant to say this instead of that.

Problem cause #2: bad test strategy. The dev tested it before he pushed it, so no worries? Except the dev test vehicle was a "special test car" that had extra security tokens on it. So the install worked and test passed. But regular cars didn't have those certs.

So lots of obvious things to fix there. No command line mucking about to push a real production release! And test the final thing on a regular fucking car with no special dev stuff.

Tesla has multiple hardware versions, and their main panel of the original S has a v1 and v2 main console hardware. They pushed a release once that broke things in the map for the original version that caused it to use an excessive amount of cpu. I got this one, seems like it just made everything really really slow and some things failed. It took them like a 6 weeks or more because they got around to undoing the fix. I think part of that was all of them had the updated cpu so they didn't see it. It was still driveable, just degraded infotainment ui.

VW has had software updates that they would not push over the air because they took so long the 12v battery could run out before it finished, risking bricking the car (main battery couldn't charge the 12v during os update). Solution, bring your car to the dealer to do the update. Apparently also considered giving everyone a better 12v battery.

> That was an epic screw up. Hopefully the only one that ever happens to them.

Hopefully. Testing is hard.

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