Jeep pushed software update that bricked all 2024 Wrangler 4xe models
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> On my drive home I abruptly had absolutely no acceleration, the gear indicator on the dash started flashing, the power mode indicator disappeared, an alert said shift into park and press the brake + start button, and the check engine light and red wrench lights came on. I was still able to steer and brake with power steering and brakes for maybe 30 seconds before those went out too. After putting it into park and pressing the brake and start button it started back up and I could drive it normally for a little bit, but it happened two more times on my 1.5 mi drive home.
If that happened on the highway I could easily see people being killed.
And then these manufacturers wonder why people just want them to have a dumb head unit with carplay/android auto. Because they absolutely suck at software and have shown no desire to improve outside of charging people subscriptions for hardware features that are already in the car.
This isn't exceptional design on the part of Tesla. It is absolutely baseline common sense. I can't believe it isn't the defacto rule. I guess it might need to be regulated because apparently some companies are THAT untrustworthy.
All regulations are written in blood.
It really is "The Homer" of cars isn't it.
Thinking of this somehow reminded me of the most harrowing aircraft disaster that I've ever read about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
It's both tragic because half of the passengers were killed but also miraculous that anyone survived at all.
Sioux City Approach: "United Two Thirty-Two Heavy, the wind's currently three six zero at one one; three sixty at eleven. You're cleared to land on any runway."
Haynes: "[laughter] Roger. [laughter] You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?"
And here's a truly excellent long form article on the crash by the always excellent Admiral Cloudberg: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-cr...
Indeed, the risk is far too large to ignore.
I will never own a car that has steer-by-wire or braking-by-wire. Those are two controls that absolutely must have a mechanical linkage that cannot be altered by software. Other things I can handle, but if all goes haywire, I must be able to steer and brake.
Car manufacturers have just never bothered to do it right. If they cheapened as much on steering bars, it would break all the time too.
That said, OTA updates for basic functionality is an immediate blocker. Updates are by definition not mature technology.
Honda: "all Honda models use Drive-by-Wire technology" (for the accelerator pedal).
https://www.hondainfocenter.com/Shared-Technologies/Engines/...
Subaru's used it in a bunch of vehicles for decades: https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/70486-what-year-d...
Most new Toyotas, Ford, etc.
While throttle/acceleration isn't steering, if you're uncomfortable with the underlying concept of a potentiometer and a microcontroller and a small motor on the other end being used to control a vehicle and consider it unproven technology, then you'd need to avoid most new cars in order to be logically consistent.
Its all controlled by electronics now.
Or are you just posting just for engagement?
"Steer by wire" means there is nothing but copper signal wires between your steering wheel and the front wheels. Your steering wheel is essentially a video game controller.
This has nothing to do with the car's mode of propulsion though, and both EVs and ICE cars can have steer by wire controls. So far, it's only the cybertruck that has this paradigm, all other EV's all have normal power steering.
For normal power steering systems there are two types: hydraulic and electric. Both types have a solid steel shaft between your steering wheel and the front wheels. You can remove the engine/motor completely, and you'll still be able to steer the car. The hydraulic or electric motor merely helps you turn the wheel, nothing more. Hydraulic is being phased out for electric in both EVs and ICE vehicles.
Which it isn’t. What production passenger vehicles have no steering column? (EDIT: oh, yeah, forgot about Cybertruck.)
The Infinity Q50, QX50, QX55 and QX60 (with backup that connects upon electric failure).
Without backup, but triple redundancy, can be found in the Tesla Cybertruck. But I'd take that redundancy with a grain of salt as they don't have the best track record telling you the truth.
That said, I really with companies would go back to the good old hydraulic steering. I don't need self-parking. But self-parking needs at least electric steering (with our without steering column).
You can control a hydraulic system automatically. That's literally what ABS braking is on the same cars already.
I guess you could argue that it wasn't a reasonably well constructed car.
It's amazing how much more reliable cars have gotten. You used to be always on the alert for some critical function to fail spontaneously, and also listening for warning signs.
In general, this wasn’t especially hazardous, since I rarely needed to move the wheel very far while moving at very low speed in a place where other cars could be a hazard.
(Yes, I got this fixed. And the old LS400 cars were extremely well designed and built.)
[0] Almost identical. The steering has some flex, and the amount it flexes is related to how much torque you apply. But this is a tiny effect.
There's construction on the Interstate highway in my area with lanes that have no "breakdown" space ("contraflow" lanes). I would be terrified to lose power in that lane. I would be worried about getting rear-ended and / or causing a pile-up.
So can someone who owns a modern car please help me understand why you would buy a car that has the mere capability to be remotely shut off?
A vehicle is a personal safety device, that allows for independent travel away from bad things and towards safe things. That is one of the most critical aspects of a vehicle.
Assuming that one of the most critical times you might need a vehicle is fleeing oppression, having a remote switch off as a possible vector to impede your escape is an existential threat and basically makes one of the core reasons to have a vehicle moot.
My assumption is that most people are not thinking about their vehicle as one of the most critical tools for freedom.
Having traveled the world and lived in war zones, vehicles are life savers and it’s insane to me that anyone would allow a possibility for someone else, specifically corporations and governments with major power levers, to even have the ability to stop that remotely.
The only way I can think of is “don’t buy a car made within the last 25 years”
You don't need to go that far back. None of my cars have any kind of connectivity, the newest one is 2014. I'll never own a car with any kind of remote connectivity, the risk is far too large to ignore.
My last car will probably be my current car from 2013, which I have replaced the engine in, and plan on replacing the transmission in when that goes, as well as other parts as needed. Rust is basically what is going to kill it and I can stave that off for a long time.
When that day comes, it won't really matter. I live near a quarter mile from a train station, 200 feet from a bike trail that connects to my city's bike network, and 50 feet from a bus stop. No need for a car really ever. Rentals exist for car needs every few months, but there are usually other options.
The key for me was to not be dependent on any singular mode of transportation and to have redundancy so that if any single option isn't working, I have at least one other option to go places.
My own group of car buddies, pretty much all we do is shop and trade 2010s vehicles now, rather than buy new.
That or earlier, yes.
I particularly hate the 'modern' trend of have a large touch screen tablet instead of all the knobs and buttons.
Notably, you have to go back to 70’ish era to get that kind of equipment. Almost everything else has some kind of ECU.
Cellular connections didn’t start becoming somewhat common until the late 90’s-early 2000’s though.
E.g. 5th gen Toyota 4Runners: https://www.4runners.com/threads/how-to-disconnect-the-track...
If one wants to buy a modern car, and one cares about preserving disconnected functionality, one just needs to research if there's a workable fallback mechanism.
Or, you know, deal with the 20mpg but a vehicle that will last until the heat death of the universe #2uzfeClub
I also have 2008 mazda3. Great reliable car. Also no connectivity whatsoever.
I will not buy a post patriot act vehicle
If you're driving such old cars, I have to assume you're mechanically inclined. At which point, a simple bypass cable or literally just removing the telematics unit out of a modern vehicle should not be too much to ask for.
Bonus points for gaining moderate security with immobilizers that way, so any random guy can't just start your car with a set of wafer jigglers.
My 2001 Tundra is a beast that will never die, has amazing AC/Heat radio etc…
There are fleets of garage specials out there with low miles and tons of spare parts or are easy to maintain with a Chilton guide
I started my working life fixing cars and obce they started putting in electronics it became impossible.
So I stick with things I can fix
I assume the questioner is asking about US mpg? The Prius was there for sure in US mpg (just, at 51mpg), not sure about others.
Ford Transit Connect, for example, which could just about do 60mpg on a steady 70mph motorway run.
Not 2010, which makes this so infuriating..
A 1986 Honda CRX HF was rated 51 MPG highway. That was an engine with stone-age technology, and it was possible.
Just imagine +40 years of incremental development with modern materials and modern engine control systems. What could a 2026 Honda CRX HF do in MPG if that development had been allowed to continue all these decades? Certainly above 60, probably above 80 MPG? Maybe above 100MPG.
Instead society is selling us 6000+lb monsters with worse mileage than back in the mid 80s.
Buying a car from 2010 is a guarantee that you won't be able to drive it in 5-10 years..
That's a hell of an assumption.
If we're talking about population distributions, I would argue that "having lived in war zones" puts you well outside the center of the curve.
But direct answers:
1. They don’t know that can happen. The salesman doesn’t point it out.
2. They figure all cars will be that way soon so why worry about it.
3. It’s never happened to anyone before so why worry about it.
4. We don’t know anyone who has ever had to flee from oppression in their car so why worry about it. And this is America, if that’s what we’re worried about we’ll stock up on ammo.
Etc
In practice, getting t-boned at an intersection where I have the right of way is a much greater risk to me than my car getting shut off, so it makes sense to optimize for safety in the former case.
Of course they're not mass-market and will be lacking on some other bullet point features, but if you really care about your TV not turning into an ad billboard in 2 years, they're the way to go.
The rest of the car works fine. If the political situation heats up then I can remove this fuse to isolate my car from the internet.
Some people connect a toggle switch in place of this fuse so they can leave the car disconnected from the internet when they are not using online functions.
I would be surprised if simply removing a fuse voids my warranty.
In my case, I'll gladly take potentially voiding the warranty on a car that almost certainly has it expired anyway, over being surveilled and monitored by the manufacturer so my usage habits can be reported to insurance companies.
Bonus points for adding a time-based kill switch so this feature gets pushed out months in advance, just to ensure everyone with such a vehicle has this malicious update installed.
That’s not what is going on here. These cars are not being intentionally shut down remotely. Instead, a software update for some computerized components of the car was pushed down to the cars and installed with the owners permissions, but that update apparently has severe bugs that should have been caught by QA.
Even if the owner gave permission to install the update, I would strongly wager that they did not give concurrent permission for the update to change the behavior of the vehicle.
Of course, I sincerely doubt the EULA offers any way to separate those permissions; you are all in, or you are all out. Assuming that you even have an option to opt out.
And that’s exactly why these cars can never be trusted under any circumstances, ever.
"Do you want to update? Yes or later". And blocks semi-critical stuff so you must address it.
"Do you want to update? Yes or later". And blocks semi-critical stuff so you must address it.
"Update now. You cannot refuse since you said no 3 times"
Or, other parodies, "Just say MAYBE LATER to drugs"
Most people have a variety of things they are looking for in a car they want to purchase, and other factors are more important to them than this one, which they figure probably won't happen anyway. There may be few options that aren't updateable over the air, and those options don't meet their other criteria -- if they even get that deep into considering it, which they probably don't, they just aren't really thinking about it. But even if they did. you don't have the option of buying your perfect fantasy car. I'd like to buy a car with manual mechanical controls instead of touch screen controls, but there aren't that many options for that either, and they may not meet my other needs.
I happen to live on the outskirts, but there are several choke points where it would be really easy to set up a barrier. Those choke points apply to cars mostly.
Good for you, sensible and community minded to keep roads clear(er)
You have no dependant children or pets that you must take care of too
Because afaik, all the modern cars have this as a 'feature', but there's lots of other nice features they have.
The best of both worlds right now is an earlier modern car where the 2g/3g modem can no longer connect to the outside world. Even better if you can pull the modem, but they're usually up behind a lot of trim.
Most people push button, aim steering wheel, and voila.
One answer to this I would presume is: there are no other new cars for sale without this flaw.
Why there aren't regulations or forced options in the market without these functions (as well as with physical control knobs instead of touch surfaces) is a good question too. There is huge demand for cars without most of this nonsense, yet I don't see that demand being met.
I doubt anyone wants a car whose infotainment system can be improperly updated to cause catastrophic power and engine failure while driving, if given this information and a choice to avoid it.
Agreed that most people don’t think about this. I’m a preper and I hadn’t thought about this.
Yes, I want it to be connected to the app, to conveniently see fuel level, location, etc.
Does the NTSB or whoever have opinions on who gets to write code for safety critical systems and what obligations they have?
Hmm. Would it be a read only API or can infotainment ever effect change to the vehicle’s operations? My Forester’s vehicle settings (eg. modifying the autonomy features) are managed by the crappy screen behind the wheel rather than the nice touch screen.
Very scary.
We are going to see this play out in every device (car, fridge, TV) that is not locked down by the OEM (apple gets a lot of kudos and knocks for this)
Cars are going to be the front line of this war- it’s not a “right to repair” it’s “a right to have good defaults” and “no upselling opportunities” (I think of it as there are no commercial businesses anymore - just utilities who give clearly defined service that have clear APIs and endpoints.
Sadly I think the world will head towards a point where I will make a fortune selling Augmented vision glasses that remove the adverts reality …
Manufacturers should feel free to offer updates. If the user feels the tradeoffs make sense, then they should be free to accept updates. But this business where the manufacturer thinks they are somehow entitled to mess around with a product you've already purchased from them has got to end. It's not their product anymore, it's yours.
Even better, a "right to modify everything you own, in any way you like". Don't you like the micro-controller installed by the manufacturer? Buy another one, with the correct firmware programmed from scratch, and swap it off.
We are already well into a new era of software, in which software can be programmed by itself, especially Rust. What is missing is money transactions for software companies and their employees located everywhere in the world.
"Devices with no surprises". Retail shops in conjuction with electronics engineers put new controllers in everything and re-sell it. Open source software, auditable by anyone and modified at will.
Programs for every car, every refrigerator etc cannot be programmed by a company located in one place, not even 10 places. It has to be a truly global company.
In other words, I want your device, I don't want your closed source software.
Car manufacturers have figured out how to make expensive cars with good materials and very safe as well. The problem is cheap cars, which can be much more defective and dangerous to drive.
There is a solution to that though. 10-50 people combining their buying power, getting an expensive car and time sharing their usage of it. A mix between public transportation, robo-taxi and personal ownership.
> The engineer might decide to use a particular grade of aluminum on a control arm [..]
That's a problem indeed, a 3d printer for example might be off by some millimeters in some dimension, the manufacturer accounts for that in software and it prints well afterwards. What kind of materials are used is important for sure, but the properties of metals used in the car can be made public, especially if the manufacturer is paid premium and just sold an expensive car instead of a cheap one.
The thing with software though, is that it can be infinitely extended and modified. I can have ten thousand programs more running in my computer tomorrow, with no change to anything physical. Physical stuff need to be manufactured, transported, warehoused, so there is always a limit.
Consumers want always more stuff, if 10 programs are available they want 10 programs. If 100 programs are available they want 100 programs. It never ends. Proprietary software is not ideal there.
Its the CFAA for you and me, but not for corporate thee.
Sony was the first mass application of "lol nope, we sold a feature we decided to remove. Too bad". If our government cared about citizenry, this should have been a criminal and civil case both, under computer fraud and abuse act. But no criminal anything was done, and users go what, $20, 10 years after the fact?
If I did this, I'd be rotting in a jailcell for 20 years.
Currently using a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- have to keep the Settings app in the Task bar so I can toggle stylus behaviour depending on which app I run, and use Firefox w/ a specific setting to enable text selection/disable stylus scrolling (scrolling w/ touch feels far more natural).
I'm about at the point where I'm going to make a Cyberdeck using an rPi 5 and Wacom Movink or Wacom One display....
I really wish Apple would go ahead and make a replacement for my Newton MessagePad....
As it is, rPi cyberdeck seems the best option --- waiting on a Soulcircuit Pilet from Kickstarter, and am considering swapping an rPi 5 into my Raspad v3 tablet shell for the nonce.
Also, adding features on its own is great, but obviously stuff like what happened here can't be allowed to happen, and those Samsung or LG smart fridges that became advertising boards is obviously also not acceptable...
Easy to call the bullshit out, hard to actually define the responsibilities of a manufacturer in a law.
Yeah, The crazy stuff is that when we are out of warranty, and they push an update... who's problem is it now? Who pays? My TV gets updates I don't necessarily want (I'll have to take that upon myself to get an external device for streaming services) and it's out of warranty. What happens when they push something that causes it to not function properly anymore? I didn't break it, they did. We know who pays: we do. I'm almost fearful of bringing anything online these days. I really don't want most things I own to be connected. I find it sad that we are being sold dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, guitar pedals, and just about anything and they somehow need the net. It's gross. We own nothing, we control nothing, and yet we're expected to pay for it when someone else decides they don't want to continue to support, or even offer, the thing you paid for.
Whereas the problem is that cars have had computers for a long time (eg ECU, ABS, entertainment), then those started getting connected together locally via CAN, then finally they added an Internet connection for surveillance and control. So the centralizing proprietary software tentacles go deep into the car in a way that's not easy to remove or replace.
There is the black box approach of disabling network interfaces, but I could even see that going away - cannot contact network -> car cannot be sure that warranty recalls have been done in a timely fashion -> disable itself after a month until you "take it to a dealer" (or reconnect the cell backhaul).
Requiring a control board swap to lose the “smarts” / lockdown isn’t really a good enough option.
I suppose the emergence of the GNU Washing Machine Control Software would be a wonderful thing, but are we there now?
The problem in this case is because it is Locked down by the OEM. Owners are completely at the manufacturer's mercy, and don't have the option to add aftermarket software.
I live in a city so I don't need a car, but if I had to buy one, "it should not have a network interface" would be my most important requirement. "It should not have a video display" would be a secondary one. If I had to buy a car with a network interface, I would do my best to neutralize it to make sure it stays 100% offline.
> Adama: It's an integrated computer network, and I will not have it aboard this ship.
> Roslin: I heard you're one of those people. You're actually afraid of computers.
> Adama: No, there are many computers on this ship. But they're not networked.
> Roslin: A computerized network would simply make it faster and easier for the teachers to be able to teach-
> Adama: Let me explain something to you. Many good men and women lost their lives aboard this ship because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. I'm sorry that I'm inconveniencing you or the teachers, but I will not allow a networked computerized system to be placed on this ship while I'm in command. Is that clear?
> Roslin: Yes, sir.
> Adama: Thank you. 'Scuse me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKGbg16ulU
Basically me when talking about cars I'll buy.
Jeep has already confirmed they’ve pushed out a fix. That is not bricked.
I've had some pretty nasty brickings of devices, like overwriting the bootloader, that I've been able to recover from by getting it into some barely documented system on chip mode with a special cable, booting a new bootloader into RAM via the cable, and reflashing that way. One could go to the extreme and say any flash storage chip where all software bits are directly writable by a factory tool is technically unbrickable. But the customers won't see it that way.
I’m just pushing back on the idea that “bricked” is some random word with no meaning whatsoever.
There are plenty of devices that can be rendered inoperable via non-physical destruction. There used to be more of them, but manufacturers try to make it impossible because it’s a support nightmare.
Being strict about the word "bricked" and limiting it to the truly unrecoverable situations just makes it nigh-on useless.
Very few things can make a modern system truly unrecoverable if one is willing to pour unreasonable resources into them. It's incredibly common to be in a situation where a system is unrecoverable by you though. There's no practical difference between these two except that one depends on the surrounding context.
Being strict about a word makes it more useful, not useless. A useless word is one with no identifiable meaning, one which requires copious clarifications, or one which invites confusion and debate instead of delivering meaning.
The definition I was offering just appends "by you" to the strict definition and encompasses both in some contexts.
https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/2024-4xe-loss...
Not even two weeks after going all-in on enterprise vibe coding including for "engineering workflows".
> [Stellantis'] determination to apply AI across every part of the enterprise
https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2025/octob...
> A brick (or bricked device) is an electronic device, specially consumer electronics (such as a mobile device, game console, computer, etc.) that is no longer functional.
These jeeps are no longer functional.
Anything else than words that already have existing meanings. With that motivation, they could have said "... update that exploded all ..." since it's a really severe situation, but obviously we/they should use words that has the right meaning instead.
"Jeep just pushed an update that was a total failure to all 2024..."
Idk... Doesn't have a very good ring, because "catastrophic" and "total failure" in the realm of tech usually means something that if you try again it could possibly work.
As I said, I agree that "brick" is a good word, I just don't think any of the alternatives are any better.
As I said, "brick" is as good of a choice as "explosive", but you do you.
But you do you
- Vehicle randomly stalls every couple of minutes requiring shutdown and restart
- Shifter doesn't switch out of Park
- Dashboard lights including check engine/drive to dealer etc
(I lemon lawed mine. Got nearly all my money back!)
"Jeep 4xe shut off mid highway
I was driving 65 on the left lane of the highway when my car started slowing down. It started saying to put it into P and to push to start. The car was off and I couldn’t accelerate! I almost crashed trying to get onto the right lane shoulder. 4 lanes over before it completely stopped and caused a huge accident They are saying it’s something with an update jeep is doing and the cars are just stopping! There were 4 jeep wranglers on the side of the highway as I tried driving to the nearest dealership 25min. It turned off 3 times
Will Jeep reimburse me if I get a loaner while my car is at the dealership? My dealership doesn’t provide loaner vehicles
Does anyone know what’s going on?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/Jeep/comments/1o47064/jeep_4xe_shut...
Instead of fixing the actual hardware issue, they did a recall that was some sort of black magic with a firmware update to "fix" the issue. According to the internet, this fix temporarily worked, with pretty much all of them failing again, conveniently after the vehicle was out of warranty.
Anyways, there was a second firmware update, that I had done 10 years after the vehicle was made, that more or less actually "fixed" the issue. Apparently the issue (according to Jeep forums, so take with a grain of salt) was due to some traces being undersized on the PCB, so the fix was to drop the voltage and/or current being sent, and then more or less disabling the safety sensors that would complain about low voltage. After the second firmware update, it would shift into 4x4 about 1 out of 4 attempts (otherwise just failing with "couldn't shift into 4x4" on the screen), and that was the final thing that could be done.
It took Jeep about 4 or 5 years to issue that final firmware update, probably to try and avoid a class action lawsuit over 90% of the vehicles 4x4 system failing just outside of the warranty period!
It's just a crutch for manufacturers to ship half-baked products, and an attack vector for the next generation of shitty engineers they hire to damage my property.
I drove a CJ for many years until it rusted out from under me and the engine seized, but I thought it was great, I went everywhere with it.
I would like to have a wrangler but it is too expensive, too many bells and whistles and to large, I would never get one.
Now I an driving an 18 year auto and hope to keep it going for another 18 :)
This is a rabbit hole that beckons.
https://www.tapkat.org/american-heritage-museum/lkaKb5?promo...
In the case of this Jeep bug causing engine shutoff and power failure, it was an update to the infotainment system! It's easy to compute that these infotainment systems run software; what's crazy is updates to them can cause catastrophic failure to powering the car and ability of the car to drive.
https://www.4xeforums.com/threads/wrangler-4xe-ota-update-10...
"we will assist" - a guarantee so lukewarm, you could put it in an icebox to keep your food fresh for a week.
(I haven't actually done that, but I abstractly like the option being available)
RIP Fiesta model. Too amazing for your own good.
Consumers tend to heavily underestimate the point in time from which cars started absolutely relying on modern electronics.
The powershift dual clutch transmissions had many shoddy model years, but the manual Fiestas were pretty reliable. I drove my 2011 model until earlier this year without any major problems.
You asked for specific legislation. For the Netherlands and our "APK" system, the relevant rule is under "Geluidssignaalinrichtingen en eCall", article 5.2.71 of the APK handboek, issued by our Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer.
In the EU, automatic surveillance cameras on the side of the road enforce this APK system, so if you do disable the eCall system, you will fail your APK, and you will automatically receive a fine. Even if you don't leave your driveway, the government is working hard to keep you safe; government camera surveillance cars drive around constantly, scanning your license plates, cross-referencing surveillance images with other government databases to automatically issue fines if you step out of line.
I really don't think there's anything to worry about, though; to quote another comment of mine:
>Thankfully, we're safe. Car software is notoriously high quality and rarely hacked. All governments are fully trustworthy, especially around espionage and privacy, and have a perfect track record of never lying to the public.
>Look, the European Commission stated that it cannot be hacked; "hackers cannot take control of it", from ec.europa.eu. They built an unhackable device. I am not sure what you could be worried about. If the government tells you something cannot be hacked, then it cannot be hacked. Furthermore, none of the EU member states have been found using other infrastructure to violate privacy laws.
the earlier comment I made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43958991
Unless vehicle tracking is intended as something other than a safety feature?
Now when there is an update they either change the UI (for certain people to remain relevant), or they add more ads.
The safety implications in this case really drive that home.
You will never EVER catch me in a car connected to the internet (this includes all the precious new EVs). Especially a Chrysler product. Look up how they were hacked in 2015…
In Time is a 2011 American science fiction action film written, co-produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol. Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star as inhabitants of a society that uses time from one's lifespan as its primary currency, with each individual possessing a clock on their arm that counts down how long they have to live.
My suspicion is that this was either a CAN saturation issue (ie - infotainment started sending a high priority message which could reach powertrain CAN) or a state management issue (ie - infotainment sent a “put modules to sleep” or “wake modules” message which was not handled correctly and caused one or more modules to transition to an invalid state for driving).
The fact that this possible proves the point: OTA updates are dangerous and should be banned.
What I really think: my car shouldn't have any bullshit "modes" to select from. Tune it once at the factory to some reasonable compromise, and perhaps make certain settings writable through the OBD port, and that will be it.
At a bare minimum any EV driver is going to want two power delivery modes. Jeep people surely don't want to plug in an OBD dongle when they go off road.
Obviously no vehicle should be updated while in operation and all patches should be signed.
Obviously, "software update while traveling at highway speeds" is just rolling too many drama dice.
OTA is fine. Ideally parked, or minimally A/B on the firmware, new version only run on next startup.
This would also mean the A/B failover would need to identify the problem as a bad update rather than a bug that pops up minutes later.
Assuming the best, it might just be an extremely rare corner case that was unknown and inadequately covered in QA.
This stuff can get complicated, and cars are the most dangerous technology that is sold to retail customers.
And the Wrangler is the only Stellantis brand that still has some value. Yet somehow, they’re finding a way to ruin even that.
I’d love an electric car - but I want a dumb one that can’t call home and never gets updates. Just this pedal go fast. This pedal go slow.
I saw this post while sitting in a 2024 4xe which was not bricked, so it doesn’t appear to be all of them.
I hope they do a gradual rollout and they don’t push updates to the entire fleet at once (that would be irresponsible), but from the amount of people experiencing issues since Friday…
I’ve been thinking of buying/leasing a 4xe Wrangler since I rented one back in September for a couple of weeks and enjoyed it. However, stuff like this makes me concerned since I already know Jeep/stellantis have sub-par reliability compared to other car manufacturers.
A OTA update that makes the car undrivable is one thing. A bug that causes the power train shut off at highway speeds is unacceptable. Seems like multiple failures caused something like this to happen. Not only did they not QA an update properly, but the mere fact that a Infotainment/Telematics firmware update could kill the motor/engine while driving is crazy. In addition, the fact that they roll out an update like this on a Friday before a holiday weekend is also absurd.
There should be some sort of health check across all the car systems/ECUs before allowing the car to drive.
Stuff like this makes me more likely to look at Rivian instead (although they’ve had reliability issues too).
Is it possible to disconnect the power from the radios used for "over the air" nonsense? Then at least they would be stable.
The lesson was you built firmware updates upfront and right into your development process so it became a non-event. You put in lots of tests, including automatic verification and rollback recovery. You made it so everyone was 100% comfortable pushing out updates, like every hour. It wasn't this big, scary release thing.
You did binary deltas so each update was small, and trickle download during down-time. You did A/B partitions, or if you had flash space, A/B/C updates (current firmware, new update, last known good one). Bricking devices and recalls are expensive and cause reputational damage. Adding OTA requires WiFi, BLE, or cell, which increases BOM cost and backend support. Trade-off is manual updates requiring dealership visits or on-site tech support calls with USB keys. It doesn't scale well. For consumer devices, it leads to lots of unpatched, out-of-date devices, increasing support costs and legal risk. OTA also lets you push out in stages and do blue-green deployment testing.
For security, you had on-device asymmetric encryption keys and signed each update, then rolled the keys so if someone reverse-engineered the firmware, it wouldn't be a total loss. Ideally add a TPM to the BOM with multiple key slots and a HW encryption engine. Anyone thinking about shipping unencrypted firmware, or baking symmetric encryption keys into firmware should be publicly flogged.
You also needed a data migration system so user-customizations aren't wiped out. My newish car, to this day, resets most user settings when it gets an OTA. No wonder people turn off automatic updates.
The really good systems also used realistic device simulators to measure impact before even pushing things out. And you definitely tested for communication failures and interruptions. Like, yoink out a power-line mid-update and then watch what happens after power is back on. Yes, it's costly and time-consuming, but consider the alternatives.
The ones that failed the most were when they spent months or years developing the basic system, then tacked on update at the end as part of deployment. Since firmware update wasn't as sexy as developing cool new tech, this was doled out to lower-tier devs who didn't know what they were doing. Also, doing it at the end of the project meant it was often the least-tested feature.
The other sin was waiting months before rolling out updates, so there were lots of changes packed into one update, which made a small failure have a huge blast radius.
These were all technical management failures. Designing a robust update system should be right up-front in the project plan, built by your best engineers, then including it in the CI/CD pipeline.
Just for context, the worst headline I had was for update failure in a line of hospital infant incubators.
And if you try to set English language it simply cannot show list with products. Ridiculous for their billions.