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.
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.
It's more important to start with an organization that cares about quality in the first place.
China has so many people that EE and CS are a dime a dozen, thats why they have a competitive market thats low cost. People are in a jungle trying to survive.
[0]: https://youtu.be/ljOoGyCso8s?t=101
The video is (Supposedly) EEs doing customer support roles thus allowing Cheap PCB for hobbyists, the equivalent in the US does not exist.
Side Note: I hear this is also why SASS never really took off in China. Why pay someone else for software when you can get a dozen people to make your own cheaper.
How so? All 3 major German Car Groups have invested substantially into software. VW Group set up an entire company with the core goal of allowing different operating practices for software development, which doesn't sound too dissimilar to Woven, at least in its goals.
"Instead of developing software for cars independently, Cariad will act as a coordinator for externally developed technologies – primarily software from Rivian and Xpeng."
By all accounts, rakuten is dealing with absolute horror shows of internal codebases, but they're generally competent at delivering reliable software without a lot of surprises in my experience.
You also have a hard time hiring good mid-levels because you can’t possibly pay them as much as the top people, right? You also have the problem that some of your SWEs might make more than their managers, and that’s just unconscionable.
So what do you do? Have a “secret bonus” program that even most people in HR don’t know about? Hiring becomes tricky: Better make sure you don’t have a live one on the line when the only HR with need-to-know is on vacation.
That even works in the bay area, which is how places like Oxide keep fantastically skilled people despite paying below market rate.
Is it the easiest way to hire? No, but I never said it was.
of course places that value good software engineering and have the cash flow to pay them do so
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.
Look at how much VW has spent. They built up entire Software company and they are now giving billions to Rivian.
VW's having to invest huge amounts of their revenue while Rivian's going around burning VC/investor cash without a care in the world for profitability.
I was just answering your question. VW clearly has the money and is willing to spend it.
>Rivian's going around burning VC/investor cash without a care in the world for profitability.
I believe that a huge part of the VW deal with Rivian was that they needed more money. Making cars is expensive and Rivian can not succeed on investments alone.
Quick question for HN: Would you rather work with 1000 mediocre SWEs or 10 really really good ones?
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.
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
Not only EEs, and not only any real engineer, but the hard sciences, as well.
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.