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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

How do car manufactures get firmware updates into their cars?

I heard Tesla does it OTA but what about the others? Do they have to get each car into a dealer and connect to the OBD-II port?

Seems a bit tedious but I guess if something goes wrong it is better to have the car at a service location then have several hundred stranded drivers because a firmware update failed.

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Volvo does it at a certified Volvo mechanic.

I was rather amused when my brother, also in IT, called his Volvo mechanic and wanted to see a Changelog for the latest firmware installed in his car. They of course had no idea what he was talking about, even though they're the ones installing this software into his mode of transportation.

I would say that most FW bugs are found in the years that the car is under warranty (At least 2years here in EU) - which means that you have to (there are some new laws around this, but there's no change to be seen in practice as of yet) drive it to a certified mechanic/dealer that has the equipment to update the FW quickly (there's a big chance that he will have the car connected to the diagnostic equipment anyway). And the bugs/updates that are missed this way usually get solved when the driver notices them and drives them to a garage (around here the mechanics, even the non-certified ones have quite a good grasp of common faults that can be remedied with a FW upgrade). So overall this isn't as big of an issue as someone would think.

Ah, the "Android" model. Dump your car as soon as it's out of warranty and you're safe :)

In all current (F-series) BMW cars, firmware updates are performed by the dealer using TCP/IP over 100 megabit Ethernet wired through its OBD-II port.

Curiously, it assumes RFC3927 -- the car assigns itself an IP within 169.254.0.0/16 and the diagnostic computer (a Windows PC running some native but mostly Java-based software) does the same once DHCP fails.

aka Automatic Private IP Adress or APIPA

For the most part, if it "works" you just don't mess with it. For american cars, you usually go to a dealer. My car had many ECU updates over the years, but everyone online complained that it fixed some issues(surging idle, detonation) but then added other issues, so I just never bothered.

For the performance scene, an SCT hand held tuner (http://www.sctflash.com/) flashes over the current ECU firmware with the latest available firmware plus any tuned parameters that you select

For the couple updates my Audi got so far I had to bring it to the dealer.

Some updates even required - if you want to believe the statement I got from my local Audi shop - a dial-up connection to Audi itself.

Most updates _could_ be installed via CD/DVD/SD card as well though, as far as I'm aware. If you can acquire the files and are comfortable 'flashing' your car's systems.

As long as the car is under warranty you have to go in for a yearly inspection - and they update the firmware during that. Or you might get an email(if you registered) saying that a new firmware for your car was released and you should visit the nearest dealership for the upgrade. I got an email for firmware upgrade of my gearbox, that was quite cool.

The gearbox computer for my Volkswagen was recently recalled under warranty. The dealership was shipped a new blank gearbox computer by Volkswagen which then had to flashed with the lastest software version, retrieved from VW Germany via the dealer's satellite uplink (I assume over ODB-II).

I guess it's part of the regular service check-ups you are supposed to do for most manufacturers.

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