[HN Gopher] Software is eating the car ___________________________________________________________________ Software is eating the car Author : avonmach Score : 173 points Date : 2021-06-10 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org) (TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org) | jrsj wrote: | This is the opposite of what I want, guess I should buy a low | mileage used Tacoma and hope it lasts for the rest of my life | Shadonototro wrote: | the problem will be bad developers who write bad code that | results in need of more powerful and powerhungry chips wich | results in chip shortage | | the curse of the tech-age is capitalism needing cheap labor, wich | results in stupid choices being made | | we seen this during the Web 2.0 era, bad/cheap programmers made | everything slow, sluggish and resource hungry, bad code, always | bad code | | it still continues today | waiseristy wrote: | This is true to some extent, but the biggest burden on | automotive computer performance is actually safety compliance. | Most modern automotive ECU's have an entire core dedicated to | cross-checking the validity of the other cores execution. | Protection against an extremely hostile EM environment ends up | resulting in very low clock rates (150-300MHZ). And software | safety mechanisms mean, at some times, 50% of core allocation | could be consumed by safety related code. | kmote00 wrote: | Someday in your future, you will jump in your car for an | emergency drive, and the screen will say, "Updating. Please | wait..." | eaa wrote: | And then trying to apply downloaded update and rebooting... in | a loop. Or segfaulting. SW should make everything easier and | more flexible, right? ;) | _benj wrote: | This makes me think of aeronautical industry. It is possible to | get a J-3 Cub with just a stick that pulls on the control | surfaces or it is possible to get a Cessna private jet with | thousands (if not millions) of lines of code in it. They are just | different. | | My fear is that we'd get to a point in which dumb cars will be | something that is no longer a mainstream option. Maybe then we'll | need to have our own EAA but with cars. | peter303 wrote: | Peter Hubers tome The Bottomless Well considers software as the | apex of the energy pyramid. Each level of the pyramid- animal, | wood, coal, gas, electricity, nuclear, software- (I may have | recollected the order not entirely correct) is more usable and | powerful than the one below it. | | You can see this pyramid in the evolution of the automobile: | mostly petro-mechanical, then a growing fraction electrical, then | an increasing fraction software. | | I was not fully convinced by the book is that computing is a type | of refined energy, but can agree with some of arguments for it. | Other computer utilization like mass data centers and crypto | currency support computing as the new wave of industrialization. | | As an aside: Hubers thesis is the world will never run out of | energy because we are constantly improving it, for example with | or as software. Furthermore the amount of work per capita has | grown with the quality of energy, and shall continue to increase | in future. | adamc wrote: | This terrifies me. | aidenn0 wrote: | What worries me the most is the usage of flash storage backing | huge swaths of the functionality in the car. I suspect 10 years | from now we will have cars where everything between the dashboard | and glove-box does not work because the flash has worn out. | waiseristy wrote: | Luckily the only dynamic part of most of these ECU's are their | diagnostics and logging mechanisms, nowhere near "huge swaths | of functionality". Every other bit of flash is written once at | the factory and is never touched again. Now that we are seeing | widespread adoption of OTA, it'll increase the amount of writes | to program flash maybe 100 times over the life of the vehicle, | but still within reasonable bounds. | | The issue is if OEM's ignore this limitation and tie mission | critical portions of their systems to the memory partitions | their diagnostic and logging mechanisms use (e.g Tesla). | | In reality if we are deploying OTA capabilities to these | vehicles, there is absolutely no reason to be hammering your | flash with logs, just upload them to the borg cube and be done | with it. | aidenn0 wrote: | Many cars use eMMC to back the infotainment system. | | Recent non-tesla rentals I've driven have definitely had | functionality that could only be accessed through the touch- | screen. e.g. a Chrysler my mom rented a couple weeks ago had | just temperature and fan control on knobs; everything else | for climate was touch-screen only. What happens when the eMMC | gives up the ghost in this car? I don't know, but I suspect | you won't be able to e.g. manually put the defogger on... | waiseristy wrote: | Good point, you are totally right. I don't drive a car | which uses the infotainment system for mission-critical | functionality. I've actually run it without the | infotainment system in the car at all. Tesla's would | effectively be bricked without the head unit functioning. | | Ford and the rest of the reputable OEMs know a thing or two | about flash degradation though. It was actually a huge | sticking point in one of my infotainment projects with | them. So I don't expect all the OEMs to make the same bone- | headed mistakes Tesla has | aidenn0 wrote: | If you are allowed to share, what is the typical OEM | specified lifetime for the infotainment flash part? I | guessed 10 years in my original comment, but that was a | gut instinct and completely uninformed. | waiseristy wrote: | Your guess would be nearly as good as mine, I worked as a | vendor and never actually had to abide by the | requirements the integrators over at the OEMs had to | stick to. | | Usually when talking with them they would throw around | "lifetime of the vehicle" requirements. For typical OEMs | I think they consider that 15-20 years. Tesla, probably | 10 lol! | | Though, in reality, if you baby your flash to last 15-20 | years. You've probably designed it in a way that it has a | chance to live a whole lot longer. | cyrks wrote: | already happening in tesla cars | prova_modena wrote: | As someone in the industry of supplying parts to keep older cars | running, I view the increase of automotive software and | electronic complexity as ensuring a future crisis of | maintainability. | | Availability of parts and service information has always been an | issue for aftermarket repair/modification of vehicles. However, | as long as there are enough vehicles and committed owners around | to create a small market for repair parts and services, | independent companies have grown to provide what the original | manufacturer will not. This even applies for very niche vehicles | where some devoted old fellow runs essentially a hobby business | keeps the flame alive. | | Even relatively recent vehicles with considerable electronic | sophistication can be supported this way. I have worked with | specialist companies that will modify, repair and re-engineer | some of the more complex control units and electronic subsystems | used on 2000s and 2010s vehicles (i.e. suspension control ECUs, | digital dashboards etc). | | However, the trend described in this article has the potential to | upend the status quo described above, simply due to the | escalating complexity involved. It's sort of a tradition that | auto enthusiasts and aftermarket industry initially distrust new | tech in automobiles- fuel injection, ABS, traction control | systems, emissions controls such as EGR etc all got that | reception initially. Expertise with all those systems was | eventually absorbed throughout the industry and resistance | decreased as the benefits were better understood. However, as | complexity increases there is a gradual increase in costs | (engineering, training, manufacturing, install/service labor) to | deal with all these sophisticated systems. Without other | unforeseeable changes, there are almost certainly various | inflection points where increases in complexity will result | aftermarket support collapsing for particular models (or specific | subsystems). This is something that already happens, but mostly | for relatively rare models as until recently automotive | complexity increases were constrained by the slower pace of ICE | and chassis development. | | As these costs rise, fewer and fewer models of cars will have a | healthy enough aftermarket to support investment by independent | companies to analyze, repair and replace these complex systems. | For sure, it will result in more models of cars becoming | unmaintainable and fewer cars staying in operation beyond their | warranty expiration dates. However, also I think this will result | in a market space opening up not for repairs and replacements, | but for various kinds of bypasses and defeat devices ("deletes" | in industry terms) that will either remove complex subsystems | entirely or allow replacement with more generic components. This | is already occurring in some sectors of the automotive industry, | particularly around diesel truck emissions control systems, where | EPA has pursued aggressive enforcement actions against companies | selling delete kits[1]. However I think where it will get really | interesting is when we start getting widespread delete kits that | aren't primarily mechanical in nature, but attempt to lock out or | spoof entire software/electronic subsystems. | | [1] https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/performance-diesel-inc- | clean... | iso1210 wrote: | I have to admit I was unnerved the first time I got in a car with | an electronic hand brake - certainly something I would not want | if I were buying a car. Especially as there was a "Microsoft" | logo next to it (presumably for the terrible in car entertainment | system which was touch screen only) | | The encroaching of software into cars does remind me of the old | joke though. | | At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly | compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated | "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry | has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to | the gallon." | | In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued the | following press release - | | If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be | driving cars with the following characteristics - | | 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day. | | 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would | have to buy a new car. | | 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. | You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of | the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows | before you could continue. For some reason you would simply | accept this. | | 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would | cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case | you would have to reinstall the engine. | | 5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought | "car NT", but then you would have to buy more seats. | | 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was | reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but | would only run on five percent of the roads. | | 7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights | would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" | warning light. | | 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock | you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted | the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio | antenna. | | 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to | learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls | would operate in the same manner as the old car. | | 10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine | off. | beckingz wrote: | That last one is true for most cars now... | panopticon wrote: | Number 7 is also already true in some cars. You have almost | zero gauges and just get an engine light when something's | amiss. Then you need to use an OBDII reader to know what's | wrong. | dalbasal wrote: | 5 & 10 are already here... the rest aren't far. | SavantIdiot wrote: | Short answer to the lede: no, the industry cannot cope. Or | rather, it will limp along with bloatware, bugs, and malware | exactly the same way we see desktop OSes bloat, or the way we see | routers and set-top boxes hacked to become botnets. | | In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. | With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a | step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code has always | bloated. | | Damn. I just want a car with as FEW knobs/buttons/levers as | necessary. Literally: make it as simple as possible. Like an golf | cart! Is anyone else out there with me? I feel like Walter from | The Big Lebowski regarding this: has everyone just gone crazy? | LinuxBender wrote: | I'm with you. I will not buy a vehicle of any kind that is | sending telemetry or tracking without my express written | consent. This includes ICE cars made after 2018 that may have | ODB3 and send GPS, emission, speed and other data to 3rd | parties. I accept that I will be paying a premium to keep older | vehicles running. I am about to donate my old truck to a | charity and will get a less old truck after I leave California. | e40 wrote: | > This includes ICE cars made after 2018 that have ODB3 and | send GPS, emission, speed and other data to 3rd parties. | | I googled for this and could find no info. Please give a | reference for this claim. | LinuxBender wrote: | In fact all the links to forums discussing this appear to | have been wiped from Google and Bing. Perhaps this topic is | off limits for now. I can still find the older articles | talking about privacy concerns, but the forums where people | were explaining how to disable it have vanished. | mardifoufs wrote: | > > This includes ICE cars made after 2018 that have ODB3 | and send GPS, emission, speed and other data to 3rd | parties. | | > I googled for this and could find no info. Please give a | reference for this claim. | | I can't even seem to find any reference to odb 3 existing | at all in the first place. So yeah any link would be very | much appreciated | xxpor wrote: | I'd assume they meant OBD3 | | http://straighttalkautomotive.com/articles/have-you- | heard-of... | | It's mostly about surfacing the codes via a screen in the | car instead of having a generic check engine light and | needing an external scanner. | | As far as I can tell, it was never mandated. Most posts | about it are from ~2011. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | _" Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container."_ - | Nathan Myhrvold | tima101 wrote: | "Has the whole world gone CRAZY?" | sharkweek wrote: | I would prefer a car that is almost entirely mechanical because | mechanics make way more sense to me than software. | | The old crusty mechanic I take my 20+ year old 4Runner to for | service complains about this a lot. Cars don't make nearly as | much sense to him as they used to. | | Just to be clear, I appreciate improved safety that technology | brings to cars, and I know I can't have it both ways. | smolder wrote: | You can't have high tech safety features without high tech, | but you can limit the complexity of electronics, software, | and in-car networking to a bare minimum, which is arguably | not even being attempted, at least in some markets. | bob1029 wrote: | The biggest thing for me is user input latency. It doesnt | matter if its a computer, a microwave, or a car. I want to | feel like the machine is not a lazy piece of shit and | actually wants to help me. | | I know it sounds like a pedantic annoyance, but that little | bit of step-wise discrete behavior I get out of my electronic | throttle body right at the threshold of activation is one of | the most infuriating things about owning an otherwise | "sporty" car. It's not defective either. This is the cost of | doing business with a totally-unnecessary software control | loop. | | I find that mechanical linkages usually have _zero fucking | latency_ , infinite resolution, and are much preferable to my | monkey brain. Fly-by-wire is a huge mistake. | ggreer wrote: | Are you sure that's not something else like inertia in | various mechanical parts or engine tuning? Maybe it | sacrifices responsiveness at low RPM for better emissions | or better performance at high revs. There's certainly no | need for the software side of things to be laggy or | discrete. | | Also have you tried an electric car? You might be | impressed. EVs may have more software, but they don't have | nearly as many physical constraints on responsiveness. They | don't have to wait for an engine to suck in more air. They | don't have to overcome the inertia of pistons and rods and | flywheels and clutch discs and long driveshafts. It's just | instant torque. Compared to my Model 3, every internal | combustion vehicle feels like it has turbo lag. | madengr wrote: | Here here. I was looking just yesterday to see if a John Deere | Gator (or equivalent) is street legal. The answer is yes, with | a few parts. | | https://www.sidebysidestuff.com/john-deere-gator-utility-str... | | I want my 87' Toyota pickup back with it's solid state ignition | and carburetor. It's been down hill since then. | jrwoodruff wrote: | I'm pretty sure the TJ-era wranglers (1997-2006), and the | Cherokee of the same period hit a sweet spot. Dead simple, no | frills, durable as hell, utilitarian but not uncomfortable. | Everything after that is continual bloat - bigger overall size, | more luxury options, more technology in general. But that's | what people want - luxury, comfort, safety... I get it, but I | love the experience of my TJ. | cbHXBY1D wrote: | I love my '99 Cherokee (XJ) for this reason. Hopefully it | never dies. | | Doug DeMuro explains why people love the XJ for its | simplicity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3STMfI_PS4Q | [deleted] | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I'd like if the entire car "computer" was socketed and could | easily be tinkered with, upgraded, or left empty. | [deleted] | temporallobe wrote: | Car guy here. Yeah, I'm with you. My favorite car was a '96 | Tercel with mechanical steering and a 4-speed manual. It even | had manual roll-up windows. It had less than 100 HP, but it was | simple as hell to operate, very fun to drive, cheap to | maintain, and extremely reliable up until I sold it with nearly | 400k miles on the odo. I put an aftermarket stereo and speakers | in it and I was set. Only reason I sold it was because my wife | hated it and a friend needed a cheap reliable car for his idiot | son who proceeded to neglect and destroy it quickly after | taking possession. | | Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but | they are a hell of a lot safer, so there's that. | potta_coffee wrote: | I have a 97 Miata and a 95 4Runner. Both high mileage, both | amazing cars mechanically. They both have power steering and | power windows but everything works on both cars: every knob, | button, window, still works. I've had several newer cars that | have degraded much more quickly than these two. Both cars are | much better to drive IMO than newer cars, with some caveats. | You can't drive like a dummy and expect these older cars to | kick in computerized traction control systems to save you | from yourself. I personally like a car that lets me be the | driver. | jrwoodruff wrote: | Those mid 90s Japanese sedans were awesome. Relatively | compact overall, zippy little 4 cylinders engines and manual | transmissions. I had an Accord from that era, and loved | driving my dads nerdy-as-hell Nissan Sentra. That car was | shockingly fun to drive. | GeorgeTirebiter wrote: | I still drive my '94 Lexus. California is kind in that way. | dzhiurgis wrote: | Just sold my 1990 Bluebird. Didn't pass warrant of fitness, | but otherwise drove amazingly well. | beckingz wrote: | Mid 90s Accords were incredibly long lasting. | throaway46546 wrote: | 92 Civic owner here. Love my car. | clairity wrote: | > "Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, | but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there's that." | | tangentially, "safety" is highly cargo-culted. things that | seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, | but in many cases, such features really only provide a false | sense of security along with substantive unintended | consequences. | | most safety features in cars (e.g., lane-keeping) allow | people to be less skilled and less attentive at driving, | rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. the better | solution is to make people better and more attentive at | driving through more rigorous training/testing, more | thoughtful design, and importantly, culture, rather than just | technology for its own sake. | crooked-v wrote: | > rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. | | Motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 have been on a consistent | downward trend since the 70s (1.53 per 100,000 in 2000, | 1.11 per 100,000 in 2019), so, no, death rates have in fact | been lowered. | lazide wrote: | Those are two different stats - parent was referring to | if those features lower death rates. You are looking at | total death rates regardless of features. | | It's also possible better road maintenance, or airbags, | or better crumple zones (but not lane help) are driving | it down. It's possible for lane help to be driving it up, | just not as much as say better crumple zones, and it will | still be trending down. | azornathogron wrote: | Modern cars have more design features that improve crash | survivability (better airbags, better crumple zones, tested | with more realistic crash tests, etc). Those seem like a | pretty unalloyed improvement to me. | | I'm not saying you're wrong about the things you mentioned, | but cars really have got safer, in important ways. | clairity wrote: | yes, airbags and crumple zones do improve safety, but | even those are not without negative consequences, like | bigger, heavier vehicles (which is more dangerous to | others) and higher sense of psychological safety leading | to being less considerate, less attentive, and more | reckless. | | that's not to argue that those tradeoffs aren't net | positive, but that they're still tradeoffs to be | considered, rather than short-circuiting to "of course | it's better!". | dzhiurgis wrote: | I'd argue feeling safe when I drive is net positive for | actual safety. Stressed drivers going to make way more | errors. | clairity wrote: | if you're prone to being overwhelmed by stress while | driving a machine that can potentially kill you, that's a | sign to get more training, not to mollify oneself with an | illusion of safety. ignorance is not bliss in this case. | notJim wrote: | Do you have any evidence for these claims? This just | feels like luddism to me. | pille wrote: | The "bigger, heavier" part does indeed seem to be a | tradeoff. It's been blamed for a significanted rise in | pedestrian fatalities, even as vehicles get safer for the | people inside. | | One source, just after a quick search: | https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians20 | IgorPartola wrote: | For anyone wondering what progress in terms of safety looks | like, give this 77 second video a view: | https://youtu.be/xtxd27jlZ_g | notJim wrote: | > things that seem so obviously safer are taken without | question as better, but in many cases, such features really | only provide a false sense of security along with | substantive unintended consequences | | This is not true at all. There is definitely testing of | cars by groups like the NHTSA and Insurance Institute for | Highway Safety. For example, they've found crash rates were | 14% lower on cars with blind-spot monitoring. Modern cars | are far safer than older cars. | duped wrote: | Counterpoint, I'm not a car guy and I think too many people | own them. But when I'm in a car my priorities are safety, | mileage, seat comfort, climate control, sound quality, and | smartphone support. I don't really care how much it costs to | maintain, and I haven't changed my own oil in over a decade. | | Modern cars are fine in the UX for what I do. I'd rather not | own a car than drive manual, and even vehicles from 10 years | ago aren't competitive in creature comforts or gasoline | consumption. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _My favorite car was a '96 Tercel with mechanical steering | and a 4-speed manual. It even had manual roll-up windows._ | | I had a 1993 Tercel, same gearbox, manual windows, vinyl | interior. It had a leaking head gasket when I bought it, and | I drove it for 150,000 km without putting a dime into it | outside of oil changes and tires, filling the coolant as | needed. Simple cars are basically indestructible. | olivermarks wrote: | https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 - convert a | sturdy long lasting pre connectivity/phone home car as asap | while you still can! | dzhiurgis wrote: | I guess Renault Zoe or Wuling Hong Guang Mini EV mostly ticks | your boxes | rm445 wrote: | Well that's two different things. Intrinsic versus extrinsic | complexity. | | The user experience may get simpler again, but the technology | inside is likely to get more complex. Electrification might | mean simpler mechanisms and fewer moving parts, but the | software will get ever more complicated. | | Now in a way it's usually a good thing, if all the complexity | of something is hidden and users can treat it as though it's | simple. But we'd probably all agree that extra complexity in | software that can kill us if it goes wrong is worrying. The | only way we know to write safe software is to make it as simple | as possible, and write it slowly and expensively. SIL-rated | software has already reached the automotive sector. But it | seems like the sheer demand to make cars more complex | (especially for self-driving) will outrun our ability to make | them safe. | cylon13 wrote: | I agree with you about wanting a car without pointless stuff | bolted on. When it comes to the things required to actually | move the car, there's an interesting inverse relationship | between visible levers and internal complexity though. Each | lever removed is moving complexity from your brain to some | physical system. Like an automatic transmission removes the | gear shift and adds the more complex automatic transmission. In | the limit, one can imagine the "simplest" interface of a | virtually empty self-driving pod, which of course is actually | an extremely complex system. | notjes wrote: | Having a cheap, dumb car that you can repair yourself would | destroy like 100m jobs. | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | So what are the odds of some car pieces moving towards dark | mirror episode where a car had a modular solar panel charger? | | I know what the tendency is now ( lock everything up and sell | any telemetry ), but could that happen? | Swizec wrote: | You should get a Catheram, exactly the kind of car you're | talking about. | cmurf wrote: | It's what every industry does. It thinks it's creating value by | having more features, when in reality it's just creating more | jobs. More middle people who each want a cut. | paulryanrogers wrote: | Cars like Microsoft Word have a broad feature set because needs | are broad. For those of us who want reliable, inexpensive, self | service-able transportation there are fewer choices. My guess | is because the majority are entranced by sexier things: smart | features, driver assist, and safety features of dubious | quality. | mulmen wrote: | What safety features are of dubious quality? Do you have some | examples? | paulryanrogers wrote: | I was thinking of Tesla's not full "full self driving" and | things like auto park. | Pokepokalypse wrote: | THREE, Takata airbag recalls on a single vehicle. | germinalphrase wrote: | For what it's worth, my base model Honda ticks those boxes. | wyager wrote: | Cars are legally required to have infotainment systems (for the | backup camera) by NHTSA safety regulations. We're fucked. | vannevar wrote: | Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. | Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up | with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car | with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, | and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than | one I'm getting a click-through license to use. | rsj_hn wrote: | Same here. The automakers are trying to pull a fast one by | conflating battery power with tons of licensed software with | an attack on independent mechanics and serviceability. But I | suspect that there is a huge market for low end EVs that can | be easily serviced and don't have a lot of software. | zippergz wrote: | 1000% agree. I do not want a car that is a smartphone on | wheels and I have no idea why so many people find this | attractive. | randcraw wrote: | I understand why buyers like digital novelties in cars: | they're flashy and sexy, and they make your 4 year old car | look old by comparison. | | I also understand why car makers like digital flash: your 4 | year old car doesn't support your latest iPhone, network, | or peripherals, so you're motivated to buy a new one every | few years. | | (And of course, old car tech distracts your driving LESS, | however that fits into the picture.) | | I think we will never see cars with modular digital tech | that can be updated. A car with replaceable digital | hardware and software won't rapidly go out-of-date the way | current cars do. They would cost far less to update than | replace. So nobody wants it... except perhaps grownups. | arpyzo wrote: | I own a 2014 Subaru Impreza and my brother in-law a 2017. | I've driven both extensively. Sometime during those years, | Subaru switched from knobs and levers to a touchscreen and | the controls are so much worse! | | 1. The controls on the 2014 are obvious, easy to find, and | my choices are readily apparent. In the 2017 I have to | search for them and often guess their meanings. If I'm | actively driving, I just give up because it's too | distracting. | | 2. The controls are not as responsive. Sometimes there's a | lag. Sometimes they don't respond at all. | | 3. There are bugs with the digital controls that simply | don't exist in the analog versions. As an example in the | 2017 the radio turns on every time the car gets started | regardless of if it was on when the car was turned off. | NikolaNovak wrote: | Worse, in the 2015 Toyota and 2019 Honda that we now have | - if one of us listened to heavy metal on volume 30; and | the other one is more of a mellow pop on volume15; | they'll have to wait until the car turns on, boots, and | timeouts the warning/license messages, before car will | accept the volume down / turn radio off input and kill | the cacophone. | | _UN_ acceptable. | | And yet now the norm. | | I'll do you one better - I'm hanging on to my 2004 Subaru | WRX for these and similar reasons too :). I go through | dealerships every year or two looking for replacement... | and keep my WRX with happiness in my heart. | numpad0 wrote: | OT but since there seems to be multiple Subaru owners -- | if you are experiencing an issue with the clock on | MFD(the small display on top of the dashboard) being too | fast, probably depends on models but the causes are, | | 1) that there's no CAN bus messages in Subaru cars that | offer GPS time, and | | 2) that at least older models of MFD counts time by | dividing 125kHz CAN bus crystal, where a sane choice | would be to use 32.768kHz one. | | It's not just your car, the issue is in design. To | hypothetically fix it a firmware hack would need to be | built. I learned this when a friend of mine told his is | always way too fast and often makes him upset for a | moment that he might be late to work -- don't know he | meant it justify flooring it but sounded like he was | genuinely annoyed. | UncleMeat wrote: | I have a 2015 Crosstrek. It is a great car. | | The console is awful. Truly awful. Push the volume button | within a few seconds of turning the car on to turn the | radio off? Doesn't even register. Even if you give it a | minute to warm up, it is half a second of lag on a | physical switch. The touch screen has a half second of | lag and requires several presses to do something as | simple as switch from the radio to bluetooth. | Jtsummers wrote: | Re (3): | | It's still an issue in the 2018 Impreza. I've gotten used | to it now, but it's still frustrating. Especially if I | ended the drive with a phone call. On phone calls I have | to really crank up the volume (nearly max) whereas for | music and other things I have it very low (10-15? The | numbers mean nothing to me, not loud). So when I turn it | on after a call I get blasted by NPR for about 5-10 | seconds before the audio volume dial actually responds | (sometimes it takes the early attempted dialing down but | delayed, other times I have to try and dial it down | again). | | Other than audio controls, though, everything else is | responsive, I don't notice any lag. It really seems to be | an issue with their stereo system. Either it's not fully | booted (and can't respond to controls yet) or there's | some mediating system that transmits the controls which | isn't booted up as quickly. | drivers99 wrote: | I have the same problems with my 2019 Impreza. It | responds sooner if I'm not in reverse, but I am usually | in reverse first because I need to back out of my garage. | It usually doesn't respond to the volume knob messages | until a second after shifting into forward. I say | "messages" because the turns of the knob appear to be | queued up somewhere, but it doesn't have as much time to | process those while it's displaying the rear-view camera | on the screen. | jfengel wrote: | Huh. My 2020 Impreza has lots of knobs and levers. | | About the only time I interact with the touch screen is | to control the apps I use (mostly maps and podcasts). | Even the podcasts app rarely requires me to touch the | touch screen; there are volume and back/forward switches | right on the steering wheel. (And also on the console | below the touch screen.) | | Maybe that's switching back after 2017, or perhaps you | use more of the controls than I do. | gilbetron wrote: | I have a 2016 Outback and love nearly everything about | the car, except the stupid console. Just horrible in the | ways you describe. Laggy, unintuitive, and just | irritating to use. I only ever use the actual buttons on | the steering wheel. Not only is the console touch screen | bad, but the actual buttons for the HVAC system are weird | and unintuitive. 4 years of owning it and I still push | the wrong buttons. | patpending wrote: | I have a similar problem with my 2017 Pacifica that | replaced my 2005 Voyager. Using the touch screen to | control the heat and air-conditioning is extremely slow | in the Pacifica, and you can't do it without looking at | the screen which can't be used with gloves. | | There are physical buttons and knobs for a few of the | controls, but it seems that they're just talking to the | same software as the touch-screen, so they're just as | slow to respond. Adjusting the heat without looking at | the touch-screen is pretty much impossible. | | IMO the touch screen should not be used to control any | aspect of the car's operation. It should only be for | phone, navigation, backup camera, and entertainment. | organsnyder wrote: | I also have a 2017 Pacifica, and for the most part I | don't mind the controls (the physical buttons are | responsive enough that it doesn't bother me), but there | are definitely a few functions (heated/cooled seats, | mainly) that I wish I didn't have to dig through menus to | find. Such a contrast from my 2009 Civic (albeit no | heated/cooled seats on that vehicle). | bayindirh wrote: | I drive a 2002 Focus MK-I, and I can use all controls | _rather blindly_ , just by feeling them. | | I hope to buy a similarly ergonomic vehicle when this one | becomes unmaintainable. | hughrr wrote: | 2009-2016 Citroen c3 is a winner. Not sure about newer | ones. Only computation it has is Bluetooth. | jonplackett wrote: | Controls you can feel for seems to be a lost art. | (Looking at you, Touch Bar.) | bayindirh wrote: | Isn't touch bar is at the edge of vision, so | theoretically isn't that distracting? | | Neither of my Macs have one of these. This is why I'm | asking. | jonplackett wrote: | It's not that it's visually distracting that's the | problem - it's that you can't feel where the buttons are | without looking. | | And if you aren't looking you'll accidentally do things | you didn't mean to, like press escape, or turn your mac | off when trying to hit back space. | judge2020 wrote: | To be fair, I don't use my function keys on my laptop | enough to where it became muscle memory, especially for | the alternative functions they provide (screen | brightness, media, etc). | jonplackett wrote: | Apple had those keys in the same place for ages, and | they're all set to the the action rather than function by | default. Volume up and down is useful, as is escape and | the power button. Key brightness is handy, play/pause I | used to use a lot. So looking forward to finally getting | a new laptop when the M1 Macbook Pro comes out. | lazide wrote: | Kinda not really - yes you can kinda see it - but you | need to look at it most of the time to hit a button | correctly. Which you didn't always/usually have to do | with physical buttons. It also switches any time there is | a context switch, which depending on what is going on can | be insanely distracting (especially when it is using it | to display autocomplete, autocorrect suggestions as you | type fast) | sunshineforever wrote: | I still remember how to operate the stock radio of the | Volvo 240 by touch and I haven't touched one in ten | years. | | (You kind of make an Ohm gesture around the volume knob | with ring and middle for up down channel) | | I am glad to see other's desire for analog cars align | with my own views. | | I have told everyone who will listen for a long time that | I will never buy a new car because of these silly digital | features that often include surveillance capability. | Minor49er wrote: | The only smart aspect that I might want in a car is a GPS | so I can leave my phone at home. But I'm not sure I would | even want that since the car could be tracked at any time. | crooked-v wrote: | Mazda has been actively removing touch screens in new models. | The screens are still there, but the touch part is replaced | with physical controls for cabin features/radio and a puck | controller for other stuff. | judge2020 wrote: | Note that backup cameras are now a mandate for US cars: | https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/new-backup-camera- | rule-c... | randcraw wrote: | My 2019 pickup has a backup camera and it's dumb as a | post, even though the rest of the truck fairly bristles | with sensors. The camera's view appears when I shift into | reverse and goes away when I exit reverse. | | I think nobody who prefers simplicity objects to that | kind of tech. It's overcomplicated interfaces to basic | services that we despise, like a volume slider that | requires you to look away from the road and that's too | easy to mishandle. | grahamburger wrote: | I know HN loves to hate on touchscreens in cars but I don't | really get it. Both cars I own and almost every car I've | rented in the last few years (that's quite a few) has had a | touchscreen. This is pretty much always how it works: 1) | The most used functions have physical buttons and knobs, | often on both the steering wheel and the center console 2) | Touchscreen is used for uncommonly done things, like adding | new Bluetooth connections and adjusting radio settings 3) | If the vehicle is moving there are limits on touchscreen | use (like the touchscreen will refuse to work after X | clicks, or disallow some functions, or both.) | | This seems ... fine. | p_l wrote: | Some vendors and models went a bit beyond that (hell, | Tesla is even the poster kid for this - coupled with | arrogant use of non-automotive screen in early cars that | broke from heat). | | What GP is talking is return to the design you described, | possibly with more focus on car-equivalent of HOTAS and | tactile controls. | pleb_nz wrote: | A few manufacturers, expensive ones included, are reverting | to screens and physical controls. | | I think there is proof your eyes spend more time off the | road when using a touch screen compared to physical | controls | bluefirebrand wrote: | This seems obvious, really. When you're using a | touchscreen you cannot "see" with your hand the same way | you can with physical analog controls. | | Touchscreens force us to look at them with our eyes to | use them. | judge2020 wrote: | The 'commercial-oriented' F150 Electric is slated to have a | smaller 8 inch touch screen on the base model with dials | underneath it, probably similar to the current gen models: | https://www.wheelsjoint.com/wp- | content/uploads/2020/06/2021-... | GuB-42 wrote: | So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car | stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, | etc... | | The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that | very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car _but_ with | feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other | guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y | is really important, while for someone else, it will be all | about Z. | | In the end, to satisfy everyone, you will need X+Y+Z, | everyone will think it is bloated but you can't remove a | single feature without someone complaining... As in, I want | things light but don't remove _my_ feature. | | Unless it is custom made bloat is almost inevitable. | northwest65 wrote: | > mechanical door lock | | Power central locking doesn't need a microcontroller, code, | or a touch screen, or updates. | | > manual windows | | Electric windows doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a | touch screen, or updates. | | > no car stereo | | Car stereos do not need a microcontroller, code, or a touch | screen, or updates. | | > no power steering | | Power steering doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a | touch screen, or updates. Hell it doesn't even require | electronics. | | > no thermostat | | Thermostats are mechanical... | | > no cruise control | | Cruise control doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a | touch screen, or updates. | worik wrote: | I do not mind having computer controlled running gear. | But I want to own it. No live updates. No wireless | network interface to the system software of any sort. GPL | software only. | | I do not expect to get that soon. | randcraw wrote: | The features you mention aren't any more "smart" than an | intermittent wiper is, which was invented long before | electronics appeared in cars, much less digital logic. | | US luxury cars in 1965 had all the features you mention. | They were delightfully dumb and simple to operate. That's | what I want now: knobs, sliders, and buttons that move and | click when my finger pushes them. | mavhc wrote: | Do you want to pay more for them? | potta_coffee wrote: | Since when is power steering a "smart" feature? Power locks | and windows are mechanical devices, solenoids powered by | the car battery. The only computerized feature you listed | is cruise control and we've had that for years and years. I | don't think that this is an "either / or" proposition where | we have either a car running off bloated software or a car | limited to 1950's features. As far as I'm concerned, cars | from the mid 1990's to mid 2000's are peak. | judge2020 wrote: | This is missing the point - Person A wants their next car | to have certain features, but person B also wants their | next car to have certain features which person A doesn't | want. Car companies aren't going to make 200 car variants | with different features combinations, they're just going | to group all the features people want into new cars and | ship it to everyone. To stay competitive they just put | out whatever it going to sell and 90%+ of people are fine | with the increasing level of touchscreen controls, so | they'll keep moving towards that since it also ends up | reducing COGS and simplifies assembly of the dashboard, | increasing margin. Person A can not buy the car if it | doesn't suit them. | jjav wrote: | > The only computerized feature you listed is cruise | control | | Cruise control doesn't have to have any electronics at | all either, earlier cars had vacuum actuated cruise | control. | ok123456 wrote: | It's not inevitable. At one point we made a 6th gen Honda | Civic. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | This was literally the pinnacle of dumb cars. Everything | could be manual or automatic, but you still got OBDII, | warning lights, and of course ABS and air bags. Adding a | new DIN head unit, you could have HD radio and Bluetooth | completely disconnected from the ECU. I think the | automotive industry forgot how to engineer. All the | features, all we ever needed in a car, was right there in | the late 90s. | CogitoCogito wrote: | > So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no | car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise | control, etc... | | I think an extremely small minority of people who want a | "dumb" car don't want those features. I feel like you're | just making up a strawman here. It's pretty clear (at least | to me), that the people who want a dumb car are talking | about things integrating with your phone or being displayed | on a touch screen. I think anything that existed 20 years | ago is not regarded as dumb by basically anybody. | drdavid wrote: | It has been a long time since you could get a truly | bespoke car from a major manufacturer in a reasonable | price segment. | | But, you used to be able to order all sorts of stuff - or | not order it. For example, you could save a few hundred | bucks by not having a rear bumper, not having a radio, | opting for manual windows and transmission, opting for no | cruise control, etc... | | There were a multitude of options and you could | add/delete most anything you wanted. | | These days, it's down to packages and colors. Often, you | can't even mix packages and trying to get manually | controlled windows will usually get you laughed at. | slg wrote: | I think you are missing the point. The problem is what do | those features mean? | | Is the stereo just an AM/FM radio? Does it have a CD | player? A CD changer (how many people even buy CDs | anymore)? Does it get satellite radio? Does it have AUX | input? Does it have Bluetooth? Is there an interface to | communicate to the the Bluetooth device (people driving | around controlling their stereo from their phone is more | dangerous than people doing the same on their car's | touchscreen)? Can it stream music without a Bluetooth | connection? Does it have Spotify? What about Apple Music? | Does it offer handsfree control? And so on. | | There simply isn't a universal definition of what a "dumb | car" would be and not everyone is going to desire the | same set of features. | CogitoCogito wrote: | No I think you're missing the point. I never said there | was universal definition. I just said that very few | people complaining about smart cars are against features | like "mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car | stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise | control"... | slg wrote: | I can't speak directly for OP, but I think the specific | part you are quoting was being facetious. No one would | consider power windows as a "smart" feature. But where is | the line between a smart power window and a dumb power | window? For example, are they just simple windows with an | up and down button? Are there options for disabling the | window buttons in the back seat for child safety? Are | there options for the back seat windows to only go down | halfway? Will the windows go down completely with one | touch or do you have to hold the button? Can you set the | windows to close when you turn off the ignition or lock | the car? You might not care about any of those features, | but some people will. That is what leads to bloat. | bingidingi wrote: | I'd actually like manual windows and no cruise control, | I've had both fail on me many times. | Goronmon wrote: | _I feel like you 're just making up a strawman here. It's | pretty clear (at least to me), that the people who want a | dumb car are talking about things integrating with your | phone or being displayed on a touch screen._ | | Personally, I really enjoy that with our new van I can | listen to a podcast/music through Bluetooth and | pause/resume playback through a simple touchscreen | without having to fiddle with my phone directly. | holoduke wrote: | Attach your phone to a holder. Buy a Bluetooth adapter | from AliExpress and your good to go with any car | CogitoCogito wrote: | > Personally, I really enjoy that with our new van I can | listen to a podcast/music through Bluetooth and | pause/resume playback through a simple touchscreen | without having to fiddle with my phone directly. | | I'm not sure what your point is. I never said that no one | wants these features. Obviously there are many that do. | Jill_the_Pill wrote: | Electric windows and power steering are unlikely to be | tracking your location. | jjav wrote: | Not sure how it is today (haven't bought a new car in many | years) but all of these things used to be selectable | options a la carte. | | It's not particularly difficult for the manufacturer. All | the cars had the wiring for all the features since that's | the hardest part to do after the factory, but doesn't cost | much. Control modules and actuators can be added very late | in the assembly line (sometimes even at the dealer prep) so | you only get the ones you want to pay for. | holoduke wrote: | Post 2000 and pre 2010 cars are essentially Just like | modern cars except without the bloated infotainment crap. | [deleted] | henrikschroder wrote: | Audi's 2022 e-tron GT moved back to more physical buttons, | and only has one infotainment touch-screen, unlike a bunch of | their 2021 models where there's at least two different | infotainment screens. | tyingq wrote: | I really miss "real buttons", meaning not just something | tactile. Things like a power button that actually opens a | circuit. Or a volume dial that doesn't lag because it's | actually a potentiometer and not a rotary encoder. Too late | for all that, I suppose. | garaetjjte wrote: | Though there's nothing preventing electronically | controlled buttons working with imperceptible delay | except crap software. | tyingq wrote: | Well, and sometimes "deliberately crap". Like power | buttons. I don't want to have to count to 10 while | holding a button to "really turn it off". | myshoesareblue wrote: | You might like the VW e-up!/Skoda Citigo-e. Bare bones | electric cars -- even the battery meter is an analog needle! | Just has a plastic mount for your smartphone above the center | console and a USB port. No giant touchscreens! Real knobs! | worik wrote: | Yes I want one of those. | | I did not know till you said how much effort Skoda is | putting in. | | My next car is in that line up... | | (Prefer level II to level III automation tho) | yurishimo wrote: | Sounds like something that will never come to the USA | unfortunately. All new cars are required to have backup | cameras as a standard safety feature, so at that point, the | car company will ship the whole CarOS anyway. | iso1210 wrote: | I've driven rentals in Europe with reversing cameras, in | fact my current car had it as an option (I didn't | bother). They still had physical controls. Sure the | screen is a touch screen too (so when the phone rings you | can press green or red on the screen), but the button to | select radio, or bluetooth, or whatever is physical, the | volume (and off key) is physical, the radio selection is | physical (both centre console and on the steering wheel). | The dashboard is multiple different guages - there's an | LED screen with selectable stats like 'time driving, | average fuel consumption, current speed', but there's an | nice analog speedo, fuel needle and temperature needle, | and several warning lights. | | I think the only car I've driven without physical volume | controls was a Ford, and that was nearly a decade ago, I | get the feeling there's been a bit of a push back, at | least in the UK. | JulianMorrison wrote: | Physical controls are vastly more useful - when the | control you want available can be planned ahead of time. | You get touch feedback when you're operating it, of where | it is and what state it's in. You don't have to look. | Missing it with your finger is obvious. | | Glass controls are optimal for precisely only one | scenario, and that is when you don't know ahead of time | what will need to be on the screen. That's why | smartphones use them. | Buttons840 wrote: | You know the dark pattern of presenting a license agreement | over and over until it's accepted? I predict one day someone | will make the argument in court that they always declined the | EULA (perhaps the one in their car) hundreds of times, but | one day accidentally brushed "accept" with their finger, and | that doesn't constitute legal acceptance, especially since | they've demonstrated an effort to decline the EULA, but | because of dark patterns, they never can permanently reject | the license. | Judgmentality wrote: | Fun fact - if you buy the car new, you may have the | "option" of being presented with these choices before | purchase. And you can actually refuse! The dealer will be | confused as hell, but they are _hell-bent_ on selling a new | car, and will actually void it if possible. I know because | I 've done it. You don't want the weird spyware (OnStar, | Carnet, etcetera)? After agreeing to buy the car, refuse to | accept the terms (they legally require your signature for | this), and they'll find a way to get around it. If they | refuse then go buy a different car, because fuck those | guys. | | Obviously this will vary by manufacturer and feature, and | it's getting harder as time goes on to remove this shit | from your vehicle. | moron4hire wrote: | Uhhh, you don't click through a EULA in the car. You do it | when you sign the purchase agreement. Do you not read those | things? | joshribakoff wrote: | Activating certain features in Tesla does in fact prompt | a EULA (enabling autopilot, full self driving, and | ludicrous mode all involve disclaimers which are legally | EULA agreements. These pop up after you already bought | the car, when you activate them under the settings menu | for the first time) | ajross wrote: | Those are liability releases, not agreements over | software licensing. In fact those features actually _are_ | sold legally as "parts" on the car you bought, there's | no licensing scheme from Tesla yet. Though there is noise | being made about offering a monthly license for FSD given | that it's at $10k now and lots of people who would want | to try it are priced out. | worik wrote: | I thought (IANAL) that EULA with screeds of text and a | "Accept" button have been ruled invalid (as in not | enforceable in a court) many ties in most jurisdictions. | | Am I wrong? | duped wrote: | If I'm the dark pattern developer I'm not logging when the | EULA is accepted or how many times they declined it. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _If I 'm the dark pattern developer I'm not logging | when the EULA is accepted or how many times they declined | it_ | | This cuts both ways. If the user can show one case of | their rejecting the EULA without it being logged, they | can then make the claim--correctly or not--that they | repeatedly rejected it. If the car refuses to work | without the EULA being accepted or rejected, proof of its | movement would be sufficient to show repeated rejection. | | More pointedly, willfully hiding information like this | could backfire massively with the courts or law | enforcement. | duped wrote: | There is hiding information and not collecting it to | begin with. void handleEula() { | auto eulaAccepted = readEulaAcceptedFile(); if | (!eulaAccepted) eulaAccepted = | promptForEulaAcceptance(); | writeEulaFile(eulaAccepted); } | | This function reads a file from disk and writes back to | it every time. If filesystem write audits aren't enabled | there is no way to determine if the most recent write of | "true" was the only write. | | > If the car refuses to work without the EULA being | accepted or rejected, proof of its movement would be | sufficient to show repeated rejection. | | If the car refuses to work without the EULA being | accepted then it wouldn't move. If some functionality was | enabled or disabled by accepting the EULA then you would | have to show that the functionality was never enabled | based on secondhand sources... which would be difficult. | Proving something _didn 't_ happen is infinitely more | difficult than proving something _did_. Many systems are | not designed to handle that level of introspection. | | All I'm saying is that the cute legal theory of "I | rejected this N times therefore that one time I accepted | it is invalid" falls apart for me when I consider that | the user would have to prove they never did something, | except that one time. Good luck. | majormajor wrote: | You probably wouldn't need a log of declines if you had | the car for a year and the acceptance was recorded only | on day 300. Especially since there will be miles on the | car showing that it was driven before day 300... | _jal wrote: | Lawyers tend to love it when their opponents think | they've found a cute legal hack. | Judgmentality wrote: | IANAL, but I'm curious if you are. In my experience, | lawyers tend to get a lot done by intimidation. Remember | all those ridiculous lawsuits from the RIAA over | downloading illegal music? Well, it turns out when people | actually took them to court they won every time. But | people settled out of fear. | | Sure, if the lawyers are actually trying to do things | legally first and adhering to the letter of the law, I'm | sure they're happy to have their efforts challenged. But | I have never, ever, in my life encountered a lawyer who | worked this way (and I have lawyers in my family, I've | been to court, I've personally hired several, blah blah | blah). I am not saying they don't know the law, but they | use their greater knowledge of the law to their | advantage. Their goal isn't transparency, it's | submission. | kiba wrote: | Actually people lost. But it doesn't matter anyway | because the RIAA can't collect it, and the debt was | basically the lowest priority. | Judgmentality wrote: | Do you have a link? I'm trying to dig up stories on it, | but it's so stale. As far as I can tell almost everybody | settled, and the few that fought in court eventually won. | | https://www.wired.com/2010/05/riaa-bump/ | mentalpiracy wrote: | This woman did. | | https://www.wired.com/2007/10/riaa-jury-finds/ | majormajor wrote: | > Remember all those ridiculous lawsuits from the RIAA | over downloading illegal music? Well, it turns out when | people actually took them to court they won every time. | But people settled out of fear. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Th | oma... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_v._Tenenbaum | | These were widely covered because most people just | settled, and there were high hopes for something putting | a damper on the lawsuits... from the page about the | second case " It was only the second file-sharing case | (after Capitol v. Thomas) to go to verdict in the | Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) anti- | downloading litigation campaign" | | So 2 for 2 there were found in favor of the RIAA, for | huge damages even after appeal. | | More recently, even ISPs are getting hit hard: | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/1-billion- | piracy... | _jal wrote: | I am not. I work with lots of them. | | I think we're talking about two different things. Yes, | the RIAA was running an intimidation campaign. By and | large they didn't care about any particular case. | | That's quite different than a plaintiff coming at a car | manufacturer over sketchy click-wrap agreements. | Judgmentality wrote: | Your comment was about lawyers. I gave a random anecdote. | We're not talking about different things at all, unless | your comment was only about specific lawyers which you | failed to mention. | | Anyway, I don't care enough to comment anymore. | [deleted] | _jal wrote: | I'll remember not to care to reply in the first place. | lamontcg wrote: | Most people don't seem to understand that the laws are | interpreted by human beings that have spent their entire | lives studying and applying the law. | | Particularly us geeky folk often seem to think that you | can find a buffer overflow exploit in the literal wording | of the law and the judge will have to let you go. That | usually isn't how it works (although the odd case where | someone successfully exploits the actual verbiage in the | law tends to make headlines and make it seem like that is | how it works). | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | So much this. Judges tend to respond very poorly to "but | you didn't say Simon Says" style arguments. | brewdad wrote: | I should think that owning a car for more than a few | weeks without accepting the EULA could serve as | reasonable "proof" that you had no intention of accepting | it regardless of what is logged. Especially if the EULA | is presented at every startup. | duped wrote: | Prove that you didn't accept the EULA when you drove it | off the lot, if the system was never designed to log when | the acceptance was made. | MereInterest wrote: | > It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted | once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical | thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the | principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, | at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its | vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often | very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party | member could properly wish to express, while excluding | all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving | at them by indirect methods. This was done ... chiefly by | eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words | as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as | possible of all secondary meanings whatever. | | I think consent dialogs are one of the closest things to | Newspeak that exist. In any spoken language, new words | can be coined to express a desired meaning. In consent | dialogs, there is no longer "Accept" and "Decline", | instead there is "Accept" and "Ask me later". When | presented with an upsell, the choices are not "Yes" and | "No", but "Yes, sign me up!" and "No, I don't want to | save money." | Buttons840 wrote: | You mean you'll only log that it has been accepted and | nothing more? | | I guess it becomes their word against... well, nothing, | you don't know what they did or didn't do. | | For those who care enough to reject EULAs, they should | take a few videos of rejecting the license and hopefully | that would be enough to shift the onus to the | manufacturer, who, as you said, has next to nothing. | jonpurdy wrote: | I recently bought a used 2016 Spark EV (having a baby and | needed something other than my motorbike). It does have a | touchscreen, but mostly for extraneous information and radio | functions. Everything else has dedicated knobs and buttons. | (The one dumb thing is that the fan speed updates on the | screen, rather than just having ticks above the knob.) | | It is a California "compliance car", which means it was just | a modified petrol Spark, so it didn't have product managers | trying to jam in unnecessary touch-based interfaces. | | I just hope that all companies building electric cars don't | move in the all-touch direction of Tesla. | jonplackett wrote: | This is the exact same stupid thing that happened with DSLR | cameras. | | Old SLR cameras had a ring around the lens for f-stop and | another dial on top for shutter speed. | | New DSLR cameras even now hide all that stuff in a menu on | the touch screen, as if it isn't something you want to | change ALL THE TIME - and develop instant muscle memory | for. | jjav wrote: | > New DSLR cameras even now hide all that stuff in a menu | on the touch screen | | Don't approximately all DSLR have separate physical knobs | for aperture and shutter speed? | | Agreed that a DSLR without these would be nearly useless. | Pokepokalypse wrote: | never mind that when I'm taking a photo outdoors on a | bright sunny day, there's no way in fuck I'm going to be | able read your LCD screen. | | Never mind us older folks, who often have vision problems | with up-close viewing, which is a solved problem when you | can spin a shutter or aperture wheel by touch. But not | when you need no-glasses to view the objective, but | reading glasses to view the fine print on the screen. | mike00632 wrote: | I think backlit E-ink screens would be great for cars. I | too want something I can see well in the day. | smolder wrote: | E-ink is slow/inefficient to react, so probably not | suitable for speedometer and tachometer type gauges. | Apart from that, I agree. | lamontcg wrote: | my truck still has a physical dial for the speedo and | tach. | | (although i've never understood why it has a tach since | its a manual anyway... but i guess i can close my eyes | and imagine my V6 ranger is a corvette...) | dylan604 wrote: | Which DSLR no longer has an aperture and shutter speed | knob? I know the MFT mirrorless lost most of the | controls, but did the latest Canon/Nikon really do this? | My DSLR is eons old, so this is just baffling to me. | jonplackett wrote: | I haven't used one for a while so this may have been | fixed. But I've never seen a DSLR with the same type of | touch manual controls as an old SLR. | | Someone correct me if I'm wrong and tell me where to buy | one! | KineticLensman wrote: | My Nikon D850 (DSLR) and Z6 (mirrorless) both have | separate physical dials for shutter speed and aperture. | The D850 has buttons that allow the physical command | dials to be used to control ISO, white balance, | bracketing intervals and load of other things. Important | settings are shown in the viewfinder and top panel and I | only really use the rear monitor to check the histogram | for over exposure. I almost never need to use the menu | system / touchscreen to alter a shooting setting. | dylan604 wrote: | I have an older Canon 5Dmkii, and it has a dial for | shutter speed near the shutter release and also has a | dial ring for aperture control on the back. I'm pretty | sure the mkiii and mkiv do as well. I know the 1D I used | in the past also had the same configuration of dials. | | As with anything camera related, where to buy could be | B&H, Adorama, Sammy's, or your local camera shop (if they | still exist in your area). | r00fus wrote: | Could be they want you to buy their Pro item where the | actually offer reasonable affordances? | | Most "pro-sumers" wouldn't bother to adjust what the | auto-focus calculates anyway. | jonplackett wrote: | I'm not convinced about that. | | I was using those dials all the time as a 16 year old | learning to use a camera. It's really easy - especially | when you can set one of them to auto and just control the | one you care about - plus so quick when they're on a | dial. | | But I can believe no one wants to do it now, it's amazing | how much a bit of tactile feedback can make a task 100X | easier, and something you can do instinctively. | azalemeth wrote: | Tactile feedback and consistent UIs are great and a | common feature (if not a defining one). I've got a Pentax | dSLR -- it's got an excellent UI (better than canon's, | imo) and their manual tweak focus adjustment & focus hold | system does just work very well. It also has an excellent | set of manual controls. A pity that nobody else has heard | of them... | justaguy88 wrote: | I'm guessing that all-touch is just cheaper these days, no | QA testing for all the little mechanical bits | jrwoodruff wrote: | Less design and engineering, sourcing and manufacturing | of all that hardware too. | fuzzer37 wrote: | I actually used to work as a test driver for FCA, and we | were specifically told to report on knobs/dials not | working or wiggling too much. Our training had us touch | literally everything in the car that moved. Albeit, I'm | not sure how much of that feedback was actually acted | upon, based on the quality of some of those cars. | iso1210 wrote: | It annoys me about capitalism. There's a massive | incentive for manufacturers to cut corners to save $100 | on a $30k car, as they sell 10,000 cars and use the $1m | to pay themselves a bonus about how great they are. | | Almost everyone will want to pay $30,100 for the better | product though, but the market can't differentiate on | that. | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | Especially when the most famous electric car maker is | marketing so heavily on self-driving, it's just going to get | more and more software. | atweiden wrote: | I drove an Electra Meccanica Solo in Victoria BC a few years | ago, and it was exactly this. The founder of the company | wanted to design the air cooled Porsche of EVs. All analog, | minimal electronics, incredibly nimble. One of my favourite | aspects of it was the sound it made under acceleration, | think: Star Wars Landspeeder. | | (You can faintly hear it over annoying background music in | this video [1].) | | It felt better to drive than a Tesla, even though it was | orders of magnitude slower. Unfortunately, last I heard they | were trying to tone down the Landspeeder-esque "cabin noise". | I'm not sure if the current executive team at Electra | Meccanica even realizes what they have. | | [1]: https://youtu.be/0eUlPeXL8wc?t=40 | rootusrootus wrote: | There are compliance cars that are just electric versions of | the normal ICE cars that preceded them. That's probably as | close as you can get. I currently dive a Bolt and it's a bog | standard car, just electric. Yes, it has a touchscreen, but | that's for infotainment. | neilpanchal wrote: | Check out Bollinger motors [1]. Electric chassis, all analog, | no screens. Here is a shot of the interior: | https://bollingermotors.com/wp- | content/uploads/2019/10/CLOSE... | | [1] https://bollingermotors.com/ | Animats wrote: | On the other hand, a row of 15 or so identical toggle | switches isn't the right answer either. | giantrobot wrote: | I'm definitely in the same boat wrt complexity. My pickup has | _just_ enough extra electronics to be a quality of life | improvement over a model that lacked those features. It doesn | 't try to drive for me and second guess my actions in | unexpected ways. It doesn't give me unfathomable warning beeps | that only serve as a distraction trying to figure out what's | causing the beep. | | At the same time it's important to recognize there's a | difference between software _bloat_ and growth. Security fixes | often cause code to grow (checks, verifications, etc). That | growth isn 't bloat. The previous version of the software was | exploitable because it lacked the checks that were added. | Adding drivers or better handling edge cases in drivers grows | code but isn't bloat. | | Even "bloat" that's only added on-disk size (a secret Tetris | game in some code) that doesn't affect normal code flow isn't | the same as bloat as adding some advertising telemetry in the | middle of a critical code path. | | Not all code growth is bloat and not all bloat is equal. | carlosf wrote: | I used to have a car before moving closer to a metro area and | going full Uber. | | It was a cheap Renault. Malfunctioned twice in ten years. | Repair was trivial both times. | | Sometimes I think about having a car again, but the sort of | stuff you described makes me super nervous. | nogridbag wrote: | I used to live in NYC and bought a disposable car. It was a | used rental car that was rear ended, but otherwise brand new | with less than 1000 miles on it. I owned it for 5 years with | zero issues and I just traded it in for almost the same price | I paid for it. | frosted-flakes wrote: | Check out Bollinger electric trucks. No screens at all; even | the battery gauge is analogue. | i80and wrote: | Bollinger is extremely cool and I watched them with great | interest for a while, but their initial estimates of ~$60k | turned into $125,000 along with the short highway range puts | it solidly into the "wealthy person's weekend toy" category. | colordrops wrote: | The range is the death of these vehicles. Otherwise they | look great. | mortenjorck wrote: | I was quite impressed with how bare-bones the B1 looks, and | figured it must be priced competitively. | | I was less impressed to see it starts at three times the base | price of the Cybertruck. | Pokepokalypse wrote: | some of us do not trust automatic transmissions. | Dumblydorr wrote: | I wouldn't want anything resembling a golf cart, but in | principle yes! Tesla has an OK idea of minimal dashboard, but | then a less OK idea of tons of features on the screen. I don't | know if automaticity or app based control or minimized function | is the answer, but less is more to my eyes. | cosmodisk wrote: | As in one the Top Gear episodes, where the user manual for S | class Mercedes is thicker than a book on English History... | geocrasher wrote: | This is the very reason I drive a 1988 Suburban. The mileage | isn't good, but it's not worse than most modern SUV's. | BigTuna wrote: | I don't mind complexity but what I can't stand is having to | access that complexity through touchscreens. Without the | tactile feedback of a knob or button I have to take my | attention off the road to see where I need to press on the | screen. That's a major step backwards in auto safety, IMO. | | And don't get me started on the lazy manufacturer design trend | of bolting a tablet to the dashboard and calling it a day. | MengerSponge wrote: | Mazda doesn't get nearly enough respect for their work | identifying and correcting this issue. | | https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is- | pur... | | Touchscreens/touch panels are shiny, futuristic, dangerous, | dumb, and cheap. Manufacturers use them because they lower | BOM costs, at the expense of usability and safety. Vote with | your wallet folks. | galangalalgol wrote: | Mazda would make a great EV, but that is sadly not on their | roadmap for the foreseeable future. I have been told this | is probably an influence from Toyota's large share | ownership, not wanting competition in that space. | jude- wrote: | The guy who designs Tesla vehicles actually used to work | for Mazda as chief of design: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Holzhausen | jsight wrote: | I feel like in the old days, Mazda would have been the | one to introduce a Maverick sized truck, and they likely | would have been leading the way with electric. | | Its too bad that the Ford partnership fell apart. | abawany wrote: | Ford has chosen to grant your wish: | https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/2022/ - a real | compact pickup with hybrid technology available at the | base price of $20k. | jsight wrote: | That was the vehicle I was referencing. I was saying that | this vehicle would have been a joint effort if the | partnership were still alive. I could see Mazda owning | the small EV segment for Ford too. | [deleted] | fighterpilot wrote: | That's not smart by Toyota (unless they own a very small | stake), is it? Mazda competing with Toyota is indeed bad | for Toyota but it's also bad for all the other auto | manufacturers too. The benefit of that competition goes | exclusively to Toyota (among other shareholders) but the | cost is shared among all automakers roughly in proportion | to their EV market share. | InitialBP wrote: | Mazda has been focused on continuing to improve internal | combustion engines over the past couple of decades. | Specifically, the "Skyactiv" technology they developed | was built to help improve efficiency and emissions of | modern ICE engines. It's likely Toyota wanted to have | some group/company (like Mazda) continue working on | improving ICE engines while also investing in EVs. | | I think ICE vehicles will continue to have a market, | especially in very remote areas of the world where power | grids are non-existent or not very reliable. | abawany wrote: | There is one coming apparently but the range is fairly | sad: https://www.mazda.com/en/new-generation/mx-30/ . | iagovar wrote: | Does mazdas use rotary engines for ll their cars? | InitialBP wrote: | Mazda hasn't sold a production car with a rotary engine | in a while, I believe since the RX-8 went out of | production. Due to the nature of rotary engines they | inherently have worse emissions (more like a 2-stroke | than a 4-stroke) and while people have been hoping for | another production rotary from Mazda it's unclear if they | will build another one or not. | bruce343434 wrote: | Just looked at the mazda website and what are you talking | about? They removed almost all the buttons from the | interior to some sort of tablet. | jsight wrote: | Exactly, they replaced the separate buttons with a knob. | Great that that physical controls might be needed, but | this approach isn't better than the touchscreen. In some | respects, its actually worse. | Aunche wrote: | The tablet can only be controlled by the knob (which is | honestly kind of annoying) and is only used for | infotainment purposes. Most things are controlled by a | knob, switch, or button. | AshamedCaptain wrote: | I am old enough to remember "Gorilla arm syndrome" talks. | | People just love these big tablets even tough they are an | ergonomical non-sense and they have always been for | decades. Resistance is futile. Voting with your wallet is | useless unless you enjoy the hermit lifestyle. | politelemon wrote: | Hey I'm with you. Not just in cars but for gadgets around the | home. Coffee makers, microwaves, fridges, thermostats. Please | give me as few moving parts as possible, the consequences of | decisions made outside my control are a huge unknown with | potentially large impacts. | holoduke wrote: | Buy a 15 year old car. Our family car is a 2003 Infiniti fx35. | Got everything we need. Bluetooth aftermarket adapter from | AliExpress and i feel modern as any other car. | ghostpepper wrote: | As an embedded software person who is also into cars, I am | definitely going to be looking for something older for my next | car. I have the luxury of not needing to drive it every day, | but I like the idea of something I have at least a hope of | repairing myself when it breaks. | jrsj wrote: | No you're not crazy at all; my preference for a vehicle would | be analog everything with as few electronic components as | possible. Even if it were an EV. | muxator wrote: | Digital components may well be more reliable than | corresponding analog ones. They can also be purely hw, with | no sw or just a simple firmware. There is a middle ground | between analog circuits and a general purpose programmable | computer with windows 10 on it. :) | andrewia wrote: | If you want the simplest car possible, you can look at models | designed to sell in volume worldwide. I'm talking the Hyundai | Venue crossover, Hyundai Accent subcompact sedan, Honda | Fit/Jazz hatchback (recently discontinued for the US), Ford | EcoSport crossover, etc. They are designed to be serviced in | poor conditions. They will tolerate removal of electronics like | the infotainment because some countries' base models have | simpler configurations. In the case of the Honda Fit, the | climate control dials physically move the ducts! And repair | documentation and parts will be plentiful because there's a | large market for parts suppliers to compete. Also look at body- | on-frame fleet vehicles like a base Ford Ranger or F-150, but | be ready to forgo stuff like cruise control. | | There are EV equivalents too, like the Chevy Bolt and Hyundai | Kona EV that offer range in the 200s of miles with make driver | assists as an optional upgrade. Even with complicated | powertrain electronics, EVs are still more reliable than ICE | cars because any iffy software is made up for by lack of | mechanical parts. The repair procedure is the same as mechnical | parts - just swap the faulty part out for a working one, and | the "upstream" supplier will probably take the broken module to | reflash software or frankenstein together half-working PCBs to | make another refurbished module to sell. | | If you're worried about remote compromise, it's pretty easy to | avoid IMO. Open the dashboard and yank the cellular antenna, | and never pair the infotainment to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (or just | yank the 2.4 GHz antenna). Those are basically the only avenues | for wireless attacks into a vehicle unless you count the TPMS | and key fob radios, which seem too simple and low-bandwidth to | offer an attack surface. And if an attacker can access your | car's physical ports, they could already attack you in other | ways like by weakening the brake lines. Other new electronics, | like MOSFETS instead of relays in the BCM, have actually made | the car more reliable so they should be fine. Other newly | standard features like blind spot monitoring are (1) solid | state, so they won't fail often and (2) tolerate failure or | complete removal. | thatfrenchguy wrote: | > Hyundai Kona EV that offer range in the 200s of miles with | make driver assists as an optional upgrade | | I have a base model Kona EV and it has a ton of driver | assists. And they're pretty great frankly. | numpad0 wrote: | It's so wrong that tech inclined wants cheapest models for | the reason that those are objectively better. The entire car | industry is going to go iPhone all over again. | notJim wrote: | It's true, there are no tech people driving Teslas or late | model luxury cars. As you say, there is universal agreement | with you, because your opinion is the objective truth. | jfengel wrote: | They're not objectively better. They're more suited to what | they want: a device with fewer features but more direct | control. | | Lots of people want a car with more features, and don't | wish to control it directly. They would rather have a | solid-state device that can't be repaired, but doesn't need | to be. They don't want to upgrade it themselves; ideally, | they don't want it to need upgrades until they buy another | one. | | But you've got it exactly right: many consumers want the | car industry to go iPhone, for the same reason they want | iPhones. That's neither objectively worse nor objectively | better. The only objective thing is that a ton of consumers | want it, because it suits their needs. And part of that is | achieved by avoiding development by the kinds of techies | who think that their preferences are objectively better. | gilbetron wrote: | One of our cars is a 2004 Toyota Tacoma with everything analog | except the radio, and I vastly prefer it. If it just had a usb | plug so I could play music from my phone, it would be ideal. | Oh, and oddly, the radio doesn't have a clock. Bizarre. | | It I can 100% everything better than our 2016 Subaru Outback | with it's annoying touch screen console. | | Plus my nieces and nephews are amused by the actual manual | window openers. | toyyodas82727 wrote: | Try popping in an aftermarket radio/stereo - you can get a | nice Pioneer with a USB fast-charge port and Bluetooth/etc | for ~$100-150. | kajecounterhack wrote: | FWIW Subaru kinda just has crappy digital components. | Corresponding touch screen console from recent year Toyotas | are pretty good, especially with CarPlay / Android Auto. | drivers99 wrote: | In my recent Subaru Impreza, CarPlay works just fine, | however when I start the engine and put it in reverse, it | will mostly ignore the volume control until you finish | backing up and then a few second after you shift into | drive/forward, it will then process the volume up/down | messages it received in the meantime. It's like it | dedicates all processing to booting up the screen and then | in displaying the rear-view/backup camera. Also, it | defaults to playing the radio (even if you had it OFF | before, I think), so if you had the volume up for a quiet | podcast or something it will blast the radio which is quite | annoying, especially if you're in the middle of a phone | call or something. I want a physical potentiometer which | directly controls the amplifier to the speakers, like in | any normal old radio. (This is also one of the exhibits in | my mental list of reasons that people should write all the | software they run on their devices. Or at least be able | to.) | [deleted] | bobajeff wrote: | Yeah, I like the tech behind Tesla but am turned off by. 1) The | large, distracting screen in the front of the car. 2) The | subscription model of the car's firmware. | | If electric cars ever become widespread I hope I can find a | used one engineered without that stuff. Otherwise I may have to | stop buying cars. | nogridbag wrote: | I recently purchased a Kia Telluride. Perhaps I'm now biased | because I love the car, but I think it has an excellent | combination of tech and usability. | | 1. It still has buttons and knobs for the things that should | be buttons and knobs (e.g. climate control, volume, etc). | | 2. The heads up display is the killer feature that should be | standard on all cars (as is only available on the top speced | Telluride). It displays speed, speed limit, blind spot | monitoring, lane departure, automated steering, navigation, | etc. Unfortunately I don't think Android Auto or Apple | Carplay's navigation can be displayed on the HUD - only the | OEM Kia nav. | | 3. The "Smart Cruise" aka Highway Drive Assist aka Adaptive | Cruise Control is essentially self-driving minus lane | changes. It's engaged with a single button on the wheel and | presented in the HUD. It takes corners smoother than I'm able | to. I often feel it's turning too early and fight the auto | driving but in almost all cases it's correct and my inputs | are delayed. | | Kia's mobile app for remote start, climate control, valet | mode, etc. is pretty terrible though. | bozzcl wrote: | Regarding HUDs... it's the _one_ feature I desperately want | for my next car. I 've been looking into aftermarket | options, but all of them are ridiculously cheap and bad or | vaporware. | nradov wrote: | GM had HUDs in many vehicles 20 years ago. It's a shame | they aren't more widely available. | drdavid wrote: | I purchased a new C8 to add to the collection until my | granddaughter is old enough to drive. The HUD is very, | very good. I'm not sure how they managed on such a sharp | windshield, but it's crisp and clear even in the | brightest of conditions. | | With them making so many things mandatory these days, I'd | not be surprised to see them making HUD mandatory. It | absolutely is easier and faster to read then just looking | down. It may only be measured in milliseconds, but it's | definitely faster. | crooked-v wrote: | > Unfortunately I don't think Android Auto or Apple | Carplay's navigation can be displayed on the HUD - only the | OEM Kia nav. | | From what I understand Android/Apple have software | capability for second screens/HUDs now, but it's on the car | manufacturer to support that. There are some BMWs that have | it. | Koshkin wrote: | > _If electric cars ever become widespread_ | | I have a strong suspicion that soon enough after that we will | be able to build electric cars from kits, cheap and with no | frills. We are on a cusp of a new technological revolution. | wyre wrote: | A few years ago I found a source selling EV conversion kits | for vintage vehicles. It's definitely a possibility to DIY | an electric car. | | I could imagine it being like DIY synthesizer kits. Do it | yourself if you have the skills and time to put it all | together, or spend a bit more for it to come pre assembled, | or "some assembly required". | | I would be curious about the safety regulations behind | this. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _soon enough after that we will be able to build electric | cars from kits_ | | I'm skeptical. | | An internal combustion engine is a complicated, engineering | marvel. But a complete engine, as a unit, isn't difficult | to remove/insert. It's big, heavy and awkward, sure (so are | electric motors and batteries), but an experienced person | can do an engine swap in a couple of hours. And yet there | aren't many people building ICE cars from kits. Why not? | | Because the drivetrain is only one part of what makes a | good car good. | [deleted] | userbinator wrote: | _And yet there aren 't many people building ICE cars from | kits. Why not?_ | | Quite frankly, speaking as someone who is a bit of an | automotive enthusiast, you'll probably find even less | EVs, because EVs are sterile and boring. They can | definitely be fast, but I suspect the average auto | enthusiast is not only interested in speed. The sounds | and smells of an ICE are far more appealing to the type | of people who tend to build custom cars. | smolder wrote: | There are relatively simple conversion kits that have good | motors and controllers and allow for regenerative braking. | I don't see building an EV getting much simpler than that. | nerd_light wrote: | May I ask why you think that? (Sincere question, not meant | to be snarky). Even assuming electric car assembly is | simpler than an ICE powered car, there are still a lot of | large, heavy, and expensive components. And that's setting | aside all the regulations around it being a "street legal" | vehicle, which can place odd constraints and vary from | location to location. | | I could see there being ways to build your own, just as you | could build your own house or laptop if you acquire the | right parts. What makes you think that people will broadly | want and use kits? (or am I misinterpreting what you're | saying?) | cosmodisk wrote: | And we all need to pray for HP not to get into the automotive | industry,or we are all screwed. | xxpor wrote: | Subscription model? | jude- wrote: | Some of the extra infotainment stuff (read: media content) | is subscription only. Some functional extras like full | self-driving or faster acceleration are one-off purchases. | The rest of the software -- all the things you'd expect the | car to do -- comes with the vehicle and gets regular OTA | updates. | notJim wrote: | I think with Tesla the only subscription is "premium | connectivity", which is basically a cell data plan. The | car works fine without it. Even the nav will still use | traffic data for routing, it just won't visualize it for | you. | distribot wrote: | If it's really just contained to media content, that's | like saying Sirus XM means your car operates on a | subscription model. | rootusrootus wrote: | > If electric cars ever become widespread | | Exclude Tesla and most all EVs on the road today are just | normal cars that happen to be electric. | wyre wrote: | Why is special about Tesla that makes them not a "normal" | car that happens to be electric? | crysin wrote: | Tesla cars have a distinct look and a "prestige" whereas | something like Ford's new F-150 will look nearly | identical to its gas guzzling brother. There's an ego | carried behind Telsa's branding and marketing that other | car manufacturers don't feed into even in their own EV | offerings. | dzhiurgis wrote: | Musk coming from software they seem to actually adopted | modern software engineering practices that other | manufacturers going to struggle with for some time. Being | vertically integrated helps heaps too. | _benj wrote: | I have a more optimist view about the industry being able to | cope just because we have two more industries that have gone | the same transitions, aeronautical and aerospace. | | Back in the day airplanes where just knobs and levers, and we | didn't have the reliability that safety that we have today. | | With aerospace, I mean, software engineering as a discipline | started with aerospace! | | If we write "starup code" (i.e. CRUD web app) for cars we'd | still be in huge trouble, but if the automotive industry can | adopt the redundant systems, enforce VERY high levels of | software testing, and other practices for those other | industries I think we could see some interesting things coming | from the industry | scarier wrote: | I'm sure you didn't mean it quite so bluntly, but | characterizing the history of aviation safety as a triumph of | computer control systems over analog ones misses the mark by | a pretty wide margin--even if we're just talking about the | advances that only computers have provided. Probably the only | way a modern car is technologically less sophisticated than a | passenger aircraft is its inability to substantially steer | itself (and this problem is orders of magnitude more | difficult for cars than planes). | | A lot of the systems we take for granted in our cars (ECU, | ABS/stability control, adaptive cruise control, steer-by- | wire, OBD) were pioneered in the aviation industry, and both | industries' safety records have been massively improved by | the ability to do digital design/analysis (CAD, FEA, CFD, | etc). Then once you start talking about advances in computer- | aided manufacturing and QC/QA processes, training, failure | analysis, human-machine interaction... | | One of my perennial frustrations with current tech is the | idea that putting a computer in the control loop necessarily | makes things safer. | _benj wrote: | > One of my perennial frustrations with current tech is the | idea that putting a computer in the control loop | necessarily makes things safer. | | I completely agree with you! A simple electronic component | is a lot more fragile that a mechanical counterpart that is | unfazed by ESD, vibrations or whatever other things that | can kill a electronic component, or a circuit board for | that matter. | | My point is more along the lines that a computer in a | control loop makes things different, not necessarily safer. | But with the flexibility that a computer brings to the mix, | if used properly a computer can add some safety features | that would be hard to implement with only analog/mechanical | parts. | | It seems to me that we have reaching a ceiling with what we | can do with mechanical systems, although I do believe that | we often get lazy and opt for software convenience instead | of using mechanical reliability where it would be | beneficial. | | So all in all, computer control systems are not safer just | in themselves, but they can be, if not in reliability, at | least in monitoring health and providing warnings before | things are critical (i.e. a temperature reading instead of | waiting to see smoke coming of the hood of a car) | varjag wrote: | > A simple electronic component is a lot more fragile | that a mechanical counterpart that is unfazed by ESD, | vibrations or whatever other things that can kill a | electronic component, or a circuit board for that matter. | | No, not really. | jsight wrote: | > I have a more optimist view about the industry being able | to cope | | TBH, I have similarly optimistic views, but for completely | different reasons. The truth is, the worldview has changed | completely in the past 100 years. | | In the old days, if you failed at operating a saw, you hurt | yourself badly. Now we slowly are starting to expect sawstop | and other solutions to reduce injury. | | The same thing is happening in cars. We no longer expect | perfection of the human as we augment them in various ways to | both reduce the frequency and severity of collision. Its the | early days yet, and its very much the "startup code" mindset | with cars having way more bugs than its ever but also | producing safer outcomes. | | Car software is getting worse, but we're better off for it. | numpad0 wrote: | I don't want to imagine how Program Alarm 1202 looks like on | a SpaceX Starship running Chromium instances on Intel Atom, | the latter half of which is how they're planning to do it. | jaywalk wrote: | The stuff running inside Chromium on Intel Atom processors | is not mission critical. | amelius wrote: | > I just want a car with as FEW knobs/buttons/levers as | necessary. | | With _more_ software you can have a car with just one button. | You press it and say the name of the place you want to go to. | dusted wrote: | Hear, hear! As a software developer, I'll take a car without a | computer, or with as little computing as possible any day! I do | understand that fuel injection and abs are great stuff, but | those could be ultra low cost asics, and, frankly, computing | need not apply anywhere else. | fridif wrote: | Time to buy up all the engines that dont need ECUs | waiseristy wrote: | So we're okay with pollution now? | LeoPanthera wrote: | And what, the return of the Choke valve? If you've ever driven | a car with a choke you won't be so quick to go _that_ far back. | rootusrootus wrote: | Or just make your own ECU, in which case you can use most any | engine. But if you really want to go back to carbs, may god | have mercy on your soul... | numpad0 wrote: | EV powertrain is not impossible to build yourself, it's hard | but not fabricating own IC at home hard | pjmlp wrote: | Best of all, it is all written in C and C++, with all the | security it entails. | agumonkey wrote: | oh its funny.. of all the rust trend storm I cannot recall one | mention of automotive industry usage (not that I imply it's not | used.. I just don't remember hearing about that).. this is a | place where I'd really love safer languages. | | btw any embedded car ADA shops ? | waiseristy wrote: | There's unfortunately no hardware or standards support for | Rust, nor will there be any time soon. Silicon vendors don't | provide Rust compatible toolchains, and the standards | everyone is locked into is C/C++ only | pjmlp wrote: | NVidia is using Ada for their automative research. | | https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/02/05/adacore-secure- | auto... | steveklabnik wrote: | There are some rumblings of Rust in automotive, but nothing I | can publicly point you to definitively. | agumonkey wrote: | come on, let's put more rust onto the metal | ngrilly wrote: | Ferrocene, a Rust toolchain for functional safety, is | explicitly targeting ISO 26262, which is an automotive | standard. | | https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/ | waiseristy wrote: | Well, sort of. It's all written in MISRA C and a very special | version of the C++14 standard | | https://www.autosar.org/fileadmin/user_upload/standards/adap... | | Definitely still possible to write buggy MISRA code, but its | the best we got unfortunately | bri3d wrote: | A lot of modern ECUs are "written" in modeling tools like | Simulink and then compiled into auto-genned MISRA C which is | never touched by humans, as well. | | I'm certainly not trying to say automotive code is in a good | place, but it's not the same as a 1+ million line hand- | written C project like some people think when they see the | numbers. | waiseristy wrote: | You're right, but that code the generator pulls is all hand | written by some poor shmucks at elektrobit or vector. | | And personal experience, OEMs just love to make little | tweaks to the auto generated code as well. Which is a | massive pain in the ass | andrewmcwatters wrote: | Maybe not a "dumb" car, but yes, I would like to see more good | analog options if the digital alternative is getting screens in | cars that look utterly _embarrassing_ compared to yesteryear 's | netbook-sized screen fad. | | If you're going to put tech in my car, you better go all the way. | I'm talking a huge screen, fast multicore processor or redundant | systems, touchscreen to UI update response times under 5ms. | | None of this nonsense where you're getting some baby embedded | system and the screen updates over 30-50! ms. Shame on these | manufacturers. In 50 milliseconds at 65 miles per hour, I think | you've moved like over 4 feet. That's ridiculous. | | Say you've got an interaction that takes 150ms. At highway speeds | you've moved the entire length of a car. | | This stuff is simply unacceptable. I mean to the point where I | want regulations on how slow your crap software can be. If I'm | moving 4,000 lbs down the road, I don't want to be distracted. I | want the exact same responsiveness as an analog physical switch | or knob. | fighterpilot wrote: | Is there an established word for the chronic build up in | annoyance of waiting a few hundred ms each time you click | something on a smart phone or computer? | andrewmcwatters wrote: | Yeah. It drives me nuts that in tech we pay more attention to | processing power over things like response times and latency. | | Who cares if you have hardware that's 15% more powerful than | last year if nothing has moved meaningfully in my actual | experience. | fighterpilot wrote: | It's why I prefer desktop/local software whenever it's | available and whenever it's something I need to be using | often. Cloud software is usually noticeably slower. | | Latency should be a UX priority. | xxpor wrote: | This is why edge computing + 5g is being pushed so | heavily. | ArkanExplorer wrote: | It seems that 'hardware' is eating the car, too. I want to just | buy a small, slow, simple EV for picking up groceries and other | city errands, for $5k-$10k. | | It seems like the only companies making that are the Chinese, and | usually only selling them in China. | | Heck, it doesn't even need an Infotainment system - just | bluetooth for audio and calls, USB-A charger port and phone | cradle. | notJim wrote: | A used Chevy Spark EV may be exactly what you need: | https://www.edmunds.com/used-chevrolet-spark-ev/. If you can | boost budget a bit, you can probably a used Leaf or similar. | dn3500 wrote: | Yes, something between a $500 bicycle and a $20,000 car. The | barriers may be as much regulatory as anything else. In the US | all cars must meet highway safety standards even if they will | never be driven on the highway. I think it's even illegal to | sell a car with a top speed of 35 mph. | | There are some places, mostly retirement communities, where a | lot of people get around by golf cart. They do the job and are | a lot of fun. | iagovar wrote: | Dacia has a new car in that bracket, but the range is a bit | limited. | | If you live in the US, Dacia is basically a Romanian company | under Renaults ownership (which is a famous french brand) | whith focus on cheap cars with proven tech. The use proven | engines, parts from Renoult cars, etc. | | A pretty good philosophy IMO but until now they had horrible | designs, now they are improving, in the sense of adressing | more general-public apetences, which means generic-looking | SUVs. | NoSorryCannot wrote: | There is Arcimoto, an operation based in Oregon. I think in | some places their vehicles are grouped with motorcycles or | something along those lines. I've seen them zipping around | San Diego and other places. | galangalalgol wrote: | A few people in my neighborhood have golf carts, not sure how | its legal but the police don't bother them. | Pokepokalypse wrote: | In my neighborhood (AZ), they're actually very common; and | also offroad "razor" type cars. You see people going to the | store or even work in them. Fully open, and they have license | plates, the works. | wsinks wrote: | If you're california, it's legal as long as they don't drive | on a street with a speed limit over 35 mph | | https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/vehicle-code/veh- | sect-21260.htm... | | TTG, 5 seconds ;) | tibbydudeza wrote: | My aunt moved into an old age home and there is one chap that | uses a mobility scooter to drive down the road to the local | convenience store. | | He has to cross a rather busy road though. | hoppyhoppy2 wrote: | You can get an enclosed mobility scooter for $6k-7k. Many have | some sort of stereo system and climate controls though I don't | know if they all have your desired features. But they do exist | and are for sale in the US and Canada. | nszceta wrote: | The Boomerbuggy X! This fully enclosed mobility scooter is | more spacious and has some cool new features! Travel to get | your groceries, to your neighbour's or take it just for a | leisurely joy ride without fear of the weather. The Boomer X | is fully insulated with heating giving you the warmth and | comfort that you need on those cold winter days. The Boomer X | also features built in speakers, windshield wipers, and more. | Regain your mobility, independence, and sense of freedom with | the Boomerbuggy X the next generation of covered mobility | scooters! | | https://www.daymak.com/boomerbuggy-x.html | rerx wrote: | How about a Renault Twizy? | dvh wrote: | Citroen Ami, $6000, 75km range, max speed 40km/h. The car is | rotationally symmetrical (left and right doors are exactly the | same, front and back is also the same) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric) | yurishimo wrote: | Yea, but these cars aren't available or legal to drive in the | USA. To import one, you need to pay fees and it must be | registered. To get it registered, it must have safety | standards on file with the federal government. Unless you | want to pay the $$$ (millions?) to get that certification for | your single imported car, you need to wait 25 years for it to | be imported as a "classic" car so those safety regulations | don't apply. | | I would love to buy a Honda E, but I live in Texas and it | will never happen. After 25 years, the tech will be so | outdated that it's likely not worth it. Plus the batteries | will likely need to be replaced and good luck sourcing parts | for one stateside without paying $$$ in shipping again. | josefresco wrote: | What if cars were like TVs? Some would be smart with integrated | software, and some would be dumb and require a "stick" to make it | smart. I'd certainly be tempted to buy the dumb version and have | the flexibility to try different software experiences. | throaway46546 wrote: | It's getting hard to find dumb TVs anymore. | meowster wrote: | FYI anyone who is looking: Sceptre makes dumb 4K TVs up to | 75" (sold at Walmart). | kumarsw wrote: | Once again, a plea for moderation from those calling for a return | to analog gauges. Remember that outside of Tesla, automakers are | generally pretty conservative and most computing in cars outside | the head unit is decentralized MCUs that don't connect to the | internet. And within the head unit, CarPlay/Android Auto has | moved most of the work to phones. | eaa wrote: | Well, actually, with CP & AA there is more work, not less work, | because they are perceived as an additional cool feature, not | as a complete substitution to built-in "infotainment". | tibbydudeza wrote: | CAAS - Car As A Service. | eaa wrote: | Can we have freemium CAAS? ) | geonic wrote: | 150 million lines of code in a Ford F-150? How is that even | possible? A Volvo with 100 million lines including 3 million | functions. This sounds like generated code to me. I can't believe | this is handwritten or even necessary. | eaa wrote: | Easily. There are lots of MCUs, and the "infotainment" unit | contains big amount of code including an OS like linux or qnx | or android. | mthomasmw wrote: | Serious question - what alternatives are left for those of us who | want a dumb car? I've spent the last three months finding out I | can't get solar panels installed without a high-fidelity power- | monitor tap connected to the provider's cloud, logging every | appliance I use and what it's doing. Same deal with cars - they | are on the internet and they generate evidence used to convict, | and geofencing is coming. Other than stockpiling cars from 2010 - | will we have alternatives? | | https://www.fox13news.com/news/evidence-showing-drivers-spee... | neilpanchal wrote: | Kit cars such as https://www.factoryfive.com/. I am sure | electric chassis will pop up in the future. | paganel wrote: | I found the latest model of the Suzuki Jimny the closest to | what you described, that is when it comes to new cars. | Unfortunately it has been withdrawn from the European market | (where I live) because it doesn't meet environmental standards, | hopes are that it will be re-introduced labeled as a "utility" | vehicle. | | Afaik it is selling like hot-cakes on the markets where it is | still present (like Australia), maybe if enough future | potential customers ask for it Suzuki will decide to also sell | it on the US market. | arminiusreturns wrote: | Speaking of Suzuki, the Samurai is ripe for a comeback in the | US imho. | vikingerik wrote: | I bought a new Nissan Kicks last year (the lowest-end crossover | SUV) and it seems pretty dumb. It has no internet connectivity | as far as I can tell. It has a touch-screen, but it's pretty | much just for the backup camera and audio controls, everything | else has physical controls. It does have a computer that is | involved in operating the CVT, but besides that it never gets | in my way. And it does have sensors for the safety features | (blind spot warning, etc) but that stays out of my way too. | (The one annoying exception was when I had a bike rack on the | back. I couldn't drive in reverse, the collision detection kept | sensing the rack as an obstacle and slamming the brakes.) | | Mostly-dumb cars still exist on the lower end of the | manufacturers' lines. But yeah, who knows how long that | situation will last, or if you'll be able to get anything | technologically dumb with premium power and handling. | cowanon22 wrote: | > I bought a new Nissan Kicks last year (the lowest-end | crossover SUV) and it seems pretty dumb. | | Not sure about 2020, but 2021 has Automatic breaking, | pedestrian detection, and collision detection standard. There | are likely a few hundred thousand to millions lines of code | in these various systems. Even "dumb" cars today have tons of | software, it's just hidden since it doesn't require user | input. Literally every aspect of your driving is fully | computerized - braking, acceleration, engine spark plug | ignition, transmission, steering, etc. The infotainment is | often relatively simple compared to all of the other software | running internally. | speedgoose wrote: | You can buy a Dacia. | romanovcode wrote: | You can always get a lada | slim wrote: | +1 that car was first produced in 1977 and it's still in full | production with the exact same design. | rootusrootus wrote: | The vast, vast majority of all new cars sold today either don't | have any kind of uplink to the cloud, or can have that | capability easily removed (e.g. OnStar from GM). It's really | only some of the EVs (the non-compliance ones like Tesla, | really) that are software-heavy and blazing a new anti-privacy | trail. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Don't they still record and just upload when you go to the | dealer and they plug in the cable? | bri3d wrote: | There is an extremely limited amount of diagnostic data | recorded by most cars (Tesla aside) - absolute limits, | performance counters, and freeze-frame diagnostic data. | There simply isn't much storage, and again, Tesla aside, | most manufacturers don't want to have to buy high-write | capable flash of the sort that could cope with constant | logging. | | The most invasive is probably airbag blackbox data, which | is stored upon deployment and not routinely uploaded | besides as part of an investigation. | | As far as I know based on extensive reverse engineering of | many modern European vehicles, no location data is | routinely stored or uploaded to a dealership tool by any of | them. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Nice, thanks. Maybe I'll look into a newer car then, was | holding off because of this. | cmiller1 wrote: | > Other than stockpiling cars from 2010 | | As a car enthusiast this sounds laughably new to me. My main | vehicle rolled off the assembly line in 1991. Unfortunately | it's a "hobby" and a labor of love because if you're not | wealthy enough to pay for a shop to handle maintenance of your | classic cars then you're spending your weekends working on | them. | stagger87 wrote: | I just bought a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek that's surprisingly dumb. | All mechanical controls and a basic infotainment system that | isn't required for the car to operate. AFAIK it doesn't have | any cloud capabilities and isn't connected to the internet. I | imagine the latest models are the same since they look similar | inside. | kart23 wrote: | Stockpiling used cars sounds good to me honestly. Land Cruisers | are pretty bulletproof, they're regularly on the road through | 300,000 miles. | quacked wrote: | I don't think there are any. If you got to the point where you | somehow managed to source the labor, materials, and space to | manufacture "dumb technology", you'd be sued into oblivion by | competitors who wouldn't want you to eat into their profit | margins. | | I think the market is huge. Imagine a company that suddenly | started selling all-metal consumer appliances with minimal | functionality, controlled by old-fashioned switches, buttons, | and knobs, designed to be repaired. They'd be insanely popular. | Of course, that lack of subscription-model pricing and the high | labor costs of worthwhile designers and manufacturers would | also destroy the company, but my god, a boy can dream. | jkepler wrote: | Won't t 3D-printing metal appliances be more and more widely | feasible in coming years? And, at least here in the EU, | right-to-repair [1] labeling gives consumers the ability to | more efficiently vote with their wallets. Its also happening | in the US [2] | | [1] https://repair.eu/ [2] | https://fr.ifixit.com/News/8748/right-to-repair | scythe wrote: | Liquid steel requires enormously high temperature and | magnesium/aluminium require an argon atmosphere. Titanium | requires both. So unless you're going to make everything | out of zinc (assuming we don't run out of zinc!), this may | not be the cheap fix you're hoping for -- and zinc isn't | very strong. | kube-system wrote: | There are also many types of steel that have widely | varying properties. | | There are some (expensive) printers that print powdered | metals (including steel) that is later sintered in an | oven. They're certainly not large enough to make a car, | and even if they were the properties of the material are | likely not ideal, and the process would be prohibitively | expensive. | the__alchemist wrote: | What do you think about the possibility of | smaller/cheaper/easier 5-axis mills? | [deleted] | brundolf wrote: | They'd be insanely popular _in circles like HN_. I think you | have a warped perspective of what the typical buyer is | enticed by. | rootusrootus wrote: | > insanely popular in circles like HN | | Heck, even then I expect it would just be popular with a | very small, very loud niche within HN. | circularfoyers wrote: | By loud I assume you mean the top comments, which says to | me this is popular with the many not the few of the HN | crowd. | rootusrootus wrote: | I don't think I'm willing to go that far. What | constitutes 'the HN crowd'? The folks who come here and | read the stories, but do not read the comments? Or just | the ones who read the comments? Or only the subset of | those who read the comments who actually bother to vote. | Or participate with their own commentary? | | It's pretty easy for a small subset of individuals to | appear as if they accurately represent the wider group. | covidthrow wrote: | The key is to hunt for commercial-grade appliances. In some | cases, they can be found and offer similar form factors to | consumer devices, and in others you may be out of luck. | | Commercial kitchen appliances, washers/dryers, and flat panel | displays can be sourced to your expectations. Just prepare to | spend 1.5-3x as much right out of the gate. | bombcar wrote: | Note that commercial-grade appliances may have unexpected | side-effects. I have a speed queen commercial coin-op | washer and it's highly reliable and easy to work on, but | you can't do anything but a full cycle on it. | mthomasmw wrote: | Vitamix | quacked wrote: | Looks great. It reminds me of my microwave, which has two | dials on it and is better than every other microwave I've | ever owned. | yurishimo wrote: | Now go look up the Thermomix. Apparently pretty popular | in AUS/NZ but very niche in the States and Europe(?). | | Cool idea, but I can't imagine they have a long life if | being used with any sort of regularity. | yardie wrote: | EVs are quite simply and there has been a small, but growing | base of users using AC induction motors on sailboats. I imagine | you're going to need a pre-OBDII car and some mechanical skills | and convert it to electric drive. After that you'll have a car | that has half the range of a modern EV do to weight | optimization. | rightbyte wrote: | > pre-OBDII car | | If you remove the ICE you don't need to "marry"/VIN code | activate the ECUs likely. Just as long as the steering lock | is mechanical. | e40 wrote: | Why pre-OBDII? | floren wrote: | I've got a 1985 Jeep CJ-7 sitting in a shed in another state | right now. The 4-cylinder engine sucked when it was new, and | 35 years of entropy have not been kind to it, especially the | labyrinthine emissions control systems. But I'm holding on to | it because I think it would be an absolute _hoot_ converted | to electric... plus, it 's got such a small gas tank and bad | gas mileage that a 150 mile electric range would be no worse. | cblconfederate wrote: | > will add hundreds of millions of lines of code to cars. | | Er, no, it will add wheels to tablets. | [deleted] | incanus77 wrote: | I drive a 1985 VW Vanagon. While there have been many, many times | that I have wished for some comprehensive diagnostics, and am | considering an engine swap at some point, when I drive and there | is literally zero distraction from electronics or touch screens, | it's wonderful. I did add a CarPlay-enabled deck for directions | and road trip music, but otherwise everything is manual. | TeeMassive wrote: | I don't mind having gadgets on my car, but please just allow me | to have a "bare metal" mode when things will inevitably go wrong. | elihu wrote: | I remember back in the early days of Linux how we'd say that | using a proprietary OS is like owning a car with the hood welded | shut. It seemed so obviously ridiculous. Yet, that's basically | where we're headed now. | | In some ways that's a good thing: EVs require much less physical | maintenance. (At least, their drivetrains need less maintenance. | Whether the rest of the car does depends on the manufacturer.) | But on the other hand, depending on how heavily locked-down the | car is, it'll be hard to do third-party modifications and older | vehicles are going to be at high risk of having security | vulnerabilities as soon as software maintenance for old vehicles | stops being a priority for the manufacturer. | phkahler wrote: | In an electric car the motor control software can be quite tiny | compared to traditional engine control. A lot of them are also | direct drive, so no transmission controller. | | Now battery charging is a bitch. The standard communication | between a Level 2 charger and a vehicle is IMHO designed by | committee. It uses power-line communication even though it's not | over the high voltage/current wires in the cable. That means | special chips, firmware, and TCP/IP. Sounds like a startup | solution rather than just plain automotive CAN connection. | | Anyway, most of the software isn't worse than an ICE car. Also, | most of it will still be running on micro controllers, not fancy | Linux systems. Detroit still knows how to do embedded but they're | starting to get corrupted with ideas from all this autonomous | stuff. | jacquesm wrote: | Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible | user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse | than the systems they replace or augment. | | The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it | will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible | software vendors. | | Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two | pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming on the brakes in a | situation where that was totally unexpected and caused a | perfectly safe situation to turn into a critical one. If not for | playing ping pong for many years I highly doubt I would be | writing this. After the first instance I had the whole car | checked out to see if there was any fault in the system, the | answer was that it was all working perfectly (that time the car | had braked whilst on a very narrow bridge sending the car into a | skid which I managed to correct before going over the side). | Three weeks later it did it again, this time apparently because | an advertising sign in a turn generated such a strong radar | return that the car thought I was about to have a frontal | collision. Again, out of nowhere an emergency stop. | | I sold the car and got one where the most complex piece of | software is the aftermarket radio, it has ABS and an ignition | control computer but nothing in the way of 'advanced safety | features'. | | My vehicle actively trying to kill me is something I can do | without. | | So: as far as I'm concerned _much_ less software on board of | cars, open source it all if possible and roll it out much slower | so we can get the bugs out. | HellDunkel wrote: | Frightening. My friend had a similar incident (but he drives | like a complete nutcase). | | Is there no ,,code of conduct" what automotive software must | not do in any case? | amelius wrote: | Probably these companies ignore any existing legislation to | have more disruption powers. Lawsuits from fatal accidents | are just the cost of doing business. | HellDunkel wrote: | I work in the field and never had this impression. There | are a ton of standards, safety related procedures and so | on. But many of those are at least questionable. At the | same time management is asking for more and more | ,,features". Many are just gimmicks or diluted by too many | cooks. No one ever asks for GOOD software. Folks at the top | have ABSOLUTLY NO idea what that could mean other than the | absence of bugs. | jacquesm wrote: | I would assume incompetence before malice and living in | some kind of idealized bubble compared to field testing and | dog fooding their own product in a very large variety of | circumstances. | | One car executive that I've known said this: "The very best | test drivers are our end users, in the first week after | release we learn more about a car than we do in the months | of field testing prior.". I am not going to name the | individual but it makes good sense and I have seen the same | with all software products released to the general public. | liquidise wrote: | I'll pile on with my own anecdote. Last winter I flew home to | Maine to visit family. Rented a '21 Nissan Altima. It drove | well until there was typical New England snow/slush mix. | | While driving on a flat straight stretch of road the car | suddenly... yanked itself sideways. Thank god no oncoming | traffic was present and I was able to course correct safely. I | immediately drove home and paid careful attention to the wheel | response. It kept feeling like it wanted to yank me off the | road. | | Once home i broke open the manual and found 4 different "driver | assist" and "driver comfort" functions. After disabling them | all the terrifying behavior ceased. | | I've lived my whole life in Maine, Rochester NY and Colorado. | I've never felt as unsafe in a car as I did with those software | features enabled in about an inch of snow. | | Bonus, it also has collision detection warnings on the side of | the car. It was convinced every puddle I drove through that | splashed slush beside the car was an object I was about to | collide with. | TeeMassive wrote: | > Bonus, it also has collision detection warnings on the side | of the car. It was convinced every puddle I drove through | that splashed slush beside the car was an object I was about | to collide with. | | That's the problem I have with people who tries to rethink | our relationship with cars; it's obvious that they live a | Californian lifestyle. "Just share your car" "Electric and | solar is the way" "AI safety with cameras is a must" | | Yeah, sure. | at_a_remove wrote: | I have a stock head unit on my car, based on QnX, I'm told. It | has some _amazing_ limitations. I will throw out a couple: | | First, you cannot delete radio stations. You can overwrite a | radio station, or you can unplug your car battery, but you | can't just flat up delete a radio station you have plugged in. | CRU, I guess. | | Second, it sort of recognizes .mp3 files in the USB drive, but | not .wav, and it certainly doesn't understand .m3u playlists. | Baffling. | | It's just so ... clunky and dumb. | sbierwagen wrote: | I bought a car with an aftermarket radio that has a DVD | player in it, which I've never used. When you turn it on, it | displays a message warning you not to watch a DVD while | driving. Sure, whatever. _While the warning message is up, | you cannot adjust the volume._ I have to make sure to turn | down the stereo before parking otherwise there 's a solid | five seconds on startup when it can't be turned down. Insane. | cyrks wrote: | One of the main problems is that we have many different | software teams trying to solve the same safety feature driven | functions in many different ways with many different solutions, | outcomes, and decisions along the way. This leads to a very | fragmented base of software with varying levels of safety, none | of which is tested to the same standards. The result is that | consumers don't know of the car they are buying is truly safe | at all | judge2020 wrote: | This is something agencies like NHTSA and/or private | companies like IIHS are supposed to solve, but most active | safety technology testing is just 'does it work' in very easy | scenarios - the test suite needs to include many environments | and tough conditions if it wants to evaluate these systems | more broadly (The only issue being when car companies | optimize for those specific tests, or 'when the measure | becomes a target'). | Aperocky wrote: | lol that is crazy. | | Just leave the control to the person behind the wheel, but | somehow that's too stretched of an idea. | | I hope the F150 E truck will not have those 'automatic' | features. but then again, I kind of wanted lane keeping and | follow so maybe that's just the necessary evil. Maybe 'modes' | where it gives all controls to me when I wanted it? | flavius29663 wrote: | lane keeping is making me dizzy, at least on the rav4 where I | had it. It's a constant battle between me and the computer | about where to keep the car in the lane, making it such that | the car constantly sways: 1. corrected by me, 2. then | corrected by the computer, goto 1. | | If I don't correct at all, the system is getting mad at me | for not keeping the hand on the steering wheel. | | Auto follow is again somewhat risky, you can't really rely on | it, sometimes it brakes too late. | finolex1 wrote: | Counterpoint: My Subaru has averted at least 2 collisions | till date by applying an emergency brake (admittedly not in | any life threatening situation, though it did save me a | considerable amount in potential repairs). Though yes I | agree, the option to turn off features is certainly helpful. | systemvoltage wrote: | Holyshit, thanks for the heads up. If I rent a new car, first | thing I'm doing is disabling all this crap. | | As long as pre-2010 cars are available, I'm gonna continue | driving them. | jacquesm wrote: | It couldn't be disabled either without breaking out the wire | snips and selectively disabling stuff and hoping that that | would not have further averse affects. That car had a radar | unit behind the front license plate and a camera mounted in | the windshield. No idea which of the two was responsible for | the false triggers. | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | > The automotive industry has a long long way to come - | assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be | responsible software vendors. | | It's worse than that. The very best in the software industry | has a reliability problem. And carmakers are certainly not | among the best in the software industry. | johntfella wrote: | I've been exploring building my own car from scrap. This wsj sort | of motivated me (1). The ideal would be no electronics at all. An | issue I have with new cars are monitors, I hate them they are | distracting. My eyes are pretty sensitive to computer screens | etc. Maybe, I'd settle for just a radio. "Maybe" because you then | get looking at a cd player then all the sudden you want the | further desire to control what you listen to and before you know | it you are talking about mp3/digital and more | computerization/softwaring of the car. | | The first question is... what do I want? The second is the more | complicated issue of getting it done. However it has always been | a dream of mine since being a kid and watching the Home | Improvement sitcom in the 90s. | | (1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-odyssey-to-recreate-a- | rare-j... | rektide wrote: | I have this weird feeling that we ought to displace the problem | somewhat. I feel like the ubiquotous & pervasive computing people | were onto something. And in some ways, we're already seeing a | very narrow brand of this future arrive: Apple and Google both | have systems to allow the phone to control & manipulate some of | the car's infotainment systems. | | Extending that idea further, & removing most of the native | infotainment from the car, turning it into a bunch of dumb, | wirelessly controlled displays & buttons, that an external system | can use, would be interesting. Certainly there's still a large | maintenance burden. And now we're talking about allowing external | consumers of the car's services. | | There is some precedent for this. Webinos was a very intersting | ubiquotous computing platform, and one that BMW/Jaguar/Land Rover | did a bunch of work on[1]. It definitely still kept the car's | infotainment system, but it also exposed many of the car's | systems & services externally, over a normalized, secure, webinos | control system, such that you could manipulate the car's systems, | or in one demo, look at the radar system, from remote devices. I | kind of picture the radicalized form of this as, your car has | some hdmi ports in it, and you plug in a Roku or Chromecast or | whatever to power the screens, or have your phone wirelessly send | a video stream. The manufacturer would still need to have an out- | of-box experience, but in 10 years or whatever, the manufacturer | might not have to still support it like they do a built in one: | they still have to maintain some API surface, but that, | hopefully, can be a simpler, more controlled, known interface, | with less maintanence burden, & less fancy application | processors. | | I don't really think what I suggest saves all that much trouble. | It introduces more trouble too. But starting to decouple | computers, starting to untangle the weave, but it does seem like | a long term more sustainable course of action. Whatever modern | computer we carry with us is what we trust, and leaving it to | provide an up to date experience across all varieties of screens, | inputs, peripherals we encounter has always been, to me, what the | ubicomp revolution was about. | | [1] http://www.autoconception.com/bmw-group-research-and- | technol... | mauvehaus wrote: | Future headline: "Cars now as reliable as computers. Bicycle | sales boom" | jonshariat wrote: | Link isn't working but Selzered's link does. | | What is interesting is that graph half way down: in 2010 the | software cost of the car was 35% and they project by 2030 it will | make up 50% the cost of the car. | | As a consumer, I don't want anything but Apply Play or Android | Auto in my car with a display. Why not cut costs and go a | different direction? Am I really in the minority of consumers? | mlac wrote: | I 100% agree with this. I want climate control knobs and | buttons, a basic AM/FM radio, and a CarPlay/android auto | screen. Everything else is noise, and as Toyota would put it, | MUDA (Waste / non-value added). | | In my view, there is no reason for an auto manufacturer to | invest heavily in their infotainment systems anymore - it just | isn't a competitive advantage for most cars. Almost all users | who buy the upgraded trims will have a smart phone. | fmntf wrote: | I work in the automotive. I think that this is the trend. At | the begin, smartphone projection was just calls, music and | navigation. Now such systems are interested in signals coming | from the car.. guess why! | seltzered_ wrote: | bad link, should be: https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- | think/transportation/adv... | tima101 wrote: | I've been shopping for new tractor and found out that some newer | tractors have software-controlled regeneration process. Then I | watched on Youtube how buggy software in those tractors randomly | kicks in regen process and does not allow owner to use tractor. I | ended up buying lower HP tractor that has no chip and no regen | process. | reader_mode wrote: | I got the feeling that car companies treat SW like a cost center, | asses in seats kind of mentality. They don't pay well, you work | on uninteresting stuff and corporate ladder is likely a dead end. | | So I doubt they (traditional car companies) are going to get | better at software any time soon. | waiseristy wrote: | I'm amazed that in this entire article Autosar wasn't mentioned | once. The giant 2 ton elephant in the room here is automotives | reliance on god-awful "kitchen sink" style standards. Try reading | through the various Autosar docs and ask yourself if you expect | robust bug-free code to be written to comply with it. | | There needs to be a complete cleaning-of-house in automotive | software. | | I2C, Flexray, Ethernet, CAN/CANFD & OBD, LIN, what are we even | doing? | | ARXML, FIBEX, DBC, fuckin kill me. | | "Unmanaged complexity" a.k.a "we've never thrown away a single | technology or standard even once" | obidan wrote: | I worked in the automotive industry and I can totally confirm. | The worse thing is, there are now AUTOSAR experts and AUTOSAR | tools and AUTOSAR Tool Experts and within that tool there's a | ARXML generator that's generated with another tool ... | | There's no way this can ever become safe, robust, software. The | worse part is, there's so many careers that depend on this | obscure skillset that I am unsure a change can come from | existing companies. | waiseristy wrote: | Dont even get me started on the tooling. Vectors, | Elektrobits, Dassaults, Conti's, tools are probably one of | the biggest drains on collective computation power outside of | crypto and ML. | | Not to mention working in this space is fucking soul | consuming. I was considered an "AUTOSAR expert" for a time, | and that essentially meant having enough programming and | systems knowledge to work on the entire stack. But never | writing a single line of code, only clicking buttons in these | god damn tools and watching them crash constantly, loosing | hours upon hours of work | jedberg wrote: | The problem with this is that auto companies are not software | companies. They may have good engineers there, but they are | hamstrung with a culture that considers software as an add on | cost center at best. | | Perfect example: I have no way to report software bugs to Honda. | I've found a few and collected detailed reproduction data. The | best I can do is give it to a sales rep in the service department | and hope they send it "up to corporate". | | Compare that to Telsa, which has bug reporting built right into | the software in the car, as well as bug bounty program. | | And then there are updates. Honda found a bug where the | speedometer would just crash and not show your speed anymore. | This is was pretty bad, but I had no idea about it until I went | into the dealership. There was apparently a recall but I would | have had to find that myself, I didn't get a notice. Honda has no | built in facility to notify people of software updates and | recalls. And then once I found out, the only way to fix it is for | a dealership to apply the update. There is no over the air update | and no way for me to apply it myself. | | Car companies need to learn how to be software first, or things | will get very dangerous. | ketralnis wrote: | On the other hand, having seen the software industry I don't | really want its values applied to cars. | | Games used to be shipped on chips to customers with the | assumption that they could never be updated, but now the | expectation that that's possible results in multi GB release | day patches. Games used to be shipped to consoles without | network access but if Blizzard goes out of business tomorrow, | Starcraft II will just fail to boot because the software you | get isn't enough to run the game. Games used to make most of | their money by selling you a fun game that you wanted to play, | but now they make most of their money from DLC's or selling in- | game currency. | | I don't want my car to move fast and break things. I don't want | my car to fail to drive me to the hospital because it has | updates to install. I don't want my car to drop features it had | when I paid for it because some PM's bonus depends on me using | their monetised features instead. I don't want my car to be | measured by "works on my machine"-level QA. I don't want my car | reporting telemetry. I don't want my car's UI to become | unuseable over time because the developers shipping constant | updates to it are working on the newer hardware instead of the | hardware I have. I don't want parts of my car to stop working | because an app developer doesn't support my car anymore. (I've | lost access to many an iOS game because of this without | changing any hardware myself.) I don't want my car to stop | working because it doesn't support TLS 4.0 or 6g and the | licence server requires it. I don't want my car to stop working | because it can't find the licence server because Volvo went out | of business, or even just decided they didn't want to support | me anymore. I don't want my car to fail to unlock because of a | network blip. I don't want my car to suggest I go to McDonald's | instead because of an advertising deal. | | That's what embracing the software industry's norms will get | you. Awful QA, shortsighted dependencies, terrible incentives, | and the ability to monetise you. | jedberg wrote: | Not every company embraces those sorts of worst practices. | Especially hardware companies. Tesla and Apple are good | examples of this. They have strong QA policies and make their | money from hardware so they don't have to do all those "you | must be connected" tricks. Sure, both still have bugs, but | not like web apps and games. | | Most of what you listed applies to web apps and games, not | bespoke software for hardware. | ketralnis wrote: | Apple and Tesla specifically are not good examples of this | https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-yanks-autopilot- | features... & | https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to- | pay... These both come from the habit and ability to | remotely change what's already on my device without my | knowledge or consent | eaa wrote: | Have you tried to contact an official car service center or | official car dealer on this topic? | | They may have no way to "report a bug", but they have to deal | with customer complaints and issues which need service. It is | possible that car service will actually report an issue to SW | vendor. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-10 23:00 UTC)