Software’s place in a mechanical world

[Steebu]

Just saw this interview with Jim Farley (Ford CEO), and he makes some very telling comments about modern cars, and in particular, EVs. Paging Ms Mary, are you listening?

He admits what we’ve all suspected for a long time: they’re not software companies, but they better become one and not treat it like an afterthought. It also explains a lot of the issues we’re seeing with OTA updates.

I’ve linked to the relevant part in the interview:

 

[swathdiver]

Just saw this interview with Jim Farley (Ford CEO), and he makes some very telling comments about modern cars, and in particular, EVs. Paging Ms Mary, are you listening?

He admits what we’ve all suspected for a long time: they’re not software companies, but they better become one and not treat it like an afterthought. It also explains a lot of the issues we’re seeing with OTA updates.

I’ve linked to the relevant part in the interview:

And this knucklehead is in the car building business? He called his company a "legacy" company. He's telling us his products are obsolete? LOL

Ferd's shareholders ought to demand better. So should GM. You could put both their brains together and they would disappear insider the mind of Ross Perot.

Anyone remember him?

 

[Steebu]

Well, the context of him calling Ford a “Legacy“ company (from earlier parts of the interview) is in comparison to that of Tesla, Nio, Rivian, and all these EV startups that are starting from the ground-up as a software company and putting a car on top of the software. They have full control of every module in the vehicle so when something goes south they can fix it themselves.

He said they’re rectifying that by making their next-gen of EVs “theirs” from the ground up; the challenge is that they’re not a software company but they better learn how to do it Fast if they want to compete.

Given Barra’s statement about “30k EVs are not profitable”, GM is taking the stance that ICE vehicles will carry them into the next-gen of EVs … but I’m guessing that we won’t see any changes to how those ICE vehicles are produced - e.g., we’ll still have the ECM built by Bosch, the seat control module built by someone else, and neither will talk to each other and OTA’s will brick the vehicle.

Bleah.

 

[Doubeleive]

the problem with integrating software + hardware is that when the hardware fails the software does not know it. (this is a forever problem since hardware & software were paired up)
you can build in all the redundancy you want and it can still fail.
you can't fix stupid, hardware is stupid.
going electric eliminates a lot of hardware but not all
the software does not open a door, hardware does.
here is a simple google
do salty roads affect a tesla?
It's science. The problem is, Tesla recently discovered corrosion from road salt could cause havoc with a critical power steering mechanism on its Model X vehicles. Salt can cause the power steering assist feature to stop working and increase the risk of a crash.Feb 14, 2020
you can argue that this can happen with a ice vehicle as well
the problem is we are heading face first into the unknown
software is not going to know if a bolt is loose, or if a capacitor failed.
batteries can and do fail without warning.
computers crash without warning.

 

[Fless]

the problem with integrating software + hardware is that when the hardware fails the software does not know it. (this is a forever problem since hardware & software were paired up)
you can build in all the redundancy you want and it can still fail.
you can't fix stupid, hardware is stupid.
going electric eliminates a lot of hardware but not all
the software does not open a door, hardware does.
here a simple google
do salty roads affect a tesla?
It's science. The problem is, Tesla recently discovered corrosion from road salt could cause havoc with a critical power steering mechanism on its Model X vehicles. Salt can cause the power steering assist feature to stop working and increase the risk of a crash.Feb 14, 2020
you can argue that this can happen with a ice vehicle as well
the problem is we are heading face first into the unknown
software is not going to know if a bolt is loose, or if a capacitor failed.
batteries can and do fail without warning.
computers crash without warning.

@Doubeleive's positive uplifting message for the day.

 

[Doubeleive]

@Doubeleive's positive uplifting message for the day.

I just don't know if I can fully trust a computer to drive me, it's scary enough with me behind the wheel.
i guess I might like to see it coming maybe? not really sure, it's like a minority report thing
like if I put on auto pilot and go on a trip on a road with a steep cliff drop off and no guardrail ummmm, ya nope

 

[Mean_Green]

To me the Plymouth Fury was a good car, as were a few others of that era. Generally reliable. You could count on it and if it took a dump, you could fix it.

I'd rather not have computers in cars at all.

 

[DuraYuk]

I just don't know if I can fully trust a computer to drive me, it's scary enough with me behind the wheel.
i guess I might like to see it coming maybe? not really sure, it's like a minority report thing
like if I put on auto pilot and go on a trip on a road with a steep cliff drop off and no guardrail ummmm, ya nope

Planes do it. Have been for decades.

 

[DuraYuk]

To me the Plymouth Fury was a good car, as were a few others of that era. Generally reliable. You could count on it and if it took a dump, you could fix it.

I'd rather not have computers in cars at all.

Carburetors suck. So did those vehicles. There's a reason so many had 45k miles with the hood open in someone's back yard.

 

[Doubeleive]

Planes do it. Have been for decades.

In a form yes, lot less computer involved and more hardware than several cars combined, and hydraulics and they do not run off of batteries yet.
and if there was as many planes in the air as there are cars we would see a lot more crashes
Pilot error is thought to account for 53% of aircraft accidents, with mechanical failure (21%) and weather conditions (11%) following behind.
what about the other 15%?
I am not trying to be negative about it, computers run nuclear power plants too
both industries are HIGHLY maintained and scrutinized from beginning to end.

 

[Mean_Green]

With a plane, the parameters are fairly well defined. You do pretty much the same thing, the same way, every time with weather being one of the main variables. Enter factors such as weight and winds and the rest is sort of 'point it that-a-way and increase speed ... '.

Not so with cars being less than 10 feet apart a great deal of the time on the road.

 

[Steebu]

Planes do it. Have been for decades.

I follow a pilot on YT and he has a story that I think is relevant. He was talking about the time he was in training, over Texas, during a horrible turbulence; the plane was shaking so hard he said he couldn’t even see the controls. He looked over at his instructor who said, “You know why I’m not scared? There’s nothing to hit 1,000 feet up.”

Did you read about the RoboTaxi in SF that ran over a dog (or a cat? Can’t remember) and killed it? So many different variables for autonomous vehicles. I’d argue it’s way easier to have autopilot on a plane than on a car. Not saying it’s EASY, just EASIER.

As a technologist, however, I do believe that Computer Vision/AI will get us there. To re-phrase a famous astrophysist, “the road to truly autonomous vehicles will be paved with blood.” That’s reality.

 

[WalleyeMikeIII]

I follow a pilot on YT and he has a story that I think is relevant. He was talking about the time he was in training, over Texas, during a horrible turbulence; the plane was shaking so hard he said he couldn’t even see the controls. He looked over at his instructor who said, “You know why I’m not scared? There’s nothing to hit 1,000 feet up.”

Did you read about the RoboTaxi in SF that ran over a dog (or a cat? Can’t remember) and killed it? So many different variables for autonomous vehicles. I’d argue it’s way easier to have autopilot on a plane than on a car. Not saying it’s EASY, just EASIER.

As a technologist, however, I do believe that Computer Vision/AI will get us there. To re-phrase a famous astrophysist, “the road to truly autonomous vehicles will be paved with blood.” That’s reality.

Having worked in IT industry forever; and been around "agile software development" which is how most software is written these days....I don't love trusting my life to the whims of a firmware coder in some office somewhere. Full disclosure, my wife is a firmware engineer. She says "I will never let firmware be responsible for my safety while driving; there are too many bugs."

Take all that for what it is...but, I for one am ok w/ me being in control...

 

[Salvatore Fazzina]

the problem with integrating software + hardware is that when the hardware fails the software does not know it. (this is a forever problem since hardware & software were paired up)
you can build in all the redundancy you want and it can still fail.
you can't fix stupid, hardware is stupid.
going electric eliminates a lot of hardware but not all
the software does not open a door, hardware does.
here is a simple google
do salty roads affect a tesla?
It's science. The problem is, Tesla recently discovered corrosion from road salt could cause havoc with a critical power steering mechanism on its Model X vehicles. Salt can cause the power steering assist feature to stop working and increase the risk of a crash.Feb 14, 2020
you can argue that this can happen with a ice vehicle as well
the problem is we are heading face first into the unknown
software is not going to know if a bolt is loose, or if a capacitor failed.
batteries can and do fail without warning.
computers crash without warning.

Any Car company that wants to learn how to integrate their Hardware with their Software they should get help from Apple....One of the only companies that mostly get it right and have been since the early 2000's.

 

[Steebu]

Having worked in IT industry forever; and been around "agile software development" which is how most software is written these days....I don't love trusting my life to the whims of a firmware coder in some office somewhere. Full disclosure, my wife is a firmware engineer. She says "I will never let firmware be responsible for my safety while driving; there are too many bugs."

Take all that for what it is...but, I for one am ok w/ me being in control...

Don't disagree ... but do you trust your life to a firmware coder at AirBus or Boeing? Because that's what we do when we board a flight.

Never coded firmware, but cut my programming teeth on pushing and popping registers learning x86 assembly ... and eventually ended up at a Beltway Bandit out of college on a team writing control software for satellites. Talk about mission critical - can you imagine the fallout if a satellite fell into (at the time) the Soviet Union or North Korea because you wrote crappy code? There is a level of fault-tolerance that is absolutely critical, and it's taken the aircraft industry some 50 years to get it to the point where we don't think about hopping on a plane to Maui or Amsterdam or Singapore.

It feels like the auto industry is almost at that Golden Age of flight (late 50s) where we're gonna start learning real fast what it means to have autonomous vehicles. And by "learning real fast" it probably means some dogs and cats and an elderly person with a walker is going to get run over. The parallel is the flight accident over Arizona (New Mexico?) a while back when two passenger planes collided head-on. Because of that, systems like TCAS were invented. We're gonna learn, but the reality is people are gonna get hurt, hence the "paved with blood" comment.

I'm with you on wanting to stay in control of the wheel ... but what about an adult with cerebral palsy? Or a war veteran who lost the use of her arms? Autonomous vehicles would be great in situations like that - they could continue a bit of normalcy in their life by having a car and getting around. Ultimately, I'm saying autonomous vehicles would be great ... but those auto-makers better start focusing on software.

Now all that said ... at this point ... I just don't trust auto-makers to do the right thing. To them "The Right Thing" means keeping shareholders happy and increasing the stock value.

 

[Doubeleive]

Any Car company that wants to learn how to integrate their Hardware with their Software they should get help from Apple....One of the only companies that mostly get it right and have been since the early 2000's.

the only reason some of the apple stuff works the way it does is because they do not allow 3rd party variations, everything is "in house"
for instance you have a variety pack of windows based pc makers and google android.
apple makes apple, dell is not allowed to make apple, neither is anyone else. but anyone can make a pc or android device (microsoft/google licensed)
anyone that does or tries to gets sued out of the market.
ibm os/2 was a thing there are arguments about that whole mess (who stole from who) ibm/microsoft/apple in that time period
linux based software is what a lot of manufactures settled on for a while (i think, just going off what i have seen)
none of them have created there own vehicle software from scratch that I am aware of
I am admittedly part idiot, but there has to be some universal functionality for vehicles like OBD otherwise no one would be able to fix anything without every manufacture having a repair shop in every little nook and cranny town. apple would have to open the doors and allow variations to there software code.

 

[Mean_Green]

On software taking control of vehicles ... we already have some kind of lane change thing and some level of collision avoidance. I don't have a vehicle with those 'features' and probably never will. But now I see mention that the Gobbermint will require some sort of automatic braking at some point.

 

[Doubeleive]

On software taking control of vehicles ... we already have some kind of lane change thing and some level of collision avoidance. I don't have a vehicle with those 'features' and probably never will. But now I see mention that the Gobbermint will require some sort of automatic braking at some point.

that stuff is annoying as hell to me, simply because I do not "conform" to driving like a normal person. always beeping beeping beeping no thanks I just turn it off.

 

[ZKWBQD]

Just saw this interview with Jim Farley (Ford CEO), and he makes some very telling comments about modern cars, and in particular, EVs. Paging Ms Mary, are you listening?

He admits what we’ve all suspected for a long time: they’re not software companies, but they better become one and not treat it like an afterthought. It also explains a lot of the issues we’re seeing with OTA updates.

I’ve linked to the relevant part in the interview:

I NEVER do ANY software updates unless I'm having a definite problem and I SPECIFICALLY KNOW that update will address that problem. When Apple has an update for my Mac, you can click on a link, and it will detail EVERY single thing that update does. General Motors does not do this. I have NEVER done ANY updates on my Tahoe. I'm perfectly happy with how it is working. Remember, it is VERY common for updates TO BREAK THINGS that were working or to TAKE FEATURES AWAY from you that you enjoy. A friend did a software update on his vehicle. Now every time he puts the car in reverse it emits a loud beeping sound like a dump truck backing up. Moreover, if for some reason, I hate the update that was done to my Mac. I can easily revert back to its previous state. You cannot do this with General Motors. You are stuck.

 

[Salvatore Fazzina]

the only reason some of the apple stuff works the way it does is because they do not allow 3rd party variations, everything is "in house"
for instance you have a variety pack of windows based pc makers and google android.
apple makes apple, dell is not allowed to make apple, neither is anyone else. but anyone can make a pc or android device (microsoft/google licensed)
anyone that does or tries to gets sued out of the market.
ibm os/2 was a thing there are arguments about that whole mess (who stole from who) ibm/microsoft/apple in that time period
linux based software is what a lot of manufactures settled on for a while (i think, just going off what i have seen)
none of them have created there own vehicle software from scratch that I am aware of
I am admittedly part idiot, but there has to be some universal functionality for vehicles like OBD otherwise no one would be able to fix anything without every manufacture having a repair shop in every little nook and cranny town. apple would have to open the doors and allow variations to there software code.

Generally speaking, when you have a company that controls the hardware and the software, both tend to work very well together. Apple controls, both hardware, Manufacturing and the software coding and both are designed to work together from the beginning. That's why I say Apple is a good example.