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German here. My Problem with the German Car Industry is that they still see the car as a product, not as a platform. A car is a major investment and one that st

German here. My Problem with the German Car Industry is that they still see the car as a product, not as a platform. A car is a major investment and one that sticks to me for a while. I must rely on the car manufactures to continuously push updates and improve the lane-keeping assistant etc. (Maybe even the style of the UI?). I don't see this happening, at all. The lane keeping assistants get shipped and then forgotten, everybody is working on a new integration that is maybe coming out in years (crazy to think about if your only used to software-cycles). I don't want to be in the situation that i can't pair my smartphone with my car next year because mercedes doesn't bother updating it's software. Tesla does OTA updates and sees it's car as a platform, at least in my perspective. Software is all i know and they don't understand software yet. Softwares lives, unsupported software is dead. I don't think that they are completely missing the electric car trend. They are being cautious, but everybody is at least getting it's feet wet. I hope they can then "just" scale their production. I don't think this is enough, but i hope they can turn around quickly enough when this gets serious. But overall the future doesn't look too good. Besides, i don't have the money right now to buy a car (also i don't want to).

Matthias247 10y ago
As someone who worked at one of the OEMs in the german automotive industry I can second this. However the big problem is that the complete engineering process that many of those companies have does not allow for any updates and a car platform. The process is mostly: You write dozens of specifications for specific components of a car and then get contracts with external suppliers that develop and produce those. After the development cycle for a specific model is over (~3-4years) all these components have been integrated into a complete car that gets sold. When the next development cycle starts basically everything is done from the beginning, since the components may be developed and produced by completely different suppliers. So no chance to update anything, since the component might have not only different hardware, but also completely different software - even though it might look the same from user perspective. One way to solve this would be to develop more software and components in-house in order to continuously improve them. But as this is against the established engineering process it will only be very slowly introduced - if at all. In addition to that these companies mostly don't understand software (and software development), so the results won't be great in the beginning.
- blumentopf 10y ago
  BMW has a subsidiary in Ulm (BMW Car-IT) working on the next head unit. This will be designed and engineered in-house, at least to a large extent. Any opinion on that? The current head unit generation is apparently sourced from a 3rd party. I interviewed there once, it was almost funny how much they stressed that they're a software company, not a car company, kind of like self-hypnosis. (Disclosure: I didn't get the job, neither wanted it after seeing the situation on-site; didn't fit into their culture.) (Fun fact: Company is full of ex-Nokians who they apparently scooped up when the local Nokia subsidiary had layoffs.)
  - LeanderK 10y ago
    A bit off-topic. I recently had to endure an azure evangelist telling me on literally every slide that they are now open (they had a big blue "open"-rectangle on the upper-right edge). A moment later i got very, very frustrated because a feature i had to use didn't work with the java-library (https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-java/issues/465 https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-java/issues/465 open since February!), the node.js library and the Rest interface lacked critical features so i was unable to authenticate programmatically (i think). Since i am working on a Mac and don't have windows, i couldn't use the C# library because it required dlls. In the end I had to code a simple proxy server in C# in a text-editor on my mac and then push it to a azure server running windows, compile it there and run it, just to get the data to my program. It was really a horrible experience. Since then i just assume that somebody that really has to stress something has in reality big problems/deficits in dealing with it.
    - JBReefer 10y ago
      I love this comment. Apple doesn't have to stress that they're not a fruit farm, because you know what they honestly are.
      - GauntletWizard 10y ago
        Yes. I will not buy from anywhere with "Quality" in their name, because I know that that is the thing they are absolutely not.
blub 10y ago
Platforms are really great for the platform owners because they create lock-in. A product is something you buy and own. It might not have the latest whizbang features but it does its job and won't stop working because a new version comes out. Kind of like software before it became apps or mobile phones before they became smart. Cars are indeed becoming platforms. From Renault's leased batteries which contain some form of DRM, cloud-based access in Toyotas to Teslas updates and analytics. None of the above has really existed for a long time i.e. more than 10 years, so we don't know what will happen to these platform cars.
edblarney 10y ago
Cars are products not platforms, and it will be thus for the time being. Cars are very complex. There's a lot going on. Changes to one small thing, affect many other things. Safety is a huge concern, and everything has to be tested, tested, tested. I don't think Tesla's car is really a 'platform' - rather, maybe that have a more advanced and seamless means to update their software, after all, they are pretty new. Perhaps internally - the software could be more 'platform-like' - in which case, re-using components could be easier, and upgrading legacy cars could be much more feasible. Maybe we're arguing semantics ... but from a driver's perspective ... it's a 'product'. Some companies, because of their internal processes, just do a better job of keeping things up to date.
- Animats 10y ago
  Tesla has cars, not platforms. There's not much commonality between Tesla models. Ford has five car platforms with 28 models built on them. In the auto business, "platforms" are a manufacturing economy; they mean little to the consumer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms
  - BoorishBears 10y ago
    The entire comment chain is clearly using "platform" in a way that means something wholly different than a vehicle platform
    - edblarney 10y ago
      I was using 'platform' in the computer sense, well, since this is HN :) after all. I used to work at BlackBerry, and we had the 'platform' vs. 'product' debate a lot, but again it was a consumer thing, not internal, i.e. 'is a BlackBerry a solution, or a platform for other things'?
pmyjavec 10y ago
"Besides, i don't have the money right now to buy a car (also i don't want to)." Same, I can't wait for self-driving cars to take over so I can safely ride my bike around ha! Australia, particularly dangerous place for cyclists.

Matthias247 10y ago

As someone who worked at one of the OEMs in the german automotive industry I can second this. However the big problem is that the complete engineering process that many of those companies have does not allow for any updates and a car platform. The process is mostly: You write dozens of specifications for specific components of a car and then get contracts with external suppliers that develop and produce those. After the development cycle for a specific model is over (~3-4years) all these components have been integrated into a complete car that gets sold. When the next development cycle starts basically everything is done from the beginning, since the components may be developed and produced by completely different suppliers. So no chance to update anything, since the component might have not only different hardware, but also completely different software - even though it might look the same from user perspective. One way to solve this would be to develop more software and components in-house in order to continuously improve them. But as this is against the established engineering process it will only be very slowly introduced - if at all. In addition to that these companies mostly don't understand software (and software development), so the results won't be great in the beginning.

blumentopf 10y ago
BMW has a subsidiary in Ulm (BMW Car-IT) working on the next head unit. This will be designed and engineered in-house, at least to a large extent. Any opinion on that? The current head unit generation is apparently sourced from a 3rd party. I interviewed there once, it was almost funny how much they stressed that they're a software company, not a car company, kind of like self-hypnosis. (Disclosure: I didn't get the job, neither wanted it after seeing the situation on-site; didn't fit into their culture.) (Fun fact: Company is full of ex-Nokians who they apparently scooped up when the local Nokia subsidiary had layoffs.)
- LeanderK 10y ago
  A bit off-topic. I recently had to endure an azure evangelist telling me on literally every slide that they are now open (they had a big blue "open"-rectangle on the upper-right edge). A moment later i got very, very frustrated because a feature i had to use didn't work with the java-library (https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-java/issues/465 https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-java/issues/465 open since February!), the node.js library and the Rest interface lacked critical features so i was unable to authenticate programmatically (i think). Since i am working on a Mac and don't have windows, i couldn't use the C# library because it required dlls. In the end I had to code a simple proxy server in C# in a text-editor on my mac and then push it to a azure server running windows, compile it there and run it, just to get the data to my program. It was really a horrible experience. Since then i just assume that somebody that really has to stress something has in reality big problems/deficits in dealing with it.
  - JBReefer 10y ago
    I love this comment. Apple doesn't have to stress that they're not a fruit farm, because you know what they honestly are.
    - GauntletWizard 10y ago
      Yes. I will not buy from anywhere with "Quality" in their name, because I know that that is the thing they are absolutely not.

blub 10y ago

Platforms are really great for the platform owners because they create lock-in. A product is something you buy and own. It might not have the latest whizbang features but it does its job and won't stop working because a new version comes out. Kind of like software before it became apps or mobile phones before they became smart. Cars are indeed becoming platforms. From Renault's leased batteries which contain some form of DRM, cloud-based access in Toyotas to Teslas updates and analytics. None of the above has really existed for a long time i.e. more than 10 years, so we don't know what will happen to these platform cars.

edblarney 10y ago

Cars are products not platforms, and it will be thus for the time being. Cars are very complex. There's a lot going on. Changes to one small thing, affect many other things. Safety is a huge concern, and everything has to be tested, tested, tested. I don't think Tesla's car is really a 'platform' - rather, maybe that have a more advanced and seamless means to update their software, after all, they are pretty new. Perhaps internally - the software could be more 'platform-like' - in which case, re-using components could be easier, and upgrading legacy cars could be much more feasible. Maybe we're arguing semantics ... but from a driver's perspective ... it's a 'product'. Some companies, because of their internal processes, just do a better job of keeping things up to date.

Animats 10y ago
Tesla has cars, not platforms. There's not much commonality between Tesla models. Ford has five car platforms with 28 models built on them. In the auto business, "platforms" are a manufacturing economy; they mean little to the consumer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_platforms
- BoorishBears 10y ago
  The entire comment chain is clearly using "platform" in a way that means something wholly different than a vehicle platform
  - edblarney 10y ago
    I was using 'platform' in the computer sense, well, since this is HN :) after all. I used to work at BlackBerry, and we had the 'platform' vs. 'product' debate a lot, but again it was a consumer thing, not internal, i.e. 'is a BlackBerry a solution, or a platform for other things'?

pmyjavec 10y ago

"Besides, i don't have the money right now to buy a car (also i don't want to)." Same, I can't wait for self-driving cars to take over so I can safely ride my bike around ha! Australia, particularly dangerous place for cyclists.