5 ms·

Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Toyota's brake recall back around 2010 was directly related to its rapid global production expansion in an effort to be

Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Toyota's brake recall back around 2010 was directly related to its rapid global production expansion in an effort to become #1 in sales volume. Their QC and reliability/consistency across geographies suffered as a result. Iirc the CEO himself was quoted saying the company lost sight of what should really matter -- making products that fulfill the needs and desires of their customers. (sorry, it's been many years so I can't really pull up the source) When's the last time anyone's said "hey look at this #1 by sales volume car I just got"?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kuschku 10y ago
> Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Not really. The German government (through the federal government, the state of Lower Saxony, and the investment bank of the council of states) owns a large share of VW, and so a lot of this money goes directly back into the tax budget.
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  I was sort of wondering why VW wasn't fined to the extent of the value of the company minus $1, or some similar scheme to effectively nationalize the company. I guess that wouldn’t accomplish much…
veli_joza 10y ago
Being in automotive embedded industry, I'm sad to report that Toyota's unintended acceleration doesn't have a single traceable cause. It's result of sloppiness and bad practices across the industry. I wish I could post some code here for your inspection. Suffice to say that what I've encountered is 90s-style C code with technical debt that noone wants to pay. Once I stumbled upon some code that was actually well structured and readable. Turned out it was open-source graphics stack, developed outside the automotive industry. Some modern practices are slowly being incorporated, but the industry is to inert to catch up. It's not only about developers, but there are also serious issues with tooling, determining project priorities, on-site and off-site communication, labor outsourcing and quality control.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kuschku 10y ago

> Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Not really. The German government (through the federal government, the state of Lower Saxony, and the investment bank of the council of states) owns a large share of VW, and so a lot of this money goes directly back into the tax budget.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I was sort of wondering why VW wasn't fined to the extent of the value of the company minus $1, or some similar scheme to effectively nationalize the company. I guess that wouldn’t accomplish much…

veli_joza 10y ago

Being in automotive embedded industry, I'm sad to report that Toyota's unintended acceleration doesn't have a single traceable cause. It's result of sloppiness and bad practices across the industry. I wish I could post some code here for your inspection. Suffice to say that what I've encountered is 90s-style C code with technical debt that noone wants to pay. Once I stumbled upon some code that was actually well structured and readable. Turned out it was open-source graphics stack, developed outside the automotive industry. Some modern practices are slowly being incorporated, but the industry is to inert to catch up. It's not only about developers, but there are also serious issues with tooling, determining project priorities, on-site and off-site communication, labor outsourcing and quality control.