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"Google shows video of real-world performance and extensively details real-world issues, logs millions of autonomous miles" Lame! Vaporware! "Audi releases a

"Google shows video of real-world performance and extensively details real-world issues, logs millions of autonomous miles" Lame! Vaporware! "Audi releases a press-release, no video, no demonstration, no real-world evidence" European manufacturers sure are capable and know what they're doing! What a refreshing change!

stouset 9y ago
No kidding. As a developer and infosec person, having seen countless non-tech company forays into software (take Toyota for example), I'm extraordinarily skeptical of automotive companies rolling out something of this difficulty. I just don't see it as plausible that a company with little to no roots in software managed to bring on a large enough team from scratch, that understands software engineering well enough to build something like this to a high level of reliability. Does anyone here really think that the same or similar teams responsible for the god-awful, un-updateable, UI disaster that is the center console nav in any car ever have somehow elegantly conquered autonomous driving?
- andmarios 9y ago
  It is common for people who write UIs and APIs to call themselves software engineers, but real engineering is what AUDI and other automakers do for a living. Demonstrating a “god-awful” UI as evidence that they can't do autonomous driving is silly imo. We talk about people who design cars that can safely travel at 150+ kph. The tiniest bug or design failure can kill their clients in a spectacular way. We trust these guys with our lives. Autonomous driving isn't about the UI, it is about math, systems, modeling, safety valves, rigorous testing. This is engineering and isn't taught in CS but in ECE classes. It is easier for an engineer to learn git than for a developer to learn differential equations. Airplanes, cars etc are controlled by microprocessors for the couple last decades. Sure, writing a polished website in angular is cool but engineers write the software that runs pacemakers. How can they not understand reliability?
  - stouset 9y ago
    The god-awful UI was not central to my point. Your talk about their hardware engineering chops completely ignores the very real evidence we have that their software engineering efforts are utterly horrifying. Have you seen the reports about Toyota's software development practices? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551 By all accounts, while Toyota is a particularly bad offender, these kinds of problems are not unique to them. Software engineering is not something that historically-hardware manufacturing companies tend to have the culture to perform well.
  - koffiezet 9y ago
    The problem is that most hardware companies (including car makers) simply don't understand software. The other way around is also true: software companies do not understand hardware.
- honestoHeminway 9y ago
  If a car company would try to fly to the moon tomorrow, cause they are experts when it comes to motion, everyone would roll with there eyes. This is basically a similar feet in autonomous robotics, whose transport constraints happen to be a person carrying car. Its only if you formulate it as such, the gap becomes more obvious.
Turbots 9y ago
Google did this with a prototype Audi released it for a production car you can order right now... I'm sure they won't boast about stuff they can't deliver. My wife drives an Audi A4 from 2008 and it still has a better and faster GPS than my current (albeit cheap) Renault

stouset 9y ago

No kidding. As a developer and infosec person, having seen countless non-tech company forays into software (take Toyota for example), I'm extraordinarily skeptical of automotive companies rolling out something of this difficulty. I just don't see it as plausible that a company with little to no roots in software managed to bring on a large enough team from scratch, that understands software engineering well enough to build something like this to a high level of reliability. Does anyone here really think that the same or similar teams responsible for the god-awful, un-updateable, UI disaster that is the center console nav in any car ever have somehow elegantly conquered autonomous driving?

andmarios 9y ago
It is common for people who write UIs and APIs to call themselves software engineers, but real engineering is what AUDI and other automakers do for a living. Demonstrating a “god-awful” UI as evidence that they can't do autonomous driving is silly imo. We talk about people who design cars that can safely travel at 150+ kph. The tiniest bug or design failure can kill their clients in a spectacular way. We trust these guys with our lives. Autonomous driving isn't about the UI, it is about math, systems, modeling, safety valves, rigorous testing. This is engineering and isn't taught in CS but in ECE classes. It is easier for an engineer to learn git than for a developer to learn differential equations. Airplanes, cars etc are controlled by microprocessors for the couple last decades. Sure, writing a polished website in angular is cool but engineers write the software that runs pacemakers. How can they not understand reliability?
- stouset 9y ago
  The god-awful UI was not central to my point. Your talk about their hardware engineering chops completely ignores the very real evidence we have that their software engineering efforts are utterly horrifying. Have you seen the reports about Toyota's software development practices? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551 By all accounts, while Toyota is a particularly bad offender, these kinds of problems are not unique to them. Software engineering is not something that historically-hardware manufacturing companies tend to have the culture to perform well.
- koffiezet 9y ago
  The problem is that most hardware companies (including car makers) simply don't understand software. The other way around is also true: software companies do not understand hardware.
honestoHeminway 9y ago
If a car company would try to fly to the moon tomorrow, cause they are experts when it comes to motion, everyone would roll with there eyes. This is basically a similar feet in autonomous robotics, whose transport constraints happen to be a person carrying car. Its only if you formulate it as such, the gap becomes more obvious.

Turbots 9y ago

Google did this with a prototype Audi released it for a production car you can order right now... I'm sure they won't boast about stuff they can't deliver. My wife drives an Audi A4 from 2008 and it still has a better and faster GPS than my current (albeit cheap) Renault