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Why is this interesting or surprising? Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources. Winning from that

• TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
  These are cars first and foremost. They should not be given a hand waive over "break things and move fast".
  • blattimwind 8y ago
    Indeed. That's the driver's job.
• oxymoron 8y ago
  Remember the Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug and the report that came as a result of the trial. It seems like software is a bit of a second thought for some incumbents too.
  • lowry 8y ago
    It is common knowledge that Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug was completely imaginary, see for example http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game
    • dewey 8y ago
      I started listening to that podcast a few weeks ago, that ones one of my favorite episodes. Can highly recommend it.
    • eequah9L 8y ago
      Check out this, and the linked court transcripts linked therein: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... The security researchers who were expert witnesses in the Toyota case and that analyzed Toyota's source code testified in court that they managed to reproduce the unintended acceleration with a real car on a dynamometer.
      • lowry 8y ago
        Is it what people call fake news nowadays? I once had a project with a major lobbying organisation with links throughout the automotive industry. The one that published regular reports on real vs declared emissions discrepancies long before the VW scandal. They were unanimous when asked about the unintended acceleration bug. It was a case of mass hysteria.
        • arcticfox 8y ago
          Is it possible that the timing on your contact with them made a difference? It seems that NASA/NHTSA concluded in 2011 that it was a mechanical defect, but research concluding in 2013 showed that it was totally possible to have been caused by the software. At least according to the summary based on sources used for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
          • lowry 8y ago
            Hey, The page you refer to has a section "NHTSA and NASA Investigation Verdict" and it says nothing about the software bugs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls#NHTSA_and_NASA_Investigation_Verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
            • linseed 8y ago
              Perhaps have a look at Koopman https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... and Barr http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUBBED.pdf http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUB...
  • liber8 8y ago
    Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the Toyota issues were not caused by any software bug. Most cases were caused by people hitting the wrong pedal. The others were caused by floor mats that were a bit too long, causing the gas pedal to stick. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the-dot-renders-its-verdict-on-toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the...
    • Twirrim 8y ago
      Regardless of whether the acceleration were caused by the software or not, the testimonies for the software experts called in to review Toyota's source code for the case were eye-popping: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... > Skid marks notwithstanding, two of the plaintiffs’ software experts, Phillip Koopman, and Michael Barr, provided fascinating insights into the myriad problems with Toyota’s software development process and its source code – possible bit flips, task deaths that would disable the failsafes, memory corruption, single-point failures, inadequate protections against stack overflow and buffer overflow, single-fault containment regions, thousands of global variables. The list of deficiencies in process and product was lengthy. >There are a large number of functions that are overly complex. By the standard industry metrics some of them are untestable, meaning that it is so complicated a recipe that there is no way to develop a reliable test suite or test methodology to test all the possible things that can happen in it. Some of them are even so complex that they are what is called unmaintainable, which means that if you go in to fix a bug or to make a change, you're likely to create a new bug in the process. Just because your car has the latest version of the firmware -- that is what we call embedded software -- doesn't mean it is safer necessarily than the older one….And that conclusion is that the failsafes are inadequate. The failsafes that they have contain defects or gaps. But on the whole, the safety architecture is a house of cards. It is possible for a large percentage of the failsafes to be disabled at the same time that the throttle control is lost. etc. etc.
      • Avshalom 8y ago
        I mean it's a bit depressing but its only eyepopping if you suffer from murray-gelman amnesia about literally every piece of software even written.
  • deleted 8y ago
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• dswalter 8y ago
  Cars weigh thousands of pounds and routinely drive upwards of 60 miles per hour. The success of the first iPhone or Facebook app didn't depend on using it to navigate through life-and-death situations not only for the users but also for everyone around them. There are places for 'move fast and break things'. But cars move fast already, and they can really break things.
  • stingraycharles 8y ago
    I think this is a naive perspective. I've heard many similar stories from friends that work in the German automotive industry, and I think you would be surprised how many payment systems are tied together (e.g. (insecure) FTP servers to sync daily payments). Every organization has these types of things internally. As an engineer, I don't like it, but it's a fact of life.
    • karpodiem 8y ago
      Banks can reverse transactions if they want to. Tesla's cavalier attitude towards manufacturing has yielded a 14% first pass through rate on the Model 3 line (which is abysmal and may bankrupt the company along with declining M3 demand) vs. the industry standard of ~80% FPT rate. Source - https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-hit-model-3-target-by-reworking-thousands-of-cars-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-hit-model-3-target-by-... We're at the point in the Tesla story similar to that of 2008 where Dr. Berry et el were watching the housing market collapse around them and the banks wouldn't re-price the swaps. Tesla is already bankrupt, most people don't know this yet. But they will.
      • jsight 8y ago
        While I agree that 14% is horrible, that was a point-in-time number that is being compared to an average. One would hope that factories regularly run well above 80%. I'd also bet that some occasionally drop well below it for a day or so. The details matter here and given the quality that I see in the field, I'm not convinced that this is such a horrible situation.
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• Avshalom 8y ago
  because about twice a thread some one claims Tesla Has A Software Culture as a reason that GM or Toyota or VW won't ever be able to compete with them.
  • njloof 8y ago
    They didn’t say it was a good software culture.
• jasonmaydie 8y ago
  well it's interesting because it gives an insight for those of us who aren't there how things actually work. Musk fan or not, you can't deny this has no interest
• ryana 8y ago
  > Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources. Tesla has a larger market cap than Ford, GM, or Honda.
  • beaconstudios 8y ago
    Market cap isn't a measure of the resources a company has at its disposal.
  • 2trill2spill 8y ago
    That's because Tesla has a ridiculous valuation.
• Fnoord 8y ago
  Remember Theranos? For every good success example, there is a good failure example.
  • gammatrigono 8y ago
    Theranos never had a real product or sales and was a fraud from the beginning of institutional investment. Comparing them to Tesla is pointless and has been done to death.
    • Fnoord 8y ago
      My point certainly wasn't to compare Tesla to Theranos. I didn't mention the two in one sentence. My point is that for every good example of a success story (about startups in this case), there's a good story of a failure. And the failures are much more than the successes. If you want to discount the failures because they don't fit your narrative, then you should equally oppose the successes when they don't fit your narrative. TL;DR my post is a reply to a post and should be seen in that context. You've taken my post out of context; please don't do that. Moreover, I recently read the book Bad Blood and I found it interesting to get an inside look at a startup who present themselves better than they actually are. I don't believe that part of the Theranos debacle is so uncommon. The severity and unique market though, are. And, that's actually underlined by the Twitter thread (the pictures). Another similarity is the massive quitting and burnout of quality personal, the fear of being fired and standing up, low morale. Those are, IMO, interesting similarities.
      • gammatrigono 8y ago
        Everyone knows what you're implying when you bring up Theranos in a thread about Tesla.
        • Fnoord 8y ago
          Lets pretend that's true. Then why mention it?
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• bipson 8y ago
  Especially considering that the engineer was partially blaming Bosch as a supplier that made these processes necessary. Bosch supplies VW (includes Audi, Seat, Skoda, ...) and various other large incumbents, as one of the biggest car manufacturer supplier. Why do people think they are considerably better off? Their practices are often equally ridiculous and dangerous. As a rat in that cage you do whatever you need to make things work.
  • sschueller 8y ago
    It sounds more like they didn't follow the specific way bosh requires you to use their HW. I highly double VW or others would use Bosh if hacks are required to get them to work.
    • balp 8y ago
      Updating the software of node are usually in the automotive industry only allowed by trained technicians. Allowing the updates to be done without turning in the car so a shop is the big difference. Software update in is complex and hard and error prone, for quirks like the bosh stuff here. Many of the big players see it as almost impossible to try to do as Tesla and have it done at the users home.
  • digi_owl 8y ago
    Not sure if any of those brands try to blast firmware updates over the net with a "push to prod" mentality...
• coldtea 8y ago
  >Why is this interesting or surprising? Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources First, we're talking about a multi-billion dollar company here (they've raised ~ 15 B), not some small "challenger". Second, your example is the iPhone and Facebook. Those don't have the potential to kill their owners or run over people.
  • radicaldreamer 8y ago
    That’s what it takes to be a challenger in that space. For example, most biotech series As are $100M, because that’s just what it takes to compete (but/lease equipment etc.).
    • coldtea 8y ago
      "Challenger" was used to imply lack of resources for improving software quality. We can't have them be both challenger in that sense, and accept that challenger in their case means multi-billions. Challenger or not, $15 B doesn't explain a totally crappy software engineering process and result even if its just for the infotainment system.
• misiti3780 8y ago
  what about the iphone demo was hacky ?- just curious
  • prolikewh0a 8y ago
    https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as-hell-1441324523 https://gizmodo.com/the-iphones-first-demo-was-buggy-as-hell... >The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn’t play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an e-mail and then surfed the Web. If you did those things in reverse, however, it might not. Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called “the golden path,” a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked. >They had AT&T, the iPhone’s wireless carrier, bring in a portable cell tower, so they knew reception would be strong. Then, with Jobs’s approval, they preprogrammed the phone’s display to always show five bars of signal strength regardless of its true strength. >None of these kludges fixed the iPhone’s biggest problem: it often ran out of memory and had to be restarted if made to do more than a handful of tasks at a time. Jobs had a number of demo units onstage with him to manage this problem. If memory ran low on one, he would switch to another while the first was restarted. But given how many demos Jobs planned, Grignon worried that there were far too many potential points of failure.
    • Corrado 8y ago
      That's actually pretty interesting to me. I specifically remember seeing those multiple iPhones in the demo and wondering what they were for. Jobs kept putting one down and picking up another one to do a different part of the demo. It never occurred to me that the iPhone wasn't fully cooked and couldn't handle the demo without problems. Steve was a full on sales person and was really, really good at presentations.
• blub 8y ago
  As an embedded engineer this was: a) interesting, because it shows how other companies solve (or fail to solve) specific common problems. b) surprising, because I thought they'd be much better at it. Car infotainment is generally not categorized as safety-critical and can be quite similar to regular software development. Having remote access changes things: I always thought their security must be top notch if they had the confidence to launch that. Ssh-ing and deleting files sounds like the opposite of that. Btw, saying that doing things properly increases risk must be the biggest load of nonsense I have ever seen on HN.
  • coatmatter 8y ago
    "Car infotainment" includes the maps and GPS navigation, doesn't it? Something that many many drivers struggle to multitask with.
• mcguire 8y ago
  "Or how Microsoft won the desktop starting from a single user, cooperative multitasking system (vs all the sophisticated Unix-based systems)." All of the what? The only competition on the desktop when Microsoft won was QDOS.
  • ams6110 8y ago
    When Windows came out, there were desktop unix(ish) systems, e.g. from Sun or Apollo. Of course they were an order of magnitude more expensive than a PC, so it's hard to argue that they really competed. At that time, if you needed a unix workstation, a Windows PC was not a viable substitute.
• smartbit 8y ago
  there are 2 kinds of startups: those with shitty software, and those with shitty software and customers
• joe5644774 8y ago
  In 2004 PHP is the standard. Any MYSQL is still the standard.