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I'm also aware of a project from a major automotive supplier to attempt the same thing. From my understanding it's unlikely to succeed because manufacturers vie
by spanktheuser 7y ago
I'm also aware of a project from a major automotive supplier to attempt the same thing. From my understanding it's unlikely to succeed because manufacturers view suppliers as commodity producers of components they find boring like brakes, steering systems, sensors, transmissions, safety systems, fuel pumps, etc. Not as anything resembling a true partner. Not to mention that it would require competitors to collaborate closely in the production of a highly complex piece of software.
That said, how many times have we seen this story in other industries?
1 Legacy corporation is warned that an integrated, consumer-friendly software architecture for [multi-billion product line] is needed, and failure to produce one creates an opportunity for an insurgent competitor and/or commodification by adjacent supply chain players.
2 Leadership laughs and ignores mounting evidence of just such a threat emerging for up to a decade.
3 Lo and behold, prophesied competitor finally emerges and finds immediate market success.
4 Legacy company announces that they'll bring a competing solution to market, promising investors that they'll produce a similar quality OS, but across 39 models, uniting 457 separate component suppliers AND the entire post-purchase product support infrastructure. They're starting today and promise to launch in 12 months.
5 Legacy company lights billion dollar bonfire to distract investors while CTO frantically tries to source a robust embedded operating system with consumer-grade interfaces and feature set.
6 Best case, no one who has such an OS will license it. Worst case, Google will.
7 Leadership jumps ship, legacy company craters or slowly slides into irrelevance, and CEO later gives interviews about how absolutely no one could have seen this coming, with a sidebar complaining about software engineering salaries.
Honestly, this whole narrative is becoming a bit boring at this point. VW is at stage 5. The fact that its leadership consists entirely of charlatans is self-evident.
- magduf 7y ago>That said, how many times have we seen this story in other industries? This is a great post, but it could really use a list of actual examples from other industries.
- r00fus 7y agoPre-Apple cell phones?
- castratikron 7y agoRead about GE Predix. They basically wanted to become a software company and beat AWS in the "industrial" internet of things.
- iforgotpassword 7y agoNot other industry, but Nokia. And Blackberry. IBM is an example where the quick panic solution (original IBM PC) surprisingly was quite successful for a while but also bit them in the ass in the end (modularity and exclusive use of off the shelf parts).
- pjmlp 7y agoPCs would have looked much different had Compaq not been so lucky with their reverse engineering attempt, hence that whole failed PS/2 MCA recovery attempt.
- magduf 7y agoThe MCA bus fiasco was hilarious. Basically, IBM decided it wanted to retake control of the PC and get everyone to abandon the clones, so they came up with the PS/2 and its proprietary MCA bus, and they really thought everyone would suddenly abandon the clones and their open architecture and buy proprietary IBM PS/2 machines that were incompatible with everything. They didn't seem to understand at all that now the cat was out of the bag, they couldn't put it back in. It'd be interesting to see an interview of the idiot executives that hatched up that doomed scheme.
- ryacko 7y agoThe irony though is if they allowed their cars to be modular, they would be able to just mount a tablet flashed with their own operating system. This might prevent them from operating a wide variety of controls from the entertainment dash though.
- dmitriid 7y agoThe cars are already modular. Internally. There are up to 150 different CPUs (meaning different modules) inside a modern car. All from different manufacturers. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOSAR
- ryacko 7y agoCars are modular, but manufactures want to abolish the aftermarket like Apple.
- dmitriid 7y agoLooking at all the electronic internals in a modern car, I'm no longer sure I want an aftermarket :) Already, when looking for/at a car, my first thought is: "is their software engineering team up to the task?"
- castratikron 7y ago>Legacy company announces that they'll bring a competing solution to market, promising investors that they'll produce a similar quality OS, but across 39 models, uniting 457 separate component suppliers AND the entire post-purchase product support infrastructure. They're starting today and promise to launch in 12 months. Yup. Sometimes the only way to make real progress is to burn it all down and start over.
- AJ007 7y agoThe big red flag is when companies pre-announce products that will allegedly be released, long before they are real, but well past the due date they should have already been on the market. This whole thing also sounds a lot like VW’s electric vehicle promises. Why do they do this? Because executives pay is tied to stock price and lots of things can fall apart really fast if the companies cost of capital skyrockets.
- clouddrover 7y ago> This whole thing also sounds a lot like VW’s electric vehicle promises. How? In 2017 Volkswagen said they'll be delivering the ID.3 in 2020: https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/videos/a32794/vw-affordable-electric-car-2020/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/videos/... In 2018 they said production of the ID.3 would start in November, 2019: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volkswagen-id-electric-cars-2019-production/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volkswagen-id-electric-ca... Series production will start in November, 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB5AyAAytZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB5AyAAytZc They are delivering the ID.3 in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ex28SVZXW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ex28SVZXW0 Volkswagen is meeting the targets they set for the ID.3 three years ago.
- weinzierl 7y ago> The fact that its leadership consists entirely of charlatans is self-evident. Charlatans maybe but the real problem is that they are old men with ballpoint pens who proudly claim that they have "petrol in their blood". The real tragedy is that most German automotive managers have no clue about the complexity of modern software and I'd bet most of them would answer the question: "What is more complex, the mechanics or the the software?" with "Mechanics, of course!" without a blink.
- ncmncm 7y agoAsk them which have had more serious engineering attention, and they would say, "Mechanics, of course!" And they would be right. Cars would be bursting into flames around every corner if they were built like software is today.
- orf 7y agoI disagree. A lot of large German auto companies are opening tech hubs here in Lisbon, and from what I’ve heard after speaking to people who work there is that the company is well aware they know absolutely nothing about software and are years behind. So they said screw it, let’s give engineers/hubs freedom to work with whatever technologies they feel would be best, structure themselves and control their output without micromanagement from above. Basically copy some trendy companies and see what happens. One of the hubs adopted extreme programming, which I’m not sure about but perhaps has value in their industry. But all in all from what I’ve heard is it’s working well. There is also a lot of non consumer facing software that compliments a car line. That all needs development and maintenance.
- dmix 7y ago> So they said screw it, let’s give engineers/hubs freedom to work with whatever technologies they feel would be best, structure themselves and control their output without micromanagement from above. Probably because this is what any sane CTO would tell them. But it probably doesn't help much when the above management tells them their task is to build an operating system. Without first getting a whole lot of technical people's feedback first. If they pull it off it could be pretty cool, but considering how much they already have to do to adopt AI, I doubt they'll have the talent or know-how to really pull this off. An interesting question is would it be easier for a tech group to build a better car company, that now suddenly is all about technology and less about designing and running a cost-competitive manufacturing system, than a car company could build a better tech company. But it's clear there's quite a few laws and other barriers to entry to help out the entrenched car companies who have deep local gov ties.
- mongol 7y ago> manufacturers view suppliers as commodity producers of components they find boring like brakes, steering systems, sensors, transmissions, safety systems, fuel pumps, etc Does a car manufacturer really find these things boring? Half are like the blood and oxygen of a car, and also includes some territory for unique selling points.
- jankiehodgpodge 7y agoLook under the bonnet of any VW, Audi, Skoda etc, you'll find that all the sensors, valves, computers (and ECU software), filters and a large amount of the parts are made by Bosch. It'd be interesting to know if they even had the skills in house to build a ICE car from scratch themselves. You can't knock it though, Bosch products tend to be excellent.
- clouddrover 7y ago> VW is at stage 5. No. Volkswagen is at the stage that four years after deciding to bet the company on going electric, deliveries of their new EVs based on their new EV platforms will start next year. Their new software plan goes hand in hand with their EV push. Volkswagen is going to be the world's biggest producer of EVs because they're spending the most money to be it and they have the scale to execute it: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insight-idUSKCN1PV0K4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig... Your narrative doesn't match the reality.