6 ms·

I drive an old car that is missing a nice, modern infotainment systems, so my experience is out of date, but several crashes in 8 months seems pretty frequent?

I drive an old car that is missing a nice, modern infotainment systems, so my experience is out of date, but several crashes in 8 months seems pretty frequent? My expectation is that it would not happen at all.

omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
It is for an older infotainment system, but my sense is that it's normal for newer systems to have bugs. https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-b9-platform-discussion-212/mmi-freezing-anyone-else-2903641/page2/ https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-b9-platform-discussion-2...
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  “Normal” as in the normalization of deviance is defined as: The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
    People can have older style infotainment systems with fewer to virtually no bugs and significantly less performance or they can have what are essentially computers with much better performance and significantly more bugs. The trend has been towards better performance at the cost of normalizing bugs, but at some point maybe we will normalize poor performance to minimize bugs.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      Better performance in what sense? Does your car really need to be able to run a web-browser? It definitely doesn’t, but maybe that is what people want? Do electric cars with fragile entertainment systems get better mileage? Are they safer in an accident? Humans do seem to be attracted to bright flashing lights, so perhaps a car running a web browser appeals to that particular defect in our make up.
      - omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
        Better performance in the same way a laptop performs better than a microwave, or a mechanical device. People were fine with mechanical speedometers, but manufactures moved to microprocessors because of cost/features, and seem to be moving towards mainstream computers for the same reason. People don't need these features. A mechanical speedo would suffice, but they seem to want them. Along the same lines, people would be fine if the only car available were some kind of utilitarian hatch or station wagon, but people want cars with different attributes and manufactures offer and optimize for those attributes. Having in car entertainment can help to make longer refueling stops more pleasant, which arguably helps with adoption. But it's not a requirement. Tesla could have skipped it and lived with however many different sales, in the same way including it led to different sales.
userbinator 7y ago
I have a car which doesn't require any computer to drive, and the instruments definitely don't malfunction anywhere that frequently --- and when they do, it's not all of them at once. I think the only things that I've had to replace in over a decade were an indicator bulb and a speedometer drive gear. 8 months between failures definitely sounds unacceptable to me.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  It's not 8 months between failures, the claim was (if I read it correctly) 2-3 failures in 8 months. That's… not good.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  You don't need to go full luddite on this. I have a 10yo Prius, which obviously for the hybrid system has a pretty complicated computer system. I've only had to have a few software updates which were done when servicing. The infotainment system is garbage compared to modern cars - it has Bluetooth though, so it does what I need it to do - but the drive system works as well as it did when I bought it. The only issue I've had is when the 12v battery needed replacing and it was -20c outside, half of the dash (the trip computer, efficiency and seatbelt display) wasn't working. I'm not exactly sure what new features they could add with just a software change.
tyfon 7y ago
It still works as a "normal car" when the computers are crashed so it matches your expectations in that respect. The MCU and FSD computers are independent of the driving systems.
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>My expectation is that it would not happen at all. I had a 2011 Nissan, and if you went somewhere the nav system didn't recognize (like a new highway) the nav interface would freeze and reboot. Was annoying. Other than that, I've never had a car UI crash.

omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago

It is for an older infotainment system, but my sense is that it's normal for newer systems to have bugs. https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-b9-platform-discussion-212/mmi-freezing-anyone-else-2903641/page2/ https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-b9-platform-discussion-2...

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
“Normal” as in the normalization of deviance is defined as: The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable.
- omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
  People can have older style infotainment systems with fewer to virtually no bugs and significantly less performance or they can have what are essentially computers with much better performance and significantly more bugs. The trend has been towards better performance at the cost of normalizing bugs, but at some point maybe we will normalize poor performance to minimize bugs.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Better performance in what sense? Does your car really need to be able to run a web-browser? It definitely doesn’t, but maybe that is what people want? Do electric cars with fragile entertainment systems get better mileage? Are they safer in an accident? Humans do seem to be attracted to bright flashing lights, so perhaps a car running a web browser appeals to that particular defect in our make up.
    - omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
      Better performance in the same way a laptop performs better than a microwave, or a mechanical device. People were fine with mechanical speedometers, but manufactures moved to microprocessors because of cost/features, and seem to be moving towards mainstream computers for the same reason. People don't need these features. A mechanical speedo would suffice, but they seem to want them. Along the same lines, people would be fine if the only car available were some kind of utilitarian hatch or station wagon, but people want cars with different attributes and manufactures offer and optimize for those attributes. Having in car entertainment can help to make longer refueling stops more pleasant, which arguably helps with adoption. But it's not a requirement. Tesla could have skipped it and lived with however many different sales, in the same way including it led to different sales.

userbinator 7y ago

I have a car which doesn't require any computer to drive, and the instruments definitely don't malfunction anywhere that frequently --- and when they do, it's not all of them at once. I think the only things that I've had to replace in over a decade were an indicator bulb and a speedometer drive gear. 8 months between failures definitely sounds unacceptable to me.

inferiorhuman 7y ago
It's not 8 months between failures, the claim was (if I read it correctly) 2-3 failures in 8 months. That's… not good.
fyfy18 7y ago
You don't need to go full luddite on this. I have a 10yo Prius, which obviously for the hybrid system has a pretty complicated computer system. I've only had to have a few software updates which were done when servicing. The infotainment system is garbage compared to modern cars - it has Bluetooth though, so it does what I need it to do - but the drive system works as well as it did when I bought it. The only issue I've had is when the 12v battery needed replacing and it was -20c outside, half of the dash (the trip computer, efficiency and seatbelt display) wasn't working. I'm not exactly sure what new features they could add with just a software change.

tyfon 7y ago

It still works as a "normal car" when the computers are crashed so it matches your expectations in that respect. The MCU and FSD computers are independent of the driving systems.

aguyfromnb 7y ago

>My expectation is that it would not happen at all. I had a 2011 Nissan, and if you went somewhere the nav system didn't recognize (like a new highway) the nav interface would freeze and reboot. Was annoying. Other than that, I've never had a car UI crash.