3 ms·

The Tesla dashboard should be predominantly a real time system. (It appears not to be.) Different features of the dashboard should be implemented as different

The Tesla dashboard should be predominantly a real time system. (It appears not to be.) Different features of the dashboard should be implemented as different services, ideally on different processors or different virtual processors. They should have fixed time sliced allocation. Limit the impact of one process interacting with another. The different processes should all send and receive visual/touch IO to a master display server. The master display server should be a hard real time system. I think we all know this is really how it should be done, it's just comical that Tesla says NO! and does it their own unsafe way. They don't treat the dashboard as safety critical. Despite that is where all essential warnings show up, in addition to the speedometer. You can easily lose access to all those while driving. I have multiple times witnessed the dashboard reboot for a few minutes while driving. I think the long term outcome is that Tesla mostly gets away with this, other car manufacturers attempt to copy their system with extremely poor results, dangerous failures result, and regulations are created. (Disclosure: M3 owner, grumpy engineer.)

bumby 7y ago
It would be interesting to see how they categorize their systems as safety critical (or not). In my line of work, if it displays real time information to make safety critical decisions, it’s safety critical software
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  Well that there is a problem with Tesla. They have that extreme secrecy culture. So no, you can’t see how they categorize it.
- URSpider94 7y ago
  My interpretation is that they do not consider the infotainment display or associated processor to be safety-critical. All of the safety-critical stuff is in one or more separate processors that stay running if the dash computer crashes.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I can see that perspective as long as the processors are segregated and the display doesn’t display any info necessary to mitigate a hazard. The problem with a lot of software on embedded systems is that it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and be one or two degrees away from declaring it critical. If everything is critical then nothing is
Silhouette 7y ago
I think the long term outcome is that Tesla mostly gets away with this, other car manufacturers attempt to copy their system with extremely poor results, dangerous failures result, and regulations are created. I am not generally in favour of regulating software development, for the simple reason that I don't think as an industry we really understand how to do that effectively yet and consequently I think we'd get regulations written by high profile fools rather than careful engineers. However, I am getting deeply concerned about casual programming standards and the inevitable bugs that follow now applying not just to random games and other stuff that doesn't really matter but also to real physical devices with real physical implications when things go wrong. Creating the regulations after the fact won't help much if the next remote hack, instead of just stranding one aware volunteer in a still dangerous situation in the middle of a fast-moving road, is instead something like accelerating all cars of a certain model that are within range to their maximum speed by deceiving the cruise control. We need more grumpy engineers, and we need very public warnings from credible groups of them about the dangers here, so the people buying these vehicles know what they're really getting, and so the politicians and corporate executives and investors know that if they don't act then there will be nowhere to hide if the big disaster happens on their watch.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bumby 7y ago

It would be interesting to see how they categorize their systems as safety critical (or not). In my line of work, if it displays real time information to make safety critical decisions, it’s safety critical software

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
Well that there is a problem with Tesla. They have that extreme secrecy culture. So no, you can’t see how they categorize it.
URSpider94 7y ago
My interpretation is that they do not consider the infotainment display or associated processor to be safety-critical. All of the safety-critical stuff is in one or more separate processors that stay running if the dash computer crashes.
- bumby 7y ago
  I can see that perspective as long as the processors are segregated and the display doesn’t display any info necessary to mitigate a hazard. The problem with a lot of software on embedded systems is that it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and be one or two degrees away from declaring it critical. If everything is critical then nothing is

Silhouette 7y ago

I think the long term outcome is that Tesla mostly gets away with this, other car manufacturers attempt to copy their system with extremely poor results, dangerous failures result, and regulations are created. I am not generally in favour of regulating software development, for the simple reason that I don't think as an industry we really understand how to do that effectively yet and consequently I think we'd get regulations written by high profile fools rather than careful engineers. However, I am getting deeply concerned about casual programming standards and the inevitable bugs that follow now applying not just to random games and other stuff that doesn't really matter but also to real physical devices with real physical implications when things go wrong. Creating the regulations after the fact won't help much if the next remote hack, instead of just stranding one aware volunteer in a still dangerous situation in the middle of a fast-moving road, is instead something like accelerating all cars of a certain model that are within range to their maximum speed by deceiving the cruise control. We need more grumpy engineers, and we need very public warnings from credible groups of them about the dangers here, so the people buying these vehicles know what they're really getting, and so the politicians and corporate executives and investors know that if they don't act then there will be nowhere to hide if the big disaster happens on their watch.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]