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The unavoidable Tesla comparison sorry, I am not convinced. What functionality is better? Not everybody is interested in fart apps or Steam games or other quest

by kensai 4y ago

The unavoidable Tesla comparison sorry, I am not convinced. What functionality is better? Not everybody is interested in fart apps or Steam games or other questionable "extra" functionality. OK, let's just say that Tesla has better software. It lacks however in other departments, such a build quality. But fact of the matter is here the following: if one reads The Verge article, his complains are mainly about the slow software and some unlabeled functionality here and there. Which can easily be fixed in a future iteration (ie MY23). He does not complain about the software being "that bad" or needing to offer fart apps or anything. Just slow. Hardware problem, not software. And yes, the same applies for many car companies, even ones that sell premium products (BMW, etc). They need to offer faster processors.

fastball 4y ago
You can write programs that run very well on underpowered hardware. The fact that they haven't does not indicate that they "just didn't buy a fast enough computer", it indicates that the quality of their software is low. Sure, for MY23 they can upgrade the hardware, but probably also they will add more functionality to their software. And if they're not careful (which it seems like currently they are not), those features will require more compute, causing the software to remain slow regardless of hardware upgrades.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
In embedded, software developers are always running up against the bean-counters trying to get the BOM cost lower. You can pretty much expect an underpowered SoC. It's the job of embedded developers to work with the constraints. This isn't end consumer hardware. The cost of the device is multiplied by the number of cars shipped. So you keep it as low as you can. You have a budget of cycles between display refreshes. Often the perception of slowness is not that the throughput of the software is too much for the hardware, it's that the work is done in the wrong place or wrong time. It's that the budget was poorly allocated -- work was done in the wrong thread or on the wrong core or in the wrong loop or at the wrong time. All of this to say the perception of bad performance on these type of devices can honestly just come down to sloppy programming, not the power of the device. Because in the end, what are they actually doing? Mostly just moving stuff around on the screen. The thing isn't computing a giant spreadsheet or blockchain crap. It's telling the MCU in the climate system to turn on. So you learn how your display controller works, and you optimize optimize optimize.
nemothekid 4y ago
>The unavoidable Tesla comparison sorry, I am not convinced. What functionality is better? I never said the functionality was better. My post says "The functionality here isn’t materially different from what Tesla offered." 5 year old Teslas, today, do not have laggy interfaces. Your claim that it will be "easily" fixed will remain to be seen. Ford isn't new to touch screen interfaces. Every consumer has been opining for Android Auto/Carplay because they know stock interfaces will be laggy, unresponsive and unintuitive. This has been an issue for years, before EVs, and it takes a very healthy amount of optimism to believe it will just be fixed next year. The iPhone was able to have smooth, responsive interfaces on a battery powered device in 2008. That was 14 years ago. How much more powerful of a device do you need than the iPhone 3GS to open a touch screen menu at 30fps? Only a handful of auto manufacturers care about software, and it's been that way for years. This isn't new.

by kensai 4y ago

fastball 4y ago

You can write programs that run very well on underpowered hardware. The fact that they haven't does not indicate that they "just didn't buy a fast enough computer", it indicates that the quality of their software is low. Sure, for MY23 they can upgrade the hardware, but probably also they will add more functionality to their software. And if they're not careful (which it seems like currently they are not), those features will require more compute, causing the software to remain slow regardless of hardware upgrades.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

In embedded, software developers are always running up against the bean-counters trying to get the BOM cost lower. You can pretty much expect an underpowered SoC. It's the job of embedded developers to work with the constraints. This isn't end consumer hardware. The cost of the device is multiplied by the number of cars shipped. So you keep it as low as you can. You have a budget of cycles between display refreshes. Often the perception of slowness is not that the throughput of the software is too much for the hardware, it's that the work is done in the wrong place or wrong time. It's that the budget was poorly allocated -- work was done in the wrong thread or on the wrong core or in the wrong loop or at the wrong time. All of this to say the perception of bad performance on these type of devices can honestly just come down to sloppy programming, not the power of the device. Because in the end, what are they actually doing? Mostly just moving stuff around on the screen. The thing isn't computing a giant spreadsheet or blockchain crap. It's telling the MCU in the climate system to turn on. So you learn how your display controller works, and you optimize optimize optimize.

nemothekid 4y ago

>The unavoidable Tesla comparison sorry, I am not convinced. What functionality is better? I never said the functionality was better. My post says "The functionality here isn’t materially different from what Tesla offered." 5 year old Teslas, today, do not have laggy interfaces. Your claim that it will be "easily" fixed will remain to be seen. Ford isn't new to touch screen interfaces. Every consumer has been opining for Android Auto/Carplay because they know stock interfaces will be laggy, unresponsive and unintuitive. This has been an issue for years, before EVs, and it takes a very healthy amount of optimism to believe it will just be fixed next year. The iPhone was able to have smooth, responsive interfaces on a battery powered device in 2008. That was 14 years ago. How much more powerful of a device do you need than the iPhone 3GS to open a touch screen menu at 30fps? Only a handful of auto manufacturers care about software, and it's been that way for years. This isn't new.