8 ms·

I own a 2021 Volvo and the blinkers doesn’t blink regularly. They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks b

by he0001 4y ago

I own a 2021 Volvo and the blinkers doesn’t blink regularly. They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks blinks in a rapid succession. It’s extremely annoying. There are other bugs, like when you are using the auto pilot where it sometimes may suddenly jerk the wheel even though there is nothing wrong with the road. Scares the shit out of you. That has happened thrice now.

chinathrow 4y ago
What does your dealer say? Your car is under warranty, I assume.
- he0001 4y ago
  That it’s a bug and should be fixed with a upgrade, but it hasn’t been fixed yet.
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    Wow, the jerking also? That is enough for a recall, or should be! If you are in the EU, have you spoken to the consumer ombudsman (or whatever name it has)?
    - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
      The exact same thing was happening to a Volvo I've driven around 5 years ago (I have never chosen Volvo again since then because of it). I don't think they're going to help now.
  - nequo 4y ago
    If you’re in the US, report it to the NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index
- tobyhinloopen 4y ago
  My dealer just said classics like “we can’t reproduce the issue”, “it’s new software, some bugs still need fixing, we can’t do anything about it”, “weird, we looked at it but couldn’t find anything” and “we changed $something and this should fix $issue” (and it didn’t) I’ve been at the dealer 6 times in 7 months to fix random shit on a brand new car and they managed to fix only two things: the ticking sun roof, and the charge port not opening. (Which is kinda annoying on an EV). Some EV fans like to claim EVs are more reliable because they have less moving parts. These people obviously never owned a computer.
  - autotech 4y ago
    For what it's worth, as an auto tech we are limited in what we can do. For a vast majority of car makes, we have no access to anything that happens on the back-end of the control modules. We can look at some data stream on a scan tool, but that is limited at best. There is no debug access or anything of that nature. It's also well outside the skillset of most technicians to delve into software. Also, If you look into the pay plan of most dealer technicians, (flat rate/paid per job) then you understand why we don't want to spend all day looking at your turn signal. We won't get paid for most of the diagnosis time.
    - tobyhinloopen 4y ago
      Your comment perfectly matches the overal attitude of the dealer, and it really pissed me off. I bought a 60k eur car in the same building. I do expect you to waste a day finding an issue on a brand new car. If you don’t want to, don’t sell the POS cars.
londons_explore 4y ago
> They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks blinks in a rapid succession If you had a windows 95 PC controlling the blinker, the exact same bug and symptoms would be totally expected... Do how in 25 years have we not managed to quash this class of bugs? (Where a simple task needs to be done at a certain time, and gets delayed).
- michaelmior 4y ago
  I don't imagine any class of bugs will ever completely disappear. Sure, we know how to write software that is extremely unlikely to suffer from certain classes of bugs and we have better tooling for testing, but ultimately it's dependent on humans.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  If timing is critical, you need an RTOS. (Real time operating system) Or just don't use software. I wouldn't expect the blinker delay to use software, just a timer IC.
- georgyo 4y ago
  In older cars things like blinking lights was done with a dedicated circuit. By putting everything in software, we've actually made this class of bug appear more often.
  - diydsp 4y ago
    That's an underrated point: rust solves memory issues, but now schedule feasibility is outstanding.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  For example, you could have a dedicated "do this thing at this time" processor. It can't be blocked, and if it accepts a job, then it is able to do it on time. The main processor then tells this processor to do all timed tasks.
jrib 4y ago
Similar experience in a subaru. After fighting the lane keep assist feature a couple of times when it got confused and jerked the wheel all of a sudden, we just turned it off permanently.
- diydsp 4y ago
  When passing bikes i always hug the yellow lines to give them space. Lane assist (in a rented beemer) tended to jerk the car straight toward them.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Lane keeping in my Subaru has been amazing. Better than any non Tesla I’ve tried. But sometimes the PID loop is really nasty and while I want to bias to the left of the lane it keeps fighting me. If I let go it throws me into the next lane. It hasn’t happened ever since I learned how the car reacts to that behaviour. But it’s still very, very bad and I hope Subaru’s controls engineers are addressing it.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I appreciate that others are willing to beta test these new car features.
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      Indeed! For a base model car it’s pretty amazing. Now that I’m aware of this PID problem I just avoid it (but it’s still shamefully bad, Subaru…) The rest of the features, however, make this the safest car I’ve driven so far. Adaptive cruise control, reverse automatic braking, and collision avoidance will make all cars safer. I should write about it but the collision avoidance saved me from hitting a cyclist that flew out of a parking lot with a reaction time I wouldn’t be capable of.
      - liketochill 4y ago
        Do you know for sure it is a PID? Error is center of car minus center of lane?
jbverschoor 4y ago
Sounds like a non-RTOS doing RT things
- cj 4y ago
  (RTOS = Real-Time Operating System)
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  First thing that came into my mind when I read the title, there's a reason why even stuff like infotainment was being done by whatever QNX flavors. If i hit the unlock button, I really don't wanna have to wait because of some IO stuff that's preventing the context switch. I'm not so sure anyone actually wants fad buzzword salad frameworks du jour driving their multi-decade lifespan appliances - not a ton of upside in your fridge running fullstack cuberentes docker react node restful AI SAAS on bay area RSUs
  - rgacote 4y ago
    First thing that came to my mind was something doing garbarge collection (obviously not RTOS).
- sgt 4y ago
  - throw827474737 4y ago
    Ok the RT thing is clearly a joke, but the unit test comment hopefully similar, or was that meant seriously? Likely no, otherwise please url for logging a ticket
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      The entire comment is a joke. Commenter does not work for volvo
blub 4y ago
Given that Rust prevents invalid memory accesses and enables fearless concurrency, this is probably caused by some kind of memory leak or deadlock. In this case, the older blinks are possibly not deallocated and slow down the processing of newer blinks. Fortunately automotive software has all sorts of watchdogs and at some point the blink watchdog must kick in and it kills the blink manager which is then restarted and it processes the blink queue in quick succession.
- lenkite 4y ago
  memory safe - correct. But "fearless concurrency" is mostly plain propaganda. Lots of deadlockable code in Rust. You still need to pay close attention to structuring code for concurrency and some libs are deadlock prone in async.
- hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
  It’s so f**ing stupid we’re discussing memory leak or concurrency issues of a TURN SIGNAL. I’m never buying a car from the 2020’s.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  People who say "fearless concurrency" have clearly never debugged a bad concurrency problem. Those strike fear into the heart of any honest hacker, and no amount of nagging from the compiler or good marketing can make concurrency fearless. I understand what the marketing means. But grep your codebase and dependencies for "unsafe"... That should put paid to your fearlessness.
diydsp 4y ago
That is a blatant sign other tasks are not being scheduled properly.
Rygian 4y ago
It's your software version nicknamed Vetinari by any chance? https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/ https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/
keewee7 4y ago
A few years ago Volvo could be considered a premium brand but I now see Danish cops replacing their aging VW Passats with Volvos. Not a good sign.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  I drove an XC90 for a few days a couple of years ago — it was by far the nicest car interior I’ve ever been in, and very thoughtful ergonomically in a lot of ways — little things like the side indicators warning lights being big amber triangles in the A-pillars instead of tiny amber spots in the mirrors. I think it’s more likely the Danish cops got some big fundage.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Aren’t blinkers run by a simple electrical system with no computer?
- sgt 4y ago
  Not since... 2005
mort96 4y ago
Holy shit, those are the kinds of bugs which should make a vehicle not road legal.
tobyhinloopen 4y ago
Same experience here. The new Volvos are extremely buggy and unsafe to drive. Even annoying shit like media controls randomly not responding (including not being able to turn off or change volune), autopilot suddenly wanting to commit suicide, autopilot randomly shutting down, random error messages of stuff not working, random messages for things that were unchanged (child lock engaged, even though it was already engaged) I really like the design choices, and i like the software and audio quality, but once you actually start using the car, it goes downhill fast. I’m glad I got rid of mine. After 3 horrible Volvos and horrible shit service, i’ll never get another one even though I still think they look great. Now driving a Mazda CX-5. Absolutely fault-free, no software issues, runs perfectly.
- przeor 4y ago
  I have opposite experience with Mazda. Now driving XC40
dzhiurgis 4y ago
I’m driving rental MB C-class this week (after 4months of Hyundai Kona EV) and holy smokes it is obnoxious. No bugs per se, but touch-everything is horrible. Tons of warnings, panic breaking, limp mode. Top it with horrible throttle response and this thing reeks of legacy. Sure ride quality and steering is good, but I can see now how people hate touch interfaces.
- flkiwi 4y ago
  I had a rental MB a few months ago and while the build quality and ride were excellent, it remains by a very wide margin the absolute worst car I have ever driven. There were dozens of buttons and knobs and touchpads (so many touchpads!) in the cabin, none of them with any meaningful information about how they are used, much less an obvious use. The interior was utterly barren of visual contrast, so I couldn't discern important information even when it wasn't shouldered out of place by the implacable clutter. It was a car for a hoarder with means. I'm also not exaggerating for effect: I hated it, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I was supposed to operate.
sva_ 4y ago
I think with Volvo it's a bit like with ThinkPad: The quality went downhill after a Chinese acquisition.
- sorenjan 4y ago
  Most if not all development still takes place in Sweden. I think any perceived quality loss is more likely to be because of the increased complexity both in modern cars in general, and because Volvo wants to be more upmarket and premium which leads to more features and therefore bugs. Although I wouldn't consider indicating lights to be a premium feature.
  - Daneel_ 4y ago
    Precisely. It was only after I’d purchased a 2020 Volvo that I realised that they’re trying to compete with the luxury car manufacturers on a fraction of their budget. It shows. I have nearly every safety feature turned off in the car because they all generate false positives at an astounding rate.
  - jeffrallen 4y ago
    You get the left one for free, but if you want to make right turns, you'll need to upgrade to a subscription package.
    - Jabihjo 4y ago
      we should at least get three free blinks per month without the premium subscription
Keyframe 4y ago
I own 2022 Volvo XC90, bought in May. Not a single issue like that. Is there an update of sorts to the software? I remember when I was taking my car from dealership they did update ‘somthing’. Car is awesome btw.
- zdyn5 4y ago
  Agreed - 2022 XC90 with no issues
rightbyte 4y ago
I once fixed a bug where the blinkers were drifting on a bus. If you activated the warning blinkers and waited some 15 minutes it looked insane with the lights blinking left then right. Really annoying to watch.
reaperducer 4y ago
They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks blinks in a rapid succession. Clearly, it's a software issue, not a hardware issue. Hard to believe that software is really cheaper than a 555 timer. I wonder why this decision was made.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Because blinkers aren't on a mechanical switch anymore. You have the "lane change mode" where it blinks a few times, they also blink when the alarm goes off it or when hazard lights go on. 3 different controllers or software becomes an easy choice when CAN is already running everywhere
- Mankaninen 4y ago
  A modern car has >100 ECUs, blink is distributed to a few ECUs, think: front body, rear body, left door, right door plus instrument cluster and maybe a trailer control ECU. It does not look premium if they do not blink in phase so you send CAN command for blinking. (A separate cable introduce cost, weight and faults due to corrosion that are tricky to diagnose, in total you want to avoid that.) If something disturb CAN or an ECU reboots you would get the described behavior. But it is not obvious (at least not to me) that it must be a software error - could easily be hardware designed with too small margins. (I have not worked with this issue at Volvo and do not know the actual cause of the problem.)
  - jeffrallen 4y ago
    Alternatively, you could design the system to fail in a way that was less dangerous. For example, an ECU that controls blinkers does it with a 555 timer, based on a "start blinking" CAN bus command. It resyncs on each new "start blinking " command. It times out after 50 blinks, if no "stop blinking" command comes. This makes each ECU autonomous and responsible for doing "the safe thing", once it has been commanded to. Finding all the new subtle horrible timing problems in this design is left as an exercise for the reader. :)
amenghra 4y ago
My Ford Mach-E has a bunch of similar timing glitches, including blinkers. Sometimes the touch screen doesn’t detect inputs for a second and then all the touches fires at once. I tell myself it’s some component busy GCing for a bit :)
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  People (I assume Ford managers included) underestimate the essential complexity of the systems required to do something as simple as process touches and display a low-latency response to them. Apple makes it look easy.
randerson 4y ago
This seems like a real safety flaw. When someone glances over their shoulder before a lane change, they're looking for maybe 0.5s tops, and they'd expect to see at least one blink from a nearby car's blinker if it were about to change lanes. Yes, people shouldn't rely on everyone signaling, but signaling does make the roads safer and therefore a lack of signaling makes them more dangerous.
coding123 4y ago
You probably have to stop using Bluetooth if you want dependable blinkers on your car. This is so 2022.
zepearl 4y ago
> I own a 2021 Volvo and the blinkers doesn’t blink regularly. Same here (V60 2021), it skips a beat from time to time (now happy to know that I don't have problems with my brain nor ears :) ). Luckily so far I didn't have issues with the autopilot but thanks for the heads-up. On the other hand a few months ago the radio volume got stuck for 15 minutes (couldn't even switch it off) while I was on a pass road with nowhere to stop, luckily it wasn't too loud => this made me think "ok, the media device is not directly a safety-critical subsystem, but what if the volume suddenly goes up to max, and maybe it stays there? Or if the trunk automatically opens? Etc... => tricky to define what is important from a safety perspective in a car...".

by he0001 4y ago

chinathrow 4y ago

What does your dealer say? Your car is under warranty, I assume.

he0001 4y ago
That it’s a bug and should be fixed with a upgrade, but it hasn’t been fixed yet.
- pfortuny 4y ago
  Wow, the jerking also? That is enough for a recall, or should be! If you are in the EU, have you spoken to the consumer ombudsman (or whatever name it has)?
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    The exact same thing was happening to a Volvo I've driven around 5 years ago (I have never chosen Volvo again since then because of it). I don't think they're going to help now.
- nequo 4y ago
  If you’re in the US, report it to the NHTSA: https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index
tobyhinloopen 4y ago
My dealer just said classics like “we can’t reproduce the issue”, “it’s new software, some bugs still need fixing, we can’t do anything about it”, “weird, we looked at it but couldn’t find anything” and “we changed $something and this should fix $issue” (and it didn’t) I’ve been at the dealer 6 times in 7 months to fix random shit on a brand new car and they managed to fix only two things: the ticking sun roof, and the charge port not opening. (Which is kinda annoying on an EV). Some EV fans like to claim EVs are more reliable because they have less moving parts. These people obviously never owned a computer.
- autotech 4y ago
  For what it's worth, as an auto tech we are limited in what we can do. For a vast majority of car makes, we have no access to anything that happens on the back-end of the control modules. We can look at some data stream on a scan tool, but that is limited at best. There is no debug access or anything of that nature. It's also well outside the skillset of most technicians to delve into software. Also, If you look into the pay plan of most dealer technicians, (flat rate/paid per job) then you understand why we don't want to spend all day looking at your turn signal. We won't get paid for most of the diagnosis time.
  - tobyhinloopen 4y ago
    Your comment perfectly matches the overal attitude of the dealer, and it really pissed me off. I bought a 60k eur car in the same building. I do expect you to waste a day finding an issue on a brand new car. If you don’t want to, don’t sell the POS cars.

londons_explore 4y ago

> They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks blinks in a rapid succession If you had a windows 95 PC controlling the blinker, the exact same bug and symptoms would be totally expected... Do how in 25 years have we not managed to quash this class of bugs? (Where a simple task needs to be done at a certain time, and gets delayed).

michaelmior 4y ago
I don't imagine any class of bugs will ever completely disappear. Sure, we know how to write software that is extremely unlikely to suffer from certain classes of bugs and we have better tooling for testing, but ultimately it's dependent on humans.
foobarbecue 4y ago
If timing is critical, you need an RTOS. (Real time operating system) Or just don't use software. I wouldn't expect the blinker delay to use software, just a timer IC.
georgyo 4y ago
In older cars things like blinking lights was done with a dedicated circuit. By putting everything in software, we've actually made this class of bug appear more often.
- diydsp 4y ago
  That's an underrated point: rust solves memory issues, but now schedule feasibility is outstanding.
londons_explore 4y ago
For example, you could have a dedicated "do this thing at this time" processor. It can't be blocked, and if it accepts a job, then it is able to do it on time. The main processor then tells this processor to do all timed tasks.

jrib 4y ago

Similar experience in a subaru. After fighting the lane keep assist feature a couple of times when it got confused and jerked the wheel all of a sudden, we just turned it off permanently.

diydsp 4y ago
When passing bikes i always hug the yellow lines to give them space. Lane assist (in a rented beemer) tended to jerk the car straight toward them.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Lane keeping in my Subaru has been amazing. Better than any non Tesla I’ve tried. But sometimes the PID loop is really nasty and while I want to bias to the left of the lane it keeps fighting me. If I let go it throws me into the next lane. It hasn’t happened ever since I learned how the car reacts to that behaviour. But it’s still very, very bad and I hope Subaru’s controls engineers are addressing it.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I appreciate that others are willing to beta test these new car features.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Indeed! For a base model car it’s pretty amazing. Now that I’m aware of this PID problem I just avoid it (but it’s still shamefully bad, Subaru…) The rest of the features, however, make this the safest car I’ve driven so far. Adaptive cruise control, reverse automatic braking, and collision avoidance will make all cars safer. I should write about it but the collision avoidance saved me from hitting a cyclist that flew out of a parking lot with a reaction time I wouldn’t be capable of.
    - liketochill 4y ago
      Do you know for sure it is a PID? Error is center of car minus center of lane?

jbverschoor 4y ago

Sounds like a non-RTOS doing RT things

cj 4y ago
(RTOS = Real-Time Operating System)
pxmpxm 4y ago
First thing that came into my mind when I read the title, there's a reason why even stuff like infotainment was being done by whatever QNX flavors. If i hit the unlock button, I really don't wanna have to wait because of some IO stuff that's preventing the context switch. I'm not so sure anyone actually wants fad buzzword salad frameworks du jour driving their multi-decade lifespan appliances - not a ton of upside in your fridge running fullstack cuberentes docker react node restful AI SAAS on bay area RSUs
- rgacote 4y ago
  First thing that came to my mind was something doing garbarge collection (obviously not RTOS).
sgt 4y ago
- throw827474737 4y ago
  Ok the RT thing is clearly a joke, but the unit test comment hopefully similar, or was that meant seriously? Likely no, otherwise please url for logging a ticket
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    The entire comment is a joke. Commenter does not work for volvo

blub 4y ago

Given that Rust prevents invalid memory accesses and enables fearless concurrency, this is probably caused by some kind of memory leak or deadlock. In this case, the older blinks are possibly not deallocated and slow down the processing of newer blinks. Fortunately automotive software has all sorts of watchdogs and at some point the blink watchdog must kick in and it kills the blink manager which is then restarted and it processes the blink queue in quick succession.

lenkite 4y ago
memory safe - correct. But "fearless concurrency" is mostly plain propaganda. Lots of deadlockable code in Rust. You still need to pay close attention to structuring code for concurrency and some libs are deadlock prone in async.
hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
It’s so f**ing stupid we’re discussing memory leak or concurrency issues of a TURN SIGNAL. I’m never buying a car from the 2020’s.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jeffrallen 4y ago
People who say "fearless concurrency" have clearly never debugged a bad concurrency problem. Those strike fear into the heart of any honest hacker, and no amount of nagging from the compiler or good marketing can make concurrency fearless. I understand what the marketing means. But grep your codebase and dependencies for "unsafe"... That should put paid to your fearlessness.

diydsp 4y ago

That is a blatant sign other tasks are not being scheduled properly.

Rygian 4y ago

It's your software version nicknamed Vetinari by any chance? https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/ https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/

keewee7 4y ago

A few years ago Volvo could be considered a premium brand but I now see Danish cops replacing their aging VW Passats with Volvos. Not a good sign.

KerrAvon 4y ago
I drove an XC90 for a few days a couple of years ago — it was by far the nicest car interior I’ve ever been in, and very thoughtful ergonomically in a lot of ways — little things like the side indicators warning lights being big amber triangles in the A-pillars instead of tiny amber spots in the mirrors. I think it’s more likely the Danish cops got some big fundage.

Waterluvian 4y ago

Aren’t blinkers run by a simple electrical system with no computer?

sgt 4y ago
Not since... 2005

mort96 4y ago

Holy shit, those are the kinds of bugs which should make a vehicle not road legal.

tobyhinloopen 4y ago

Same experience here. The new Volvos are extremely buggy and unsafe to drive. Even annoying shit like media controls randomly not responding (including not being able to turn off or change volune), autopilot suddenly wanting to commit suicide, autopilot randomly shutting down, random error messages of stuff not working, random messages for things that were unchanged (child lock engaged, even though it was already engaged) I really like the design choices, and i like the software and audio quality, but once you actually start using the car, it goes downhill fast. I’m glad I got rid of mine. After 3 horrible Volvos and horrible shit service, i’ll never get another one even though I still think they look great. Now driving a Mazda CX-5. Absolutely fault-free, no software issues, runs perfectly.

przeor 4y ago
I have opposite experience with Mazda. Now driving XC40

dzhiurgis 4y ago

I’m driving rental MB C-class this week (after 4months of Hyundai Kona EV) and holy smokes it is obnoxious. No bugs per se, but touch-everything is horrible. Tons of warnings, panic breaking, limp mode. Top it with horrible throttle response and this thing reeks of legacy. Sure ride quality and steering is good, but I can see now how people hate touch interfaces.

flkiwi 4y ago
I had a rental MB a few months ago and while the build quality and ride were excellent, it remains by a very wide margin the absolute worst car I have ever driven. There were dozens of buttons and knobs and touchpads (so many touchpads!) in the cabin, none of them with any meaningful information about how they are used, much less an obvious use. The interior was utterly barren of visual contrast, so I couldn't discern important information even when it wasn't shouldered out of place by the implacable clutter. It was a car for a hoarder with means. I'm also not exaggerating for effect: I hated it, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I was supposed to operate.

sva_ 4y ago

I think with Volvo it's a bit like with ThinkPad: The quality went downhill after a Chinese acquisition.

sorenjan 4y ago
Most if not all development still takes place in Sweden. I think any perceived quality loss is more likely to be because of the increased complexity both in modern cars in general, and because Volvo wants to be more upmarket and premium which leads to more features and therefore bugs. Although I wouldn't consider indicating lights to be a premium feature.
- Daneel_ 4y ago
  Precisely. It was only after I’d purchased a 2020 Volvo that I realised that they’re trying to compete with the luxury car manufacturers on a fraction of their budget. It shows. I have nearly every safety feature turned off in the car because they all generate false positives at an astounding rate.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  You get the left one for free, but if you want to make right turns, you'll need to upgrade to a subscription package.
  - Jabihjo 4y ago
    we should at least get three free blinks per month without the premium subscription

Keyframe 4y ago

I own 2022 Volvo XC90, bought in May. Not a single issue like that. Is there an update of sorts to the software? I remember when I was taking my car from dealership they did update ‘somthing’. Car is awesome btw.

zdyn5 4y ago
Agreed - 2022 XC90 with no issues

rightbyte 4y ago

I once fixed a bug where the blinkers were drifting on a bus. If you activated the warning blinkers and waited some 15 minutes it looked insane with the lights blinking left then right. Really annoying to watch.

reaperducer 4y ago

They may blink fine for a awhile but then stops for a period, and then suddenly all missed blinks blinks in a rapid succession. Clearly, it's a software issue, not a hardware issue. Hard to believe that software is really cheaper than a 555 timer. I wonder why this decision was made.

aidenn0 4y ago
Because blinkers aren't on a mechanical switch anymore. You have the "lane change mode" where it blinks a few times, they also blink when the alarm goes off it or when hazard lights go on. 3 different controllers or software becomes an easy choice when CAN is already running everywhere
Mankaninen 4y ago
A modern car has >100 ECUs, blink is distributed to a few ECUs, think: front body, rear body, left door, right door plus instrument cluster and maybe a trailer control ECU. It does not look premium if they do not blink in phase so you send CAN command for blinking. (A separate cable introduce cost, weight and faults due to corrosion that are tricky to diagnose, in total you want to avoid that.) If something disturb CAN or an ECU reboots you would get the described behavior. But it is not obvious (at least not to me) that it must be a software error - could easily be hardware designed with too small margins. (I have not worked with this issue at Volvo and do not know the actual cause of the problem.)
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Alternatively, you could design the system to fail in a way that was less dangerous. For example, an ECU that controls blinkers does it with a 555 timer, based on a "start blinking" CAN bus command. It resyncs on each new "start blinking " command. It times out after 50 blinks, if no "stop blinking" command comes. This makes each ECU autonomous and responsible for doing "the safe thing", once it has been commanded to. Finding all the new subtle horrible timing problems in this design is left as an exercise for the reader. :)

amenghra 4y ago

My Ford Mach-E has a bunch of similar timing glitches, including blinkers. Sometimes the touch screen doesn’t detect inputs for a second and then all the touches fires at once. I tell myself it’s some component busy GCing for a bit :)

KerrAvon 4y ago
People (I assume Ford managers included) underestimate the essential complexity of the systems required to do something as simple as process touches and display a low-latency response to them. Apple makes it look easy.

randerson 4y ago

This seems like a real safety flaw. When someone glances over their shoulder before a lane change, they're looking for maybe 0.5s tops, and they'd expect to see at least one blink from a nearby car's blinker if it were about to change lanes. Yes, people shouldn't rely on everyone signaling, but signaling does make the roads safer and therefore a lack of signaling makes them more dangerous.

coding123 4y ago

You probably have to stop using Bluetooth if you want dependable blinkers on your car. This is so 2022.

zepearl 4y ago

> I own a 2021 Volvo and the blinkers doesn’t blink regularly. Same here (V60 2021), it skips a beat from time to time (now happy to know that I don't have problems with my brain nor ears :) ). Luckily so far I didn't have issues with the autopilot but thanks for the heads-up. On the other hand a few months ago the radio volume got stuck for 15 minutes (couldn't even switch it off) while I was on a pass road with nowhere to stop, luckily it wasn't too loud => this made me think "ok, the media device is not directly a safety-critical subsystem, but what if the volume suddenly goes up to max, and maybe it stays there? Or if the trunk automatically opens? Etc... => tricky to define what is important from a safety perspective in a car...".