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Why do cars need to be patched OTA? Why isn't the code for something as mission critical as a car not written right before it was shipped? I never needed an ECU

Why do cars need to be patched OTA? Why isn't the code for something as mission critical as a car not written right before it was shipped? I never needed an ECU update on a car before? And my infotainment rarely needed one to the point where the handful of times it did get a firmware update it was handled during servicing just fine.

smolder 3y ago
They don't need to be patched OTA. It's ridiculous. The terrible product design practices from other parts of life have unfortunately seeped into automaking.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Why isn't the code for something as mission critical as a car not written right before it was shipped? We OTA spacecraft. We update planes’ software as part of maintenance. We have never written software once. We just accepted the bugs and defects as part of the product’s basket of tradeoffs, marvelling when the occasional manufacturer got it right in the first manufacturing runs. > never needed an ECU update on a car before? There were always weird bugs associated with models that you learned to deal with, or a tendency towards certain failure modes. In extreme cases we recalled.
- outworlder 3y ago
  > We update planes’ software as part of maintenance We don't OTA plane software updates. > We OTA spacecraft. Because we can't realistically bring them back and there's an incredible amount of work that goes into make those updates flawless. Spacecraft are not a mass produced consumer product driven by profits and are less likely to have corners cut.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Sure. We still update the software. The tool which airlines use to create update blobs is even online [1]. > Because we can't realistically bring them back We couldn’t always OTA spacecraft. Back then we just lost them. The point is in even high-stakes games we don’t write flawless software. Now software in cares is doing more. There will be bugs. Pretending there won’t is delusional. What we can do is minimise safety-critical bugs by forcing standardisation and certifciation in those components, even if that slows down innovation, and ensuring timely patches. That’s easier with digital than analog, which in turn makes manufacturers more willing to admit they made a mistake. [1] https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2010_q4/4/ https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2010...
    - thereddaikon 3y ago
      None of this is a compelling argument for car OTA software updates.

smolder 3y ago

They don't need to be patched OTA. It's ridiculous. The terrible product design practices from other parts of life have unfortunately seeped into automaking.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Why isn't the code for something as mission critical as a car not written right before it was shipped? We OTA spacecraft. We update planes’ software as part of maintenance. We have never written software once. We just accepted the bugs and defects as part of the product’s basket of tradeoffs, marvelling when the occasional manufacturer got it right in the first manufacturing runs. > never needed an ECU update on a car before? There were always weird bugs associated with models that you learned to deal with, or a tendency towards certain failure modes. In extreme cases we recalled.

outworlder 3y ago
> We update planes’ software as part of maintenance We don't OTA plane software updates. > We OTA spacecraft. Because we can't realistically bring them back and there's an incredible amount of work that goes into make those updates flawless. Spacecraft are not a mass produced consumer product driven by profits and are less likely to have corners cut.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  Sure. We still update the software. The tool which airlines use to create update blobs is even online [1]. > Because we can't realistically bring them back We couldn’t always OTA spacecraft. Back then we just lost them. The point is in even high-stakes games we don’t write flawless software. Now software in cares is doing more. There will be bugs. Pretending there won’t is delusional. What we can do is minimise safety-critical bugs by forcing standardisation and certifciation in those components, even if that slows down innovation, and ensuring timely patches. That’s easier with digital than analog, which in turn makes manufacturers more willing to admit they made a mistake. [1] https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2010_q4/4/ https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2010...
  - thereddaikon 3y ago
    None of this is a compelling argument for car OTA software updates.