6 ms·

If I were a car company I would try to focus on making good cars. I'd leave the software to others, making sure to support both CarPlay and Android Auto.

ako 3y ago
There's a lot of software in a car besides the entertainment system, you can't leave that to carplay or android. To make good cars, car companies need to be able to write good software.
- vagrantJin 3y ago
  nope nopr nope. Car manufacturers should engineer good cars. Leave the good software engineering to good software engineering firms.
  - spockz 3y ago
    That is what GP is saying. There are two types of software in the car. The entertainment system and the software that drives the engines (ECU), lights, etc, etc. The car company should be good at software engineering to ensure that all software directly related with driving is done properly. And then leave the faster paced entertainment software to other suppliers.
    - ako 3y ago
      Auto pilot, adaptive cruise control, engine start stop controller, brakes, gas, etc, etc. Modern cars can’t drive without software. 100m+ lines of code in a car, 70-100 cpus according to this article: https://medium.com/next-level-german-engineering/porsche-future-of-code-526eb3de3bbe https://medium.com/next-level-german-engineering/porsche-fut...
      - spockz 3y ago
        Exactly! That is the software I want the car engineers to focus on. I do expect most have their firmware provided by Bosch/Siemens or whichever supplier. But Tesla shows how much improvement there is to gain when designing cars from the ground up instead of from parts lists of a vendor.
        rekoil 3y ago
        At the same time the Polestar 2 is an example of a modern EV built using a legacy mindset, and it is great and spends way less time at the mechanic than my colleagues Model 3.
        ako 3y ago
        What do you mean with legacy mindset? The polestar 2 also contains many million lines of code, besides the software running carplay/android car.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Yep. If it were possible to buy a car with no native infotainment and just a dock slot for a phone and dumb screen for CarPlay/Android Auto, I would. Car infotainment turns outdated, unsupported, and near-useless at breakneck speed and is generally buggy lowest-bidder junk to begin with, so why not just skip all of that, save some cash on the BOM which can be passed on to the buyer, and just let me plug in my phone which will never have these problems?
- konschubert 3y ago
  Right. There is a lot of innovation possible in controlling all the little embedded systems. But I think that "car platform" should be clearly separated from the "userspace". My sense is that why the legacy manufacturers are failing, at software, they have coupled the "userspace" to the "car platform". Updating UI in the center console is the same thing to them as updating the embedded code that controls the windshield wipers. That being said, I admit you cannot fully leave the "userspace" to apple or google, because you, for example, probably have some custom kind of sunroof that doesn't fit in whatever generic APIs CarPlay and Android Auto offer for Sunroofs. Additionally, if you go all in on Android Auto, you have no leverage when Google tries to extract more money. At the same time, competing with Google or Apple on UX and continuity is a losing battle. When I enter the car, I want my car to continue playing the podcast I was listening to. No car manufacturer can do this, only Carplay/Android Auto can. I guess the answer is to have good support for Android Auto/ CarPlay. But also have your own version as an insurance against being held hostage.
  - ako 3y ago
    Tesla seems to do just fine without CarPlay or android car.
    - konschubert 3y ago
      0 growth at the moment.
      - ako 3y ago
        That is one way to spin it. At the same time Tesla model Y is also the best selling car model of 2023 worldwide, so outselling all models that come with CarPlay available…
        rekoil 3y ago
        I would wager that there were more cars with CarPlay and/or Android Auto sold in 2023 than Models Y, or any Tesla for that matter.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
I agree with the previous poster. If there’s one thing Silicon Valley has taught us, it’s the danger of allowing a tech firm to control the customer interface for your business: whether that’s taxi scheduling, food delivery, search, or automotive UX. Everything will go beautifully until lock-in is achieved, at which point the business switches to revenue maximization. I don’t know exactly what that will look like in the automotive world, but I suspect customers will pay for it in the end.
micheljansen 3y ago
Most car manufacturers (with the notable exception being Tesla) think like this. A lot of the in-car software comes from third parties like TomTom. It makes sense until what happened to phones happens to cars and the hardware becomes increasingly a commodity and software the factor defining the user experience.
- danaris 3y ago
  GM clearly does not. They were in the news pretty prominently recently trumpeting their intention not to support Android Auto or CarPlay, but instead to roll their own system that they intend to monetize heavily.
mrj 3y ago
Except they've gone away from standard sizes and replaceable head units in order to push people to new cars, so the software integration has become a driver of car sales and a big part of the "good car" experience. You can't assume you'll replace the stereo head later if you don't like it, so software features now influence the car industry. Case in point, I have owned mostly Chevies through my life and have been mostly happy with them. But I won't buy the new ones because they've done away with plugging the phone in (or will in the future) and made their own. It's a cash grab to get our data and force subscriptions on us and I'm not buying it even if it's a good car. The whole thing is absurd. We have to get a whole different car if we don't like a screen, but that's how it is now.

ako 3y ago

There's a lot of software in a car besides the entertainment system, you can't leave that to carplay or android. To make good cars, car companies need to be able to write good software.

vagrantJin 3y ago
nope nopr nope. Car manufacturers should engineer good cars. Leave the good software engineering to good software engineering firms.
- spockz 3y ago
  That is what GP is saying. There are two types of software in the car. The entertainment system and the software that drives the engines (ECU), lights, etc, etc. The car company should be good at software engineering to ensure that all software directly related with driving is done properly. And then leave the faster paced entertainment software to other suppliers.
  - ako 3y ago
    Auto pilot, adaptive cruise control, engine start stop controller, brakes, gas, etc, etc. Modern cars can’t drive without software. 100m+ lines of code in a car, 70-100 cpus according to this article: https://medium.com/next-level-german-engineering/porsche-future-of-code-526eb3de3bbe https://medium.com/next-level-german-engineering/porsche-fut...
    - spockz 3y ago
      Exactly! That is the software I want the car engineers to focus on. I do expect most have their firmware provided by Bosch/Siemens or whichever supplier. But Tesla shows how much improvement there is to gain when designing cars from the ground up instead of from parts lists of a vendor.
      - rekoil 3y ago
        At the same time the Polestar 2 is an example of a modern EV built using a legacy mindset, and it is great and spends way less time at the mechanic than my colleagues Model 3.
        ako 3y ago
        What do you mean with legacy mindset? The polestar 2 also contains many million lines of code, besides the software running carplay/android car.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Yep. If it were possible to buy a car with no native infotainment and just a dock slot for a phone and dumb screen for CarPlay/Android Auto, I would. Car infotainment turns outdated, unsupported, and near-useless at breakneck speed and is generally buggy lowest-bidder junk to begin with, so why not just skip all of that, save some cash on the BOM which can be passed on to the buyer, and just let me plug in my phone which will never have these problems?
konschubert 3y ago
Right. There is a lot of innovation possible in controlling all the little embedded systems. But I think that "car platform" should be clearly separated from the "userspace". My sense is that why the legacy manufacturers are failing, at software, they have coupled the "userspace" to the "car platform". Updating UI in the center console is the same thing to them as updating the embedded code that controls the windshield wipers. That being said, I admit you cannot fully leave the "userspace" to apple or google, because you, for example, probably have some custom kind of sunroof that doesn't fit in whatever generic APIs CarPlay and Android Auto offer for Sunroofs. Additionally, if you go all in on Android Auto, you have no leverage when Google tries to extract more money. At the same time, competing with Google or Apple on UX and continuity is a losing battle. When I enter the car, I want my car to continue playing the podcast I was listening to. No car manufacturer can do this, only Carplay/Android Auto can. I guess the answer is to have good support for Android Auto/ CarPlay. But also have your own version as an insurance against being held hostage.
- ako 3y ago
  Tesla seems to do just fine without CarPlay or android car.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    0 growth at the moment.
    - ako 3y ago
      That is one way to spin it. At the same time Tesla model Y is also the best selling car model of 2023 worldwide, so outselling all models that come with CarPlay available…
      - rekoil 3y ago
        I would wager that there were more cars with CarPlay and/or Android Auto sold in 2023 than Models Y, or any Tesla for that matter.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

I agree with the previous poster. If there’s one thing Silicon Valley has taught us, it’s the danger of allowing a tech firm to control the customer interface for your business: whether that’s taxi scheduling, food delivery, search, or automotive UX. Everything will go beautifully until lock-in is achieved, at which point the business switches to revenue maximization. I don’t know exactly what that will look like in the automotive world, but I suspect customers will pay for it in the end.

micheljansen 3y ago

Most car manufacturers (with the notable exception being Tesla) think like this. A lot of the in-car software comes from third parties like TomTom. It makes sense until what happened to phones happens to cars and the hardware becomes increasingly a commodity and software the factor defining the user experience.

danaris 3y ago
GM clearly does not. They were in the news pretty prominently recently trumpeting their intention not to support Android Auto or CarPlay, but instead to roll their own system that they intend to monetize heavily.

mrj 3y ago

Except they've gone away from standard sizes and replaceable head units in order to push people to new cars, so the software integration has become a driver of car sales and a big part of the "good car" experience. You can't assume you'll replace the stereo head later if you don't like it, so software features now influence the car industry. Case in point, I have owned mostly Chevies through my life and have been mostly happy with them. But I won't buy the new ones because they've done away with plugging the phone in (or will in the future) and made their own. It's a cash grab to get our data and force subscriptions on us and I'm not buying it even if it's a good car. The whole thing is absurd. We have to get a whole different car if we don't like a screen, but that's how it is now.