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My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• hunmernop 3mo ago
  Ai will solve it. Car manufacturers are slow to take on new technology but they’ll be forced to
  • thin_carapace 3mo ago
    if the giga rich pushing this latest ai wave manage to convince a single safety critical industry to deregulate, we are all boned
    • wildfireday2 3mo ago
      That’s true, however a properly engineered safety-critical system provides separation between assurance levels, so you don’t need to have the same level of assurance for the infotainment system software that you do for safety-critical displays and controls. The FAA has historically done a good job on this front with aviation (notwithstanding the 747 MAX debacle, which was a failure implicating flight control software but not a failure of separation of assurance levels). Automotive software and standards and NHTSA is far behind on this front. Cost is certainly a factor; it is not economical to apply aviation safety and engineering standards and processes directly to automobiles. But in the meantime, it is an absolute Wild West for any contemporary drive-by-wire car.
      • thin_carapace 3mo ago
        don't know where you sourced your perspective but yea based on the reports ive heard from automotive engineers, coding in autosar is the direct opposite of wild
        • wildfireday2 3mo ago
          I have first-hand experience unlike your third-hand anecdotes. AUTOSAR is a private industry consortium that develops specifications. They are voluntary and self-attested and don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 in the aviation world by regulators with both independent engineering certification and regulatory oversight. Tesla and Rivian don’t participate at all. There is no comparable regulatory framework for automotive software—at all. It is purely reactive. And lest you take issue with my characterization or claim Tesla is a rogue outlier, let me remind you that Volkswagen shipped deliberate software emissions defeat code in 11 million diesel passenger vehicles over eight model years including half a million in the USA, and was only caught by academic researchers.
          • deleted 3mo ago
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          • RealityVoid 3mo ago
            > don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 ISO 26262? Not sure how the enforcement looks, but automotive is pretty serious about ISO 26262. Still, the infotainment is most likely QM so it wouldn't apply in this specific situation.
            • wildfireday2 3mo ago
              ISO 26262 does have serious lifecycle standards but again it’s a voluntary industry standard that has no government oversight or regulatory authority. Oversight is typically largely internal and is strongest in the auto parts/components market. It’s largely toothless to automakers/integrators and again the likes of Tesla simply don’t use it and have no obligation to. The infotainment system itself may be QM but there has to be assurance that it is in fact separated from higher safety level system.
              • RealityVoid 3mo ago
                > it’s a voluntary industry standard that has no government oversight or regulatory authority. Yes, hence why I said I'm not sure about enforcement mechanisms how they stack up against the aviation standard. Still, in my limited experience, projects that are ASIL x take the thing pretty seriously and they do get certifications from external bodies. Actually, I am supporting an SEooC external certification right now. > The infotainment system itself may be QM but there has to be assurance that it is in fact separated from higher safety level system. The separation most likely happens _outside_ the infotainment itself, through a gateway.
• maxdo 3mo ago
  that's a symptom of a bigger problem. Someone in auto industry decided that plugging device, and dependency on core functionality of the car to 3rd party device, that might be lost, have battery died, used for something else, etc is a good way to save money and not do proper software. It's even more bizare now, mid 2026, when software is solved with AI. It's good that there are some companies, that ban android/apple car since that's an ugly experience for the user.
  • JoshTriplett 3mo ago
    > Someone in auto industry decided that plugging device, and dependency on core functionality of the car to 3rd party device, that might be lost, have battery died, used for something else, etc is a good way to save money and not do proper software. On the contrary, having cars stop trying to provide a bespoke more-proprietary outdated piece of software you have less control over, probably have surreptitious telemetry reporting back from, and might have to pay a subscription fee for, and instead just delegate to the smartphone you already have, is a huge and surprising win. > It's good that there are some companies, that ban android/apple car since that's an ugly experience for the user. It's a terrible user-hostile loss when cars do that, typically because they want to maintain more control or try to extract more revenue from the user. If you don't want to use it, don't use it; there's nothing forcing you to do so.
    • BeetleB 3mo ago
      > On the contrary, having cars stop trying to provide a bespoke more-proprietary outdated piece of software you have less control over, probably have surreptitious telemetry reporting back from, and might have to pay a subscription fee for, and instead just delegate to the smartphone you already have, is a huge and surprising win. I'd agree if it worked. Android Auto sucks. And I don't like that my auto manufacturer can wash their hands off it by pointing at Google. > If you don't want to use it, don't use it; there's nothing forcing you to do so. As long as the car manufacturer gives me basic functionality (radio, stereo, Bluetooth, etc). Nominally they do, but it sucks in a different way from Android Auto. So I have to ping pong between these two. My prior car's aftermarket Bluetooth receiver was fantastic. The fact that I can't install something like that on modern cars is a huge regression.
• arikrahman 3mo ago
  Not even 13 days ago another article on here was glazing the infotainment system. I even have the article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48769397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48769397 People were attacking the critique I levied towards shallow praise flippantly gravitating to the word consistency, but now I feel vindicated.
• michaelje 3mo ago
  Once upon a time, physically shipping faulty software had real costs borne by the organization - production, redistribution and transportation of a physical disc. Today there’s no disc, no recall - that cost to shipping broken software is gone. We the users pay the price.
  • hahn-kev 3mo ago
    You act like there's no benefit to the user either, plenty of software gets better because of updates shipped after the fact.
    • wyager 3mo ago
      The averaged-over-usage-lifetime software quality for things like cars or video games is worse today than it was before OTA updates Arguably the peak quality after a few months/years of fixes is better, but that doesn't really matter because usage is front-loaded
      • itake 3mo ago
        I remember my parents needing to buy very expensive map DVD disks in order to update the car’s navigation system to update their car’s navigation computer. The disks were very expensive and if you didn’t update them it wouldn’t know about new roads (slower trip, missed turns, etc).
        • mook 3mo ago
          That's why we have Android Auto: move the updates to a thing that already has frequent Internet connection, and if the update goes wrong it's clearly the fault of this other company, plus the car itself still works fine. Jeep already had an OTA the broke the ability for the car to be driven.
        • SoftTalker 3mo ago
          Did those updates ever break the navigation software?
• BeetleB 3mo ago
  It's not an indictment of modern software. It's an indictment of using SW where not needed. Don't put discrete, isolated HW functions behind a SW powered screen. It's that simple.
  • strawhatguy 3mo ago
    Pretty much this. The less software on the car, the fewer problems. It's practically impossible to test every permutation of code against every system. Maybe AI can help, but practically it'll just mean the software gets more complicated, with more features. And to top it all off, more and more features get regulated, so they have to be there. The rear-view camera requirement in particular, since you need a screen to see the output. And if you have a screen... well it's an already paid cost, so, might as well display other things too. We should kill the reg.
    • 10000truths 3mo ago
      It all comes down to cost. At scale, testing hardware is appreciably more expensive than testing software. The former requires specialized machinery that costs the soul of your firstborn, and the logistics overhead for each do-over means long iteration times. The latter can be done with a CI pipeline for pennies worth of compute in a fraction of a working day.
      • BeetleB 3mo ago
        Stuff like climate control and radio/Bluetooth were included in many/most cars in the last decade. Expensive as they were, the cars were a lot cheaper than today's cars. And they just worked, which means they were either so simple that sophisticated testing wasn't necessary, or they tested it thoroughly. I don't think they're saving that much by ditching them and going to SW. They also didn't need updates (well, the Bluetooth module may have, but nothing else). It definitely was nice not to have to worry whether the climate control may stop working because the radio was modified. Or because of any update. As a driver, dumping everything into one SW system has significantly degraded my experience. What I gain ("Ooh, I can now use Waze on a bigger screen!") is minimal. > The latter can be done with a CI pipeline for pennies worth of compute in a fraction of a working day. I'd appreciate the point if they were successful at it. As it is, they're not. It's rare to find a non-buggy car.
• ww520 3mo ago
  When I bought my car, it had no Car Play or Android Auto. Upon some investigation I found out that both of them were installed on all the current models. It’s just disabled on the cars sold without the option. Some open source software for the car entertainment system flashed on the car was able to turn on the flags to enable various features including Car Play and Android Auto. So a happy story.
  • ajkjk 3mo ago
    Happy for the individual, sad for society
  • gruez 3mo ago
    >It’s just disabled on the cars sold without the option. So exactly like software licensing? Most apps nowadays don't even require a purchase to download. The download is free but you need to pay $4.99/month subscription to use, or $99.99 for a "lifetime subscription". The code's are all there. The author just doesn't want you to use it.
    • Telaneo 3mo ago
      Ahh, DRM-ed cars. I should have seen that one coming, really.
      • jasonjayr 3mo ago
        They saw the "You wouldn't download a car?" meme one too many times, and panicked.
      • QuantumFunnel 3mo ago
        Geohot should focus his attention on jailbreaking cars now
        • xethos 3mo ago
          You're gonna love finding out who was behind the founding of Comma.AI, which adds self-driving to cars that shipped without it
• jeffbee 3mo ago
  Users are complicit. Why did this user install the update? Were they suffering from an issue it supposedly solves? My six-year-old Honda has never had a software update, and in any case "OTA" updates can only be initiated by the user.
  • FloatArtifact 3mo ago
    The user is not at fault for installing an offered update.
  • hackerdood 3mo ago
    Some cars will force the update on you after dismissing it.
  • mukbangpervert 3mo ago
    They described their car as having "auto-installed" the update. An update which advertised, amongst other features, that it "rectifies errors and prevents security gaps" and stated "This update is recommended for everyone." Borderline insane to refer to the user as "complicit" in that case.
  • spaqin 3mo ago
    While the users are not at fault, this culture has certainly turned me way more careful and deliberate about applying updates - if it's not broke, I usually don't; big corporations are more suspicious of breaking things and open source are usually good about them; and if there's no changelog or it's very generic, I'll stay away as well.
  • afavour 3mo ago
    No win scenario. We need to install updates because of security vulnerabilities. But we shouldn’t install updates because they might introduce bugs.
    • spaqin 3mo ago
      Security vulnerabilities get too much credit. It's "think of the children" of the software world. Most updates don't fix any, most vulnerabilities won't get used in the real world against you either, and in many cases the security is for the corporation against the customer instead.
• Telaneo 3mo ago
  Assuming your car has all the functions you care about, and the OTA updates aren't bringing you any bugfixes or feature updates you care about, is there any good reason to update? Or even have it online to begin with? I'm not expecting someone to hack my car; on the contrary, I'd rather have it be impossible for the automaker to reach my car in any way without it being obvious to me (i.e. me flipping a switch to get it online for whatever reason).
• oybng 3mo ago
  Agree with the sentiment but the author's brain rotten rant is projection for being part of the problem
• hparadiz 3mo ago
  Auto manufacturers need to realize that one bad software experience means lost sales of entire cars. Fail to provide a good experience at the cost of your brand for years to come.
  • loveiswork 3mo ago
    We just sold our 2025 Subaru Outback specifically because the software experience was bad. To exit a climate control modal on the screen you have to find and tap a tiny red "X" box in the furthest corner of the screen from the steering wheel.
    • nicholasjarnold 3mo ago
      Cathartic to read this! Just had a very similar experience with a Subaru from the same generation as yours. While that particular issue isn't solvable, I am open to any advice on coding tools that might allow one to unlock other settings or make changes like "ensure auto-stop is fully disabled across restarts and drivers".
    • crimsonnoodle58 3mo ago
      I despise our Outback's climate settings. It seems every time I start the car it picks a random temperature to set each side to. It'll be 30 deg outside and you look down wondering why its getting hotter and the car is set to 30 deg inside.
    • glitchc 3mo ago
      That's an absolutely disastrous UI choice!
    • olyjohn 3mo ago
      God... Subaru's whole interface is a horrific looking clusterfuck. That big-ass screen and it's just a huge waste. I've driven the 2025 and the 2024. The 2024 not only had all the crappy UI, but the driver assistance features were also alerting you constantly, and they were terrible. I was amazed how much they toned it back and improved it with the 2025. Still wouldn't buy either of them personally. The constant nags and alerts are so fucking annoying and distracting. The seat belt chimes that don't shut off and get louder and louder make me want to rage so hard. I am religious about wearing my seatbelt, so there's absolutely no reason for it to piss me off so bad.
• 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
  If we had a software building code, it could mandate the testing procedures for consumer devices, like a car's headunit firmware. This building code could be backed by an industry body that could revoke its certification from manufacturers if they don't comply with the code. Super-advanced-testing-procedure #1: plug a phone into a test car and check it works before release. (This software building code is more necessary for software used in critical infrastructure. But it should also be applied to consumer devices as basic protection for consumers against manufacturers breaking functionality the consumer paid for)
  • taneq 3mo ago
    Plug one of every combination of vendor, model, OS, and config into the car and check if everything works. That’s what would be required to actually ensure functionality.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    • 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
      Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. In industrial testing automation, you often don't test every feature completely. You calculate the cost-benefit of the complexity, time and cost it takes to test features, and target the most valuable ones. (I used to write automation test suites for industrial appliances with hundreds of thousands of permutations) At the very least, you can test one single feature end to end, just to get a baseline that nothing is massively, obviously broken (like it was in this case!). This lack of fundamental testing is what caused the CrowdStrike bug that brought down Delta Airlines. This kind of test is extremely easy, quick, cheap, and simple, and catches the worst bugs. In other words, it's the most valuable test. Companies will continue to let these bugs happen until we mandate a minimum amount of fundamental testing before release.
• wildfireday2 3mo ago
  His good points here are undermined by the profane, emotional high-cortisol crashout. There’s a place for well-written, witty diatribes and polemics, but throwing F-bombs and F-yous into complaints is not that.
  • spankalee 3mo ago
    It's his blog. He can talk however he wants. You, however, don't have to read it.
    • bigstrat2003 3mo ago
      When the blog post is under discussion, I think comments critical of it are just as fair game as ones which appreciate it. If the parent poster was emailing the author to make the same complaint then I think the "you don't have to read it" criticism applies, but not so much in a discussion forum. The point is to discuss what we think, even if that is a critical opinion.
  • moogly 3mo ago
    Did you just come off the Mayflower?
  • mvdtnz 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    • pdonis 3mo ago
      Lewis Black once said that swearing has a point--it is how we express a sufficient level of rage and anger against something extremely dysfunctional. What should we say, he asked: Oh, pussyfeathers?
      • wildfireday2 3mo ago
        Lewis Black’s shtick is tired and old and yet he manages to put a lot more humor and wit into his rants than anything in this article. It’s essentially “My car’s infotainment system fucking sucks! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck! Fuck my life and fuck all this shit! Did you notice I used the word fuck? FUCK!” Such great writing, so original, so millennial.
• faangguyindia 3mo ago
  why OTA update OS that frequently? I've been lately into mobile apps and i am finding that there is no system which combines these 3 1. AOT 2. JIT (for hot paths) 3. Interpreter for non JIT paths or where you explicitly do not want jit. Imagine, a system which compiles your app to AOT but when you push OTA update, part of the app are selectively replaced to JIT or Interpreted mode. it's theoretically possible but nobody seems to be doing it. I found react native / expo eas update but i don't think it's like this, it has a Hermes VM which runs bytecode but it has no JIT so you'll write native code for hot path then you'll need to upload a full update to Android. So, only toy level code performance can be can actually be written in JS? Much better, patch the parts where AOT calls into JIT or interpreter. Currently i am using react native and flutter. Flutter's UI framework code is in Dart if you load this whole code into JIT, it will consume a lot of resources on mobile device as the framework is big and does lot of work. If all framework code was AOT and your custom patchable code also comes with AOT but upon OTA replaced by JIT or Interpreted code, crazy performance! But what if we could run the most of the code in AOT and only run changed code in JIT or interpreted mode? arguably it would perform as good as it does not being complete AOT while also providing react native like fast updates.
  • tcoff91 3mo ago
    You can't update any AOT code due to how code signing works in these OS. And Apple completely bans JIT on iOS and iPadOS.
    • faangguyindia 3mo ago
      no, i am not asking for AOT OTA update. AOT will be in base app and it will include JIT or Interpreted OTA updates. For Apple, JIT can simply be disabled and OTA update can run patched part in interpreter. But JIT works on Android (well), so this Hybrid system is capable of being much faster than React Native where your JS code only runs in Hermes VM which isn't JIT. In this system, all your crazy math and algorithms (on hot path) stay easily updatable as this small part can be run on JIT with snapshot saved for next load if it has not changed! JIT on average is 100x faster than dumb interpreter for language like Dart. Does it already exist? otherwise i am seriously thinking about building something like this.
• tonymet 3mo ago
  The practical solution here would be closing the feedback loop with customers. The business does want happy customers, it's important they return to purchase in 5 years. The problem with car companies is that they don't get immediate feedback (telemetry, tickets, etc) when they do push an issue. And they obviously don't have gradual roll outs the way tesla does. Rather than hamstring all software by requiring DOT testing before firmware updates are published, follow Tesla's model which has been very reliable within the industry
  • AlotOfReading 3mo ago
    Rather than hamstring all software by requiring DOT testing before firmware updates are published... I don't know how the rules work in the UK or Ireland where the author is, but the US has no such mandatory testing. Also, all manufacturers have telemetry these days and the ones I'm familiar with all do gradual rollouts (to varying levels of competence). You basically can't do immediate rollout given the scales involved. Please don't take this as suggesting any of them are good at software, mind you.
    • tonymet 3mo ago
      You're right the facilities may be there for telemetry & feedback, but none of the Tesla competitors are structured to manage that telemetry and feedback. Often the brands are repackaging software from vendors (e.g. Bosch) that are terrible at fixing things. Let's face it, this really is about Tesla, vs the rest of the major players (ford, kia, VW etc)
      • AlotOfReading 3mo ago
        Obviously I'm under NDA, but the data I've seen at $(OEM) was down to the level of variant tracking and real time geolocation. The commercial fleet management programs can do things like scheduled updates and know what hardware/software is in each component of each vehicle, which the manufacturer has to keep track of anyway for recall purposes.
        • 3mo ago
• foofoo55 3mo ago
  > I am not your QA department The article is a lovely cathartic rant against agile software development methodologies applied in the wrong place in the wrong way, whether or not the software(s) in question used such methods. On of the worst assumptions, I believe, is that the end-user is willing and able to function as testing/QA without detriment to the product and company.
  • groby_b 3mo ago
    This is a general belief of our current version of capitalism. As much work as possible is outsourced to the user, the gains are captured by the company. See also self-checkout etc.
• georgeecollins 3mo ago
  The most expensive appliances (particularly stoves) are the ones with no LCD screens. "Smart" TVs are often cheaper then dumb ones. People have learned that software does not always make things better. Anything that has code in it I assume will last for about three years. In practice that's a little less then the average but a safe assumption.
• moogly 3mo ago
  Does MINI make their own software? I thought it was the same as BMWs with another skin. My BMW gets quarterly updates. Only once in the past year I've had it did I notice anything new (new voice assistant), otherwise it just resets my driver screen and sets my interior lighting on full blast every time it updates. If Android Auto stopped working I'd also be livid because I don't use the built in crap.
• fennec-posix 3mo ago
  So glad my car has the dumbest head unit on offer in 2019, does bluetooth, radio, CD, shows a map (slowly) it just does what I need it to.
• odysseus 3mo ago
  Kia just did this with their EV9 update - it broke CarPlay with a blank screen a few minutes into driving, which then reverted itself a minute later. Another OTA mostly resolved it. Neither of these updates explained what happened or what the fix was.
  • gmueckl 3mo ago
    Let me be a devil's advocate here: you have essentially two options. 1. You write release notes thet contain technical details. Less than 1% of your customers understand them. More than 90% probably won't even care, let alone understand the document. And then there are the folks who get confused or scared and reach out to customer support with weird questions. This generates extra workload. 2. You explain nothing. The release simply is. The technically minded people are mildly annoyed. A few customers affected by open issues wonder if it's fixed now. The rest of them doesn't even care that there is an uodate and carries on with their lives. Customer service continues to complain about the usual bunch of random and weird customer issues. It's quite natural to start doing (2) in a consumer facing business, isn't it?
    • lifeisgood99 3mo ago
      It would be very simple to write out details but make them harder to access. Motivated users will find them.
      • denkmoon 3mo ago
        To what end? Pleasing a few nerds? Nerds that are just as likely to have ripped out the OTA modem or not be using a car like that.
        • hluska 3mo ago
          Why would they read the updates then?
        • UqWBcuFx6NV4r 3mo ago
          It is genuinely lost on me why tech nerds specifically have a hard time grasping the idea that they are not the only people that matter. That sometimes, someone will know that something will upset computer nerds, and will still do the thing, because they see it as worth it overall. Like spoilt children. I genuinely don’t know if it’s the decades of SV pandering or what. MOST OF THE TIME, NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU. And they’re probably right not to.
• clickety_clack 3mo ago
  Sounds like someone isn’t doing their load-bearing smoke tests.
• naturalmovement 3mo ago
  Glad to own a car that will only update via USB and even then only when I want it to. Which is never, unless something is broken. Having rolling releases for a CAR is absolutely stupid.
• m0llusk 3mo ago
  Wasn't LLM tech supposed to fix this?
  • bigstrat2003 3mo ago
    Most people with experience in the tech industry would say that LLMs will make it worse. They make more mistakes than a human, faster than a human, but get treated (by management) as preferred to a human. The end result was never going to be more reliable software.
• sgarland 3mo ago
  > Everything you create should be an artistic endeavour aiming for perfection. Amen. If you go to a bakery, you expect them to care. If you hire a photographer, you expect them to care. Software isn’t (usually) a factory line; CRUD may be similar concepts throughout, but everyone is making it themselves. Give a shit about what you make.
• dmitrygr 3mo ago
  You still did not learn the lesson? Once you take possession of a fixed-function appliance, NEVER EVER EVER take any updates, and do not connect it to the internet (CarPlay does not require internet connectivity in the car). Do not buy fixed-function appliances that require internet, that is what computers are for.
• ElijahLynn 3mo ago
  Author blames the two week sprint. But that isn't this issue. It's testing gates. Plenty of teams can ship high quality software with two weak sprints. They just have great testing gates.
• charles_f 3mo ago
  > I have to call MINI at some point and demand they fix this garbage That would never occur to me. Whenever something produced by a large company breaks, I pretty much assume there's no signal possible back to whomever is responsible for the breakage, and that whatever is broken now is broken forever. To the author's point, they're A-gile, but forgot that the first step in the process was customer feedback
  • chrisandchris 3mo ago
    Tell that to Volvo. They even state on their feedback form that they don't respond to feedbacks, which IMHO is a polite way of saying that they don't read the feedback but still need a form, because no form would be bad publicity.
• Pxtl 3mo ago
  At this point I'm just annoyed that Google discontinued the Android Auto app. Just give me a mount for my phone and gtfo. If you have a big touchscreen put a video usb port on it.
• exabrial 3mo ago
  My car has an engine and tires. There’s literally 0 reason why it needs a cell phone. Stop buying these stupid cars
• padjo 3mo ago
  I've stopped installing software updates to my car. They never seem to do anything useful and often will cause things to break or get reset. I no longer see the upside.
• NoGravitas 3mo ago
  To be fair, Android Auto breaks when you look at it funny.
  • londons_explore 3mo ago
    Both Android Auto and Chromecast are great ideas, but so incredibly flakey. The number of times I've heard someone say 'oh it's disconnected again' is extreme. To be honest, some court ought to simply demand Google makes it reliable or refunds all money people paid for the phones as the product is not fit for purpose.
• Expletive4138 3mo ago
  Spoke to MINI, cleared security, and gave them my license plate. They pushed a manual patch to clear out files out over 4 hours. Not sure how i feel that they can directly target my car with license plate but ah well Nothing happened initially, but after deleting and re-pairing, it’s finally working. Blocked future updates when I take it in for its next service, I’m thinking of telling them to leave the FW the fuck alone.