[HN Gopher] Porsche Boss Faces Software Woes Keeping VW a Step B...
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Porsche Boss Faces Software Woes Keeping VW a Step Behind Tesla
Author : belter
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-09-03 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| adventured wrote:
| Producing really good software is really hard.
|
| Here's a tip for all the backwards big companies in Europe: pay
| your software engineers _a lot_ more. Whatever you 're paying
| now, increase it by 2x-3x. If you want the best, you're going to
| have to pay for it, or you're going to suffer the predictably
| mediocre results indefinitely (to the benefit of Tesla & Co.;
| Tesla's sales are now up to $67 billion; that's closing in on the
| size of BMW's consumer auto division).
| melony wrote:
| Not just the software, so many cars don't even have a
| functional touchscreen while requiring use of it for many core
| features. Hyundai for example like to use really low quality
| touch screens that are even slower than my old Nokia's
| resistive display. What is the point of _pan-and-zoom_ in a GPS
| maps app if the screen can barely keep up in real-time?
| gumby wrote:
| The salaries are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Most
| companies in the world (though Europe in particular has no
| excuse) don't understand that software is a strategic (and
| existential) issue, so pay for it like any other thing in their
| BOM.
|
| cf my long comment on this subject.
| primeblue wrote:
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I had a Porsche Taycan almost kill me and my entire family due to
| the absolutely negligent engineering team at porsche. An update
| was applied which killed the motor due to a stack overflow error
| -- while driving! Porsche set up the error handling to kill the
| engine immediately with even the slightest error.
|
| I testified along with fellow owners to the NHTSA and got all
| Taycans recalled. The arrogance and denial that Porsche put
| owners through was shocking through the process. They displayed a
| complete lack of understanding of the basics of control systems
| and software safety.
|
| Needless to say I sold the Taycan and would never buy a VW
| electric product. I wrote them a letter and spoke to the safety
| team saying people will die from this sloppiness and lack of
| professionalism. Someone will pay. Turned out I was right
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I don't want any of this in a car. I want analog/tactile nobs,
| zero connectivity, and at most a power cable and holder to plug
| in a smart phone. Anyone left that provides this?
| orangepurple wrote:
| New Dacia cars fit the bill and they use modern Renault
| drivetrains under license. Funnily they get poor safety ratings
| because they don't include many electronic driving aids (lol)
|
| Their structural safety is great.
| 762236 wrote:
| I wish that car reviewers would do their job and be critical.
| They rarely mention how bad the modern cars are becoming.
| geodel wrote:
| Well, reviewers busy fiddling with ten thousand settings in
| 14 INCH TOUCHSCREEN. While 2021 model has only 12.4 inch
| screen. So new one is best thing that happened.
| alephxyz wrote:
| The simultaneous trends of bigger SUV/trucks with higher
| hoods and poorly designed "infotainment" systems is
| terrifying, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I drive a Mercedes-Benz Metris and it's exactly that.
| thriftwy wrote:
| 1st gen Huyndai Cretas on anything but the highest trim levels
| are just that.
| dontknowwhyihn wrote:
| This is exactly what I want. I think there's a huge, untapped
| market for an electric car with minimal software. A car that
| doesn't need software updates and doesn't track you.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Used car dealers
| gumby wrote:
| The rot is deeper than just the UI, unfortunately.
| ricardbejarano wrote:
| I believe new Mazdas come with no direct connectivity and have
| no touchscreens. You can still connect your Android Auto or
| CarPlay device though, and control it with a knob.
|
| It is the balance I like. I don't own one (yet).
| jcdavis wrote:
| Got a Mazda3 this year and the "no bullshit" infotainment
| stack was a huge selling point for me. Airplay integration
| using a knob is a little wonky in places (primarily
| interacting with maps), but I consider it a feature not a bug
| because I basically don't do any interaction I can't do via
| voice commands. Physical buttons for all climate etc, not a
| capacitive "button" to be found in the car.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Hmm, that smartphone integration implies there is something
| at the other side communicating. Don't think I want that
| either. Guessing many folks would be fine with bluetooth
| audio for music and directions.
| OttPeterR wrote:
| I've got a new and somewhat-old Mazda. The new one does have
| an internet connection but it really only seems to be used
| for remote start and door lock status/control. Its using the
| Verizon network (in the US) and it also pings a location when
| you power off the car. (All these things are available
| through a python api so thats fun)
| gumby wrote:
| I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think
| there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their
| way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of
| European industry.
|
| Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there
| aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software
| isn't merely important
|
| Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just computers with
| wheels I was briefly involved in a software project at
| $SERIOUS_GERMAN_CAR_COMPANY. Mechanically their cars were
| outstanding -- that's my drive. This project was some cool "by
| wire" stuff, all modeled in Matlab, just as the ECU code was. But
| it was clear that the mechanical guys were the top of the
| pyramid; the safety guys were all mechanical engineers with some
| programming experience. All the user-visible electronics (radio,
| controls, etc) was subbed out to a low-price bidder because "who
| cares about that stuff anyway?". This wasn't VW, but I have some
| family exposure to VW specifically and that mentality still comes
| through deeply: electronics are added to the vehicle, not
| integral. The mental and organizational rewiring will be very
| hard. These are not companies who believe you should "eat your
| own lunch before someone else comes and eats it for you". The
| long institutional problems seen in yesterday's post about Nokia
| and the "Burning Platform" memo are pervasive throughout Europe
| (and most places, including a lot of USA):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698044
|
| You see this in the salaries. Sure, take-home salaries in the EU
| are lower than US ones in across the board, but the delta in the
| high value professions is extreme and quite telling. My son's
| partner's parents in Europe are offended by what Amazon pays him
| in the US because "he just works in IT". Well, he's a developer
| in their highest revenue area, so Amazon think it's worth
| investing in. Tesla cars ship with all sorts of fit and finish
| bugs, and are above average in mechanical problems. But ("FSD"
| excepted) they spend more of their attention on what really
| matters: treating their vehicle as a modern electronic device.
| But the European car companies are still stuck in the mid 20th
| century and make the opposite branch cut. The rest of European
| industry is the same.
|
| Andreeson wrote "Software is eating the world" 11 years ago.
| Apparently nobody on the continent of Europe has read it. Sure,
| software is considered important, but it's just another part of
| the BOM, not something strategic.
|
| IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a
| technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada,
| China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely
| getting in. Pretty damning.
|
| FWIW I've worked in France and Germany (and non-European
| countries), including some car business, but most of my career
| has been in the Valley (starting 38 years ago). I am not from
| Europe or USA so in that sense I don't have a preference for
| either side. I prefer living in Europe but vastly prefer to work
| in the US.
| amluto wrote:
| > But ("FSD" excepted) they spend more of their attention on
| what really matters: treating their vehicle as a modern
| electronic device.
|
| Yet even Tesla does a rather bad job at this -- they consider
| it to be a modern electronic device and ignore the wheels. OTA
| updates regularly change the UI in a way that is difficult and
| dangerous to learn when the wheels are spinning. Even when
| familiar with it, the very basics are hidden in menus and
| cannot be used without looking away from the road for longer
| than is safe.
|
| Car companies: make your car software simple, reliable, and
| boring. You may well need to spend serious money doing this,
| but the goal should not be for it to be fancy or to feel
| extremely modern.
|
| (With the latest update, turning off the seat heater is buried
| in a menu. I still haven't figured out how to efficiently
| dismiss overlay apps that are covering the map. It used to be
| fairly obvious.)
| geodel wrote:
| People should try to reconcile the facts that those
| outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of
|
| 1) Near monopoly in that sector 2) Excessive surveillance and
| tracking users 3) Increasing inequality between haves and have
| nots.
|
| And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at
| the cost of other workers living perilous lives.
|
| So unless Europeans really start cherishing these "values".
| They are not gonna get US level salaries. The way I see quite a
| lot non-US / European people just like high salaries but never
| want to think where it really come from.
|
| All this talk about Europe does not respect/appreciate / values
| Software engineers sounds more and more like coded way to say
| _We, software people, deserve much higher salaries at the cost
| of everyone else_.
| fdsfdsafdsafd wrote:
| Your post has a misunderstanding of basic economics. The high
| salaries of FAANG are not at "the cost of everyone else"
| kareemsabri wrote:
| Can you explain how paying software engineers higher salaries
| means other people need to live "perilous lives". You could
| just lower your EBIDTA a bit. Software engineers in the US
| aren't rich because of janitors being underpaid or something.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Five separate companies cannot be described as having a
| meaningful monopoly between them.
|
| And there are hundreds of companies that pay at that level in
| the US, not just FAANG.
|
| Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers
| over-paid.
|
| Also curious what you think is different in Australia? Are
| software salaries there like in the US and above somewhere
| like London?
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| > And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high
| at the cost of other workers living perilous lives.
|
| Those workers live perilous lives because cities refuse to
| build enough housing, not because a few workers have it good.
|
| > those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of
|
| 4) Much more generous VC funding leading to more competition
| between firms for SWEs, as a result of a more risk seeking /
| risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic
|
| Also you're ignoring that even SWEs at companies like Walmart
| Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe.
| metaphor wrote:
| https://archive.ph/3an1z
| dependsontheq wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "woes".
|
| I have been driving an VW ID 3 since last year, it runs their
| custom Android OS System and should have all of the latest
| features. It has been quite an experience.
|
| The car is fine, basic driving functions are fine, even the
| driver assist features are generally fine if they are running.
|
| The software running all the displays and the "augmented" heads
| up display is ridiculous.
|
| The car one did shut down all displays (including speed) while
| driving on the Autobahn (error message: no input), I stopped in
| the next town, charging the car was no longer possible. I tried
| to find out how to do hard reboot, my wife found a thread in a
| forum, "leave the car with all smart keys, go at least 50 meters
| from the car, wait for 15 minutes". That did the trick.
|
| Sometimes the voice recognition comes on and does something
| weird, I have no idea why or what it tries to do, sometimes it
| starts a specific radio station, it has not once recognized
| anything I said.
|
| Some Update added a blue light glowing in front of the driver in
| the small LED strip, it just ominously glows for a second. It
| looks a bit like a warning, I have no idea what it is warning
| about, it just happens sometimes.
|
| Sometimes in the night the alarm starts and wakes the
| neighborhood, but I was able to solve that by disabling the
| proximity features in the smart key system.
|
| The navigation forgets that I can charge the car at home after
| every update. 20 kilometers before I am home it recommends I
| should charge for 2 hours.
|
| The UI/UX is unintuitive and ugly. It shows a lot of useless
| information in weird places and a lot of stuff is hard to find.
|
| The list of weird experiences I had with this car is endless, and
| a lot of is just just bad software development, like the issue on
| the Autobahn.
| temac wrote:
| Some of the bugs and ergonomics problem you describe seem
| dangerous. The regulators should come in and ban those cars
| until they are fixed.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I've been driving a 27-year-old Range Rover for a year.
| Sometimes I need to hold the ignition key close to the receiver
| in the rear window for it to lock. Sometimes I need to jiggle
| the steering lock a little for the flappy door to close and
| tell it the key is out, before it will lock. Sometimes I need
| to poke the "petrol flap" button a couple of times before the
| flap will open.
|
| Sometimes the radio doesn't really get a good signal on Radio 4
| and I need to press the SEEK button on the steering wheel.
|
| The dashboard displays were fuzzy and hard-to-read, but I wiped
| the dust off and they were fine. They did go totally dark once
| when I was fiddling with the brightness control, but I turned
| them back on.
|
| It has never need rebooted. It has never forgotten how to be
| fuelled up. It has never just turned off all its electronics at
| speed on the motorway. The UI doesn't show any information
| beyond speed, engine RPM, coolant temperature and fuel level,
| unless there's some sort of fault indication up.
|
| I am really not convinced about buying a modern car.
|
| (My last car was also a 27-year-old Range Rover, which I still
| have)
| callalex wrote:
| The crash safety of a modern car is just not even in the same
| world as older cars. That's why I put up with all the
| jankiness. You can drive perfectly and still end up in a bad
| collision that was someone else's fault.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I just bought a Subaru after a week renting a Porsche Macan
| through Turo. It's wild how unintuitive the Porsche interface
| was. It was ugly, it felt cheap and it was distracting to boot.
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