[HN Gopher] Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over th...
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Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend
Author : gloxkiqcza
Score : 273 points
Date : 2025-10-13 14:28 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| omneity wrote:
| So how long until software in cars is treated with the same
| seriousness and rigor as the software in airplanes?
| onei wrote:
| That's what MISRA C [1] is sort of meant to be.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C
| sosodev wrote:
| I suspect that we will see it when an OTA update very rapidly
| causes hundreds of deaths.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| When it kills one of the Oligarchs' daughters.
| aduty wrote:
| Mopar and dead car.
| thayne wrote:
| Why does an OtA update even have the ability to brick the entire
| vehicle?
|
| The infotainment system should be completely isolated from the
| driving system.
| jsight wrote:
| I'm guessing that it has features like "remote start" and that
| these features weren't designed particularly well.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What does it mean to "start" an EV?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Pre-warm the battery, pre-heat or cool the interior, enable
| the defrosters.
| monocularvision wrote:
| Turn on the temperature control system?
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| it clicks a relay. Just like with ICE vehicles people
| usually use it to warm up their car in the winter.
|
| Also, batteries may need to be preconditioned if too hot or
| cold. A lot of EVs let you set your ideal departure time in
| a widget as opposed to using a remote though.
| jsight wrote:
| This is a 4xe. It is a gas jeep with an overpriced,
| undersized battery and motor bolted on.
|
| It can be started just like all the other gas cars.
|
| Although even with full EVs, there's a reasonable concept
| of a "start". Some even let you essentially unlock and
| allow driving remotely, even if the local driver doesn't
| have a key. That's useful sometimes.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| I've noticed that newer cars seem to get updates that affect
| performance. Things like how they shift gears.
| varjag wrote:
| As long as it exchanges information (mundane things like muting
| the music when parking sensors have to be heard, requesting
| battery/fuel status for advising the next fill stop etc) the
| isolation can't be entirely complete.
| dotancohen wrote:
| How about read only over an optic cable?
| varjag wrote:
| I wasn't really talking about galvanic isolation. And on
| modern vehicles instruments and infotainment tend to run
| hypervised on the same physical host. Thing is as long as
| you exchange information there's always potential for logic
| coupling allowing the trouble to cross the boundary. Not to
| mention the basic rate excess/denial of service situations.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| The infotainment system on my car can make changes to the
| suspension. Can change from street to track mode and even has a
| launch mode I can initiate for starting a timed 0-60, etc.
|
| I can also put the car into valet mode so it won't go fast. If
| I forget the valet mode password I am told I have to buy a very
| expensive replacement because it can't be unlocked by a dealer.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| You're starting out with an assumption, that this is an OTA
| update for the infotainment system, and then conclude this
| incident shouldn't be possible. The problem is the assumption.
|
| This is a OTA vehicle update. It has the ability to update the
| infotainment, ECU, ECM, TCM, and BCM. Multiple manufacturers
| have been able to release recalls that fix major vehicle
| defects (safety, reliability, and performance). That wouldn't
| be possible without OTA updates that update core vehicle
| computer systems.
|
| Unclear where this idea that OTA = Infotainment came from. I'd
| go as far as to say that _most_ manufacturers can do this in
| 2025.
| SirFatty wrote:
| "I'd go as far as to say that most manufacturers can do this
| in 2025."
|
| What does that have to do with OP's comment? And their point
| is still valid, and OTA update should not be able to brick a
| vehicle, regardless of the system receiving the update. And
| regardless if "they all can do it".
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It has everything to do with it.
|
| If OTA updates can update core vehicle computer systems, in
| ways that can correct safety, performance, and reliability
| problems then they can also brick that vehicle.
|
| The manufacturer has the ability to push an update that
| reprograms computers that control how physical components
| behave in a vehicle. By the very nature of that; they can
| push good or evil updates.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Which is a reason the market for "dumb" cars is
| tightening up. Both my cars are "smart" and sometimes I
| wonder if I really own them. It bothers me that the maker
| can cause an update without my permission. (Yes, I know
| that's the world we've been living in for a while now.)
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Any update can brick your device if done poorly. This
| device just happens to be a car.
|
| You misunderstood what OP was saying. They claimed that an
| update to the infotainment system shouldn't be able to
| brick the other systems in the car. The response points out
| the car's OTA update subroutine has access to update every
| critical system in the car by design. It's flawed logic to
| assume that OTA updates only affect the infotainment
| system.
| goda90 wrote:
| > Unclear where this idea that OTA = Infotainment came from.
|
| Because to some people, the idea of an OTA update being
| allowed to change mission critical parts of a machine
| automatically without a solid rollback system is absurd, and
| the best way to do that is to never do OTA updates of mission
| critical parts at all.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| ... but then you'd have to pay mechanics at dealerships to
| do it. Middleman cutting.
| general1465 wrote:
| Rollback is getting extinct for security reasons. When you
| will screw up, you need to do a new release. Hopefully
| screwed part is still talking.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| This is why OTA updates should simply be
| illegal/considered negligent engineering. If you want a
| convenient update, let people plug their phones or
| computers in via a USB port or something, or take it to a
| mechanic to do so. There shouldn't be security concerns
| with an appliance because it shouldn't be writable
| outside of an owner-intended maintenance mode, which
| should be impossible to activate wirelessly.
| general1465 wrote:
| Wait until when fridge or TV will come with its own 5G
| chip and they will get bricked by remote update because
| it is time to buy a new one and there will be nothing you
| can do about it.
| mopenstein wrote:
| They don't have to do this. The cheap materials in the
| compressor or cheap capacitors used on the power supply
| board will just silently fall. And the cost to repair the
| problem, for the average person, will be slightly less
| than just buying a newer version of the crap that just
| broke.
| brewdad wrote:
| My LG refrigerator recently stopped cooling. The error
| code suggested it was the defrost mechanism. It was more
| of a hassle of a repair than I wanted to take on so I
| found an authorized repair shop on the LG site and opted
| for their flat rate repair.
|
| First trip the repairman replaced all of the defroster
| parts and sensors. It failed again with the same code 18
| hours later. The second time he replaced the main board
| and at least one other part. It now works great and I
| have effectively a new fridge aside from the compressor
| for less than $400.
|
| Compressor still has three years of warranty left and we
| expect to move before then. It can (hopefully) be someone
| else's problem.
| user2722 wrote:
| I've got various IP subranges categorized by probability
| of having to block them in the router's firewall.
|
| Main idea was locking updates to once or twice a year and
| resort to HomeAssistant.
|
| It's at 33% execution stage so no idea on the
| feasibility.
| CivBase wrote:
| > Rollback is getting extinct for security reasons.
|
| Unusable devices are technically the most secure ones.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Why didn't the vehicle manufacturers robustly test their
| software systems on their vehicle's hardware before releasing
| the product to the public?
| nilamo wrote:
| ...because the very first paragraph of the article says it
| was an infotainment update? Thanks for the info, tho.
| rjsw wrote:
| The infotainment system can be the gateway to the rest of the
| vehicle network. It makes sense to attach a 4G modem to the
| display head to do mapping, hands free calling or emergency
| response, you may as well use it to download ECU updates too.
| cameldrv wrote:
| This should be made illegal. It's a massive national security
| threat. Imagine on the eve of a war, instead of Jeep 4xes,
| it's every recent Ford or Toyota or GM car, and instead of a
| software update that can be rolled back, it wipes the flash
| completely, or reprograms the ECU to damage the engine or
| disable the brakes on the highway or something else to cause
| accidents.
| mopenstein wrote:
| You assume that it will be a foreign enemy and not your own
| government bricking your car on the eve of revolution.
| coldpie wrote:
| Just wait until you hear how much of our country's critical
| infrastructure is hooked up to the Internet. Traffic
| lights, water treatment plants, power plants.
| tetraodonpuffer wrote:
| most cars these days have GPS and return location and so on,
| why can't manufacturer run these updates only at night and
| when the car is parked at home? There should be no reason for
| any OTA update to happen while the vehicle is running (or on
| a trip etc.), downloading the OTA update, sure, but
| definitely not applying it. Also there should be a documented
| procedure to restore the previous in case an OTA update
| fails.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Because cost. Same reason why dash clusters and infotainment
| systems are now all monitors - its actually way cheaper to use
| those than analog gauges. The software is built on a famous
| bullshit paradigm of "never rewrite, always reuse", and as a
| result shit gets patched together without any concern of how
| everything cooperates.
|
| Now with hybrid or electrical drives, a motor controller is
| basically a package that runs its own software, which then
| interfaces with the rest of the car. And OTA updates can
| overwrite its firmware.
|
| The only manufacturer that has avoided most issues is Toyota,
| since they have been doing hybrids for quite some time. Other
| companies are just starting on this path and to catch up, they
| can't be bothered to do software deep dives and figure shit
| out.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Why does the update even happen while in motion?
| antiloper wrote:
| The article doesn't go into a lot of details, but it only
| says that the bug happens while in motion, not that the
| software update itself happened while in motion:
|
| > The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car
| immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while
| driving--a far more serious problem.
| PKop wrote:
| The problem is worse than "just don't update on the fly while
| driving". The update happened while not driving; the bug
| causing the failure mode of shutting down power and engine
| happened later while driving. There's nowhere to hide from
| these types of problems it seems.
| joezydeco wrote:
| They're not isolated anymore, Tesla set this precedent and now
| everyone is trying to copy them. Volvo is having the same set
| of problems.
| uptown wrote:
| I had an OTA update brick my Tahoe infotainment system. Now
| that backup cameras are standard requirements, those were all
| unusable. Also affected things like the clicking sound you hear
| when you use your turn signal. That was completely silent. Cost
| me ~$2k to get it fixed and wasn't covered under warranty. Good
| stuff. I've disable future "updates".
| quesera wrote:
| This is a lawsuit, to recover repair costs and any loss of
| use.
|
| It's not worth it, but it's necessary.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| An FYI for the future, but backup cameras are considered a
| safety system and manufacturers are required to repair issues
| they've caused in safety systems regardless of warranty
| status. The appropriate escalation if the manufacturer
| doesn't recognize this is to get NHTSA involved with a safety
| complaint [0]. That's the main way recalls happen.
|
| [0] https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| it was a telematics update
| sailfast wrote:
| And... Stellantis is up 3.5% right now in public trading. Nothing
| makes sense anymore haha
| nemomarx wrote:
| "no such thing as bad publicity" maybe?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It is likely an unrelated correction. They are still down
| -7.92% over five days; this is just making it so they aren't
| -11.42%.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's getting priced like an easy-to-fix recall that affects
| some cars of a specific model for one of their brands.
| antiloper wrote:
| It's a bug. Why should a software bug have an effect on a
| manufacturer's stock price? It's not like the update caused
| brake failures or something.
| zettabomb wrote:
| Well, given that the article says it caused powertrain
| failures on the highway, I'd say it's severe enough that it
| should absolutely cause the manufacturer's stock to drop.
| PKop wrote:
| Learning that Stellantis pushes bugs that cause power and
| engine failure while driving should decrease demand for their
| cars.
|
| > or something
|
| Maybe do some research into the problem you're confidently
| asserting was trivial / read the article you're commenting
| on:
|
| "...others claim to have experienced a powertrain failure at
| highway speeds."
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Jeep/comments/1o47064/jeep_4xe_shut.
| ..
| deadbabe wrote:
| Truly can't believe the shit coming out of these automakers now
| that AI assisted coding has become so commonplace in the
| industry.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Do we have any actual evidence that AI-assisted coding has
| anything to do with this?
| jacquesm wrote:
| https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-
| releases/2025/octob...
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| So many layers of failure here. It points to very suspect
| architecture and development practices, the bad update is just
| sprinkles on top.
| netsharc wrote:
| The cars needs a partition for the running OS, and a second as
| backup, and "reboot to recovery partition" to fall back to in
| case the update breaks.
|
| Hah, curious to think that cars now have bootloaders...
| antiloper wrote:
| Cars probably have multiple bootloaders even. Surely there
| are at least two, one for the ECU and one for the
| infotainment system. Perhaps there are even more depending on
| how complex components like parking cameras etc. are.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| I suppose some version of CTRL-ALT-DELETE is needed to reset
| the car's OS.
| marssaxman wrote:
| The first layer of failure was the decision to make the car
| computer-controlled.
| dotancohen wrote:
| That came after the decisions to reduce both costs and
| tailpipe emissions - both obvious worthy goals. Is the
| implementation that is flawed, not the idea.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Why would cars be the only thing we wouldn't manage with
| computers?
| marssaxman wrote:
| We could, but we shouldn't, because most software is crap.
| When the user is stuck with whatever software they got as a
| consequence of buying the machine they actually wanted,
| there's no incentive for the software _not_ to be crap.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| That doesn't even make sense in light of this article.
| The user isn't stuck with the software at all... instead,
| due to an OTA update, they're stuck in the _road._
| PKop wrote:
| To avoid power and engine failure on the highway after a
| bad software update.
|
| Because they work fine without them.
| sib wrote:
| I think if you compare a modern car with an ECU to a
| "traditional" car with manual ignition / carburetion
| system you will find that the modern one outperforms
| significantly on both power and fuel efficiency.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Discussion from over the weekend:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558318
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I've had a Jeep for a few months, and it bothers me so much that
| the entire community is about modifying the vehicle as much as
| possible, but they still come with this locked down OS.
|
| If any car could be the champion of OpenSource, it is a Jeep
| Wrangler, but they're using an OS made by SiriusXM for some
| reason.
| inahga wrote:
| I don't think the software hacking side of Wrangler mods is
| barren. e.g.
| https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/jeep-
| hacking-..., which IIUC has been commercialized into
| https://www.zautomotive.com/products/z_tzr_jlm.
|
| I don't know that anyone has broken the head unit firmware
| though.
| jonbiggums22 wrote:
| Isn't Jeep the company that introduced infotainment pop-up ads
| that play at the stop light? I doubt they'd want you loading an
| open source OS replacement to avoid that.
| rglover wrote:
| I can't for the life of me understand why infotainment systems
| knock so many engineers for a loop. Is there a particular reason
| (industry/domain-specific) beyond just low-quality software
| development?
|
| My Mazda 3 (2018) just had a class action lawsuit for its
| infotainment system which, completely at random after years of
| normal operation, starts clicking on menu items and scrolling
| about the settings (only to stop and not do it again for a couple
| of months). It can get so bad you just have to disconnect any
| devices and drive in silence/with the AM/FM radio.
| catigula wrote:
| You get a new device every year and teams of professionals are
| constantly churning updates for it.
|
| With cars, you don't get to get a new device, it has to be
| consistent and keep working and you had better make it all work
| with a skeleton crew.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I worked at a company that did software for these connected
| infotainment system. They cost cut those things to the bone,
| minimal ram, minimal cpu, shit screens. Even in the high end
| models.
|
| Gotta remember that the car radio has always been a cheap
| gimme.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Gotta remember that the car radio has always been a cheap
| gimme._
|
| Not really. Some of the hardware that you could get in the
| 1950s-1970s timeframe was great. Heavy chrome knobs and
| bezels, permeability-tuned front ends with separate RF
| stages... electromechanical mechanisms that seemed like
| witchcraft when I took them apart as a kid, and would still
| be cool to play with today.
| jlokier wrote:
| I recently did some testing of Bluetooth connecting an Android
| phone to a reasonably new Mercedes. Being a "luxury" brand,
| you'd think the Mercedes would have good infotainment software,
| but I found at least 5 bugs in the GUI in about 1 hour of
| testing, and I wasn't particularly looking for bugs, just
| testing what I thought would be the happy paths for Bluetooth
| connection. The Android phone, on the other hand, did its job
| flawlessly.
|
| I know software and embedded systems well enough to know all of
| the issues I found were preventable, if anyone cared.
|
| The car seems well built in many other respects. It doesn't
| look like the problem is engineering ability.
|
| (See also: Set-top box GUIs that are painfully slow to render
| menus, scroll, search etc. on hardware that I know can render
| 10-100x faster when programmed to.)
| ryandrake wrote:
| As you alluded to, the answer is they don't care. Car
| companies look at software like it's any other line item on
| the BOM. Like a bolt or a gasket: Source it as cheaply as
| possible and spoon it onto the product somewhere on the
| assembly line. I see fit-and-polish mistakes all the time in
| car infotainment. Text that can't handle unicode, icons that
| are misaligned by 1 or more pixels, connections dropping and
| coming back, audio mixing problems, things drawing outside
| their "windows." Nobody cares--they get to the drop dead date
| when the software needs to be on the assembly line, hand it
| over, and start flashing devices.
| rangestransform wrote:
| it's the consequence of not vertically integrating, having
| 20000 different ECUs each for a specific purpose and trying to
| nickel-and-dime suppliers on all of them, and the lack of
| urgency that traditional manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers
| have for adopting modern software development practices
| pankalog wrote:
| I recently worked at a big home lighting company, working on the
| OS of the router device that communicates with the light bulbs
| themselves and the internet/user.
|
| Our OTAU architecture uses A/B system updates [1]. Core idea is
| that both the kernel and the rootfs (read-only) partitions had 2
| different bootslots in storage, and the OTAU would only write to
| the bootslot that is unused. Hence, if something went wrong, the
| system would automatically fallback to the previous version by
| just switching the bootslot used. Over the numerous years that
| that architecture was used, I couldn't find a single post-mortem
| that resulted in devices being bricked. Something to note is that
| the rootfs partition was overlaid with a writable partition for
| persisting state data etc.
|
| Now that was a $two-figure USD device, not a $5/6-figure USD
| electric SUV. Is this a cost-cutting measure? At those price
| levels, doubling your NAND size is not even half of a percent of
| the total cost of the vehicle.
|
| Unless there was a _serious_ issue that the used bootslot
| corrupted the unused bootslot, then I don 't see how this could
| have happened.
|
| It's saddening that car manufacturers are so unserious about the
| code they're deploying.
|
| [1] https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab
| apex_sloth wrote:
| We used to do that with device that where in difficult to reach
| places with harsh uptime requirement! Think industrial routers
| and protocol converters. I think it pays for itself very
| quickly. Sending someone for such a device can get expensive.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| That's a good point.
|
| I'm curious if failing to do that opens Jeep up to legitimate
| lawsuits.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| I've had a bunch of updates break some stuff but since moving
| to Fedora Atomics/ublue I've never had a system I could not get
| back into.
| kijin wrote:
| I once managed to brick a PC motherboard that advertised "dual
| BIOS". It didn't fallback to the previous version after a
| botched BIOS update.
|
| It's totally possible that the update corrupted the other
| bootslot as well. If those blocks aren't off-limits to the
| updater program, it's just an off-by-one error waiting to
| happen. Slot 0 or slot 1?
|
| Another possibility is that the updated version booted up just
| enough not to trigger the automatic fallback, and then got
| stuck in a loop.
| palmotea wrote:
| > Now that was a $two-figure USD device, not a $5/6-figure USD
| electric SUV. Is this a cost-cutting measure? At those price
| levels, doubling your NAND size is not even half of a percent
| of the total cost of the vehicle.
|
| Could just be a competence and priorities problem. If it's cost
| cutting, it feels way more likely that some PM cut some story
| from a sprint to hit a deadline (and objections were either not
| raised or ignored), than they did some engineering analysis and
| explicitly decided to save $3 per vehicle by cutting the NAND
| size.
|
| Edit: Actually, I don't think that technique would have helped,
| the problem wasn't a botched update, but a seriously buggy one.
| From the OP:
|
| > The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car immediately.
| Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving--a far more
| serious problem.
| general1465 wrote:
| > Edit: Actually, I don't think that technique would have
| helped, the problem wasn't a botched update, but a seriously
| buggy one. From the OP:
|
| That and combined with general refusal of new automotive
| bootloaders to downgrade. You can go only up in versioning.
| So even that you could have working version on second
| partition, it will never get loaded because it has lower
| version than currently one you are running.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| All those words you are saying, it's quite possible the sub-
| contractor to the sub-contractor to the sub-contractor in a
| foreign low-cost country that actually did the work has
| absolutely no idea what any of that means, and they are doing
| the bare minimum to deliver
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| Why wouldnt a foreigner know what this means? This seems very
| xenophobic. And if US/Euro management is hiring these groups
| and not giving them requirements for redundancy then guess
| who is at fault? Not the contractor.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Well, on the positive side, at least they were stationary
| unlike these vehicles. Don't get me started on botched OTA
| updates, there are so many ways companies get those wrong it's
| not even funny.
| avidiax wrote:
| I have heard anecdotally that auto manufacturers are sensitive
| to a price change less than $5/vehicle. This is better than
| some industries that are sensitive to $1.
|
| What could easily have happened is that the negotiators didn't
| include A/B updates in their spec, or they only specced A/B
| updates at 1GB OTA size.
|
| They do their usual hammering on price, and the head unit or
| ECU manufacturer gave them some savings by cutting storage
| space to the bone.
|
| Maybe it was still enough for A/B updates, until the usual
| software bloat took the updates past the critical limit.
|
| They could still do a safe update by doing an A/B/A update
| (where B is a shrunken, update-only OS), but that requires
| development time, and the engineers should already be working
| on the next vehicle.
| thunfischbrot wrote:
| Worked for them. Corporations with many brands in their
| portfolio might discuss for weeks over price differences of
| components of 0.20 Euro. That's twenty Euro cents difference
| for e.g. a USB connector. If you expect that a vehicle
| platform sells in the 10s of millions over its lifetime,
| you're talking real money very quick!
| joezydeco wrote:
| However, the price of recalls and warranty rework is never
| computed into that number.
| dylan604 wrote:
| yet another example of the flawed logic where "we don't
| have time/money to do it right now, yet we always seem to
| find the time/money to redo it later after the shit hits
| the fan"
| stefan_ wrote:
| Nothing was bricked at all. Thats just how clickbait
| journalists describe things that stop working in some way after
| an update nowadays.
|
| (Most computers in a car don't need duplicate partitioning
| because they can be bootstrapped from a central computer)
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| I'm sorry, but you're incorrect the vehicle completely
| shutting down while driving and not working again until you
| put it into park and then it's shutting down five minutes
| later is effectively bricked and extremely dangerous. Myself
| and my family almost died just trying to get home from
| dinner. It was a complete loss of propulsion and power
| steering.
| recursive wrote:
| There are many things that are dangerous that aren't
| "brick"-ings. If it can be later restored to function, then
| it is not bricked.
| sekh60 wrote:
| Thank you. I really hate how watered down the term
| "bricked" has become.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I prefer the term borked in these situations
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| being unable to drive my vehicle due to a software update
| is bricking. It's also a pun, us Jeep owners call our
| Jeep's flying bricks.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| Being temporarily unusable is not how I've seen "bricked"
| used, bricked means unrecoverable and the item is
| completely unusable except for as a
| brick/paperweight/door stop.
| recursive wrote:
| If you can do something, anything, to the vehicle to
| repair it, then it's not bricked.
| stefan_ wrote:
| And then it was fixed with another OTA, so it was not
| bricked. Why bring up this pedantic point you may ask?
| Because the grandparent raises a scenario that doesn't
| apply here. A/B updates or not were not at all the issue
| here.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Then it would better be described as a life-threatening
| event rather than a bricking - especially as, in the
| hierarchy of concerns, the former is more serious than the
| latter.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| I for one am always grateful when things are engineered
| thoughtfully and with redundancy as it is symbolic of respect
| for the people who are your customers. Especially in
| something as important as a car, "can be bootstrapped from a
| central computer" - when? how easily? how reliably? - is not
| good enough because things will inevitably go wrong for some
| portion of the user base.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| Brick is now slang for a lot of fail conditions that aren't
| classically 'bricked.' This has become really common I've
| noticed. Honestly, this ship has sailed and isn't even worth
| fighting anymore. Its like Xerox asking people to stop
| calling copies Xeroxes.
|
| We just never bothered to develop a new term. Maybe 'soft-
| bricked?' 'Semi-bricked?' I would like journalists at least
| to start using more accurate terms, but 'bricked' I imagine
| gets a lot more engagement and ad impressions, so here we
| are.
| jlokier wrote:
| Wikipedia has a section about this. They call it soft
| bricked vs hard bricked, according to the difficulty of
| restoring device function and how the broken state
| presents. Even hard bricked is usually recoverable with
| appropriate tools, so it is a spectrum.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_(electronics)#Soft_bric
| k
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I've worked in both IoT lighting and automotive, so I'm
| comfortable comparing the two. This also isn't offered as a
| defense.
|
| The big auto OEMs are just as sensitive to absolute BOM cost
| optimization, regardless of the percentage increases. I don't
| think this was a bootslot issue though, regardless of the word
| "bricked". Even as backwards and ill-advised as auto software
| can be, generally accepted practice is that updates are
| impossible while the vehicle is in motion. This is usually
| enforced by systems shared across multiple OEMs through the
| tier system.
|
| The situation sounds more like a disastrously buggy new
| firmware.
|
| I wouldn't put either past stellantis though. The auto industry
| already scrapes the bottom of the proverbial barrel sometimes,
| and stellantis isn't exactly known for their top of market
| compensation.
| shadowpho wrote:
| Two points to add:
|
| 1) Total cost of the vehicle does not matter. What does matter
| is the operating margin. Half a percent of the total cost of
| the vehicle will move them from 2% margin to 1.5% margin. (Ford
| has operating margin of 2% as an example)
|
| In other words an increase in 0.5% cost of total vehicle will
| reduce their profits by 25%.
|
| That's a huge number now! Note also that car manufacturers are
| in a bad spot because their volumes are fairly low (smartphone
| = 1M/yr, car = 40k/yr) and have harsher requirements for chips,
| driving the cost way up.
|
| 2)AB updates are great, but they can still fail or get soft
| locked. Especially important around code when you configure the
| slot to be good and when bad.
| maxerickson wrote:
| You are conflating gross and operating margin.
|
| It's also more dynamic than your presentation. They have a
| little bit of pricing power, so a small increase doesn't all
| come out of the margin.
| potatolicious wrote:
| This is generally how other devices work as well - for example
| all Android devices and Android-derivatives (which many of
| these cars are!) use a similar A/B partition to prevent
| bricking.
|
| It definitely _reduces_ the risk of updates, but it absolutely
| doesn 't eliminate it.
|
| The A/B updater itself is a surface area - especially if the
| logic is complex and there are other child devices that are
| updated at the same time (likely for cars). In that case you're
| not just coordinating between two independent partitions,
| you're coordinating between 2 * N partitions, half of which
| have dependencies on each other.
|
| Also, the key bit of the mechanism is that upon successful boot
| the new partition is flagged as "good", which causes flags to
| be set to assert that the update was successful and the backup
| partition is no longer needed. _That_ logic can (and does) fail
| - if your failure point occurs after this checkpoint you 're
| hosed still because you're past the point of no return.
|
| Making that worse is that in most systems you want the "it's
| all good" checkpoint to occur early - you don't want to, for
| example, wait multiple minutes for all user services to come
| up. But that also means that if a critical failure happens in
| said services, you're past the checkpoint.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| > the system would automatically fallback to the previous
| version by just switching the bootslot used.
|
| That's the hard part though.
|
| It's shockingly common in my experience to have an A/B boot
| setup, but no actual logic in the userspace application to
| switch back to the other partition if something goes wrong.
| It's just a defense against somebody pulling the plug during
| the OTA, it doesn't protect against software bugs at all.
| devy wrote:
| Someone correct me if I am wrong, we've haven't heard that Tesla
| OTA updates bricking people's cars.
|
| They implemented a dual redundant system similar like the dual
| BIOS for motherboard since 1999.
| op00to wrote:
| Literally the first umpteen hits on Google says this happens
| with Tesla:
|
| https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-software-updat...
| chroma wrote:
| That's one person claiming an update bricked their car, but
| it's unclear if that was due to a bad software update or a
| hardware failure that coincided with the update. Tesla
| usually explains what they fixed, so it's odd that the poster
| never replied with more details.
|
| Even if every software update was perfect, you would see
| individual stories like the one you linked to. There are
| millions of Teslas in the world, and they all get updates
| frequently, so a hardware failure will sometimes coincide
| with a software update. If a bad update were shipped to
| customers, it would be a story similar to this Jeep issue:
| thousands of cars affected at once, lots of furious
| customers, and news articles about the failure.
| dmix wrote:
| I can't find any news stories about Tesla's OTAs bricking
| cars? Especially nothing mid-drive like we're seeing with
| Jeep. That'd be a pretty major story considering how every
| Tesla story makes headlines.
| henvic wrote:
| I never heard of this and follow Tesla
| groups/communities/forums/etc. for over 10 years. At most
| you'll hear one or another person complaining about having
| initiated the update process and suddenly getting annoyed
| because they find out they need to go somewhere (it might take
| an hour).
| rangestransform wrote:
| They also do a fuckton of HIL testing for onboard software and
| in general approach testing like a software company instead of
| a bean counter company
| artemonster wrote:
| leadership problem, as everywhere. old grampas that used to
| manually draw gears on paper now have to "strategically align" a
| huge corporation that has to deal with new shiny and complicated
| things like software and they all have zero fucking clue. at
| least with cars you can always try to safely stop, with planes -
| not so possible. this will also soon creep up there.
| macNchz wrote:
| I rented a Jeep Wagoneer recently and found it to have such
| comically glitchy electronics that this comes as no surprise. The
| second day we had it, the liftgate stopped latching entirely, it
| beeped and popped some error messages on the dashboard and simply
| wouldn't latch shut at all, no matter what we did. Searching the
| internet produced lots of people with the same problem, reporting
| that it required a software update to fix. There was no manual
| override to the electronic latching mechanism.
|
| Luckily we were near a location of the rental car company--rather
| than deep in the middle of nowhere where we were headed--and
| exchanged it for another of the same model, which was all they
| had available. The next 1000-something miles we drove were filled
| with endless weird glitches:
|
| - When a passenger plugged in their Steam Deck in the back, the
| entire infotainment system cut out and went black, including the
| instrument panel, and then started glitching in and out until
| they unplugged it.
|
| - When parking, the driver's seat would retract slightly to make
| it easier to get out, but it never moved forward again, so the
| seat would get further back at each stop until it was manually
| repositioned.
|
| - The entire drive the system flashed an un-dismissable error
| about a rear seat latch, which seemed completely functional.
|
| - The TPMS light went on and off periodically as it seemingly
| lost and then regained signal from one wheel or another.
|
| - The system flashed errors related to the automated cruise
| control being unavailable/broken at random times.
|
| - The electronic parking brake kept applying itself while briefly
| paused in parking lots.
|
| - There was something inscrutably wrong with the climate control
| that we never really figured out where sometimes it'd just get
| hot inside the car despite no change to the AC settings.
|
| When we got back I found tons of people online talking about
| similar (often worse) issues. Incredibly terrible for any new
| vehicle, never mind one that costs $80k.
| tristor wrote:
| Honestly, unsurprising. Jeep and Stellantis/Dodge in general
| has horrible quality control and extremely poor electrical
| designs. They have a huge enthusiast community that will be
| happily apologize away the copious amounts of flaws. Frankly,
| nobody should ever buy their vehicles, it's just robbing
| yourself.
| jmcqk6 wrote:
| I own a Jeep Wrangler, and you're right the electronics are
| terrible. The rest of the vehicle is really solid though. The
| only problems I've had with it in three years are electronic
| in nature. And I've really pushed it to the limits: Colorado
| Passes, Utah Dessert, Montana backroads. I drove it to the
| Arctic Ocean and back on the Dempster.
|
| Still there is no excuse for how terrible the electronics are
| in Jeep / Dodge (I'm assuming all Chrysler) vehicles. And
| it's been that way for decades.
| jpitz wrote:
| I owned a Jeep 4XE, and I was glad the day we sold it, and
| I'm doubly glad today. The electronics and software were
| crap, and the powertrain was simply insufficient. At one
| point, they issued a notice that amounted to 'it might
| catch on fire, keep it away from your house.'
| tristor wrote:
| Yeah, I have family members with 2 JKs and a JL,
| unfortunately all plagued with issues, almost entirely
| related to the electronics. A Jeep Wrangler is a vehicle
| that sounds great on paper, but actually owning one is an
| exercise in frustration unless you just enjoy fucking with
| wiring harnesses. I am sure many others will come out of
| the woodwork to say that Jeeps are great, unfortunately
| they are not.
| nwienert wrote:
| It's too bad because the wagoneer is the best designed car in
| the segment, inside and out for the most part.
|
| I have a somewhat bad back and want something that I can
| occasionally work from, so a big space, comfy middle seats, a
| wide center console. Car makers for some reason refuse to
| make essentially a Tahoe but shorter wheelbase / 2 row which
| would be ideal. Instead you have to go with the full size to
| get full-width.
|
| But out of those, only American brands seem to understand the
| utility of blocky interiors. Armada and all the Japanese and
| Korean large SUVs always use swooping rounded edges which
| really reduce utility.
|
| But the American brands are all less reliable and struggle
| with consistent quality.
| trollbridge wrote:
| I own a 2002 Grand Cherokee which sometimes will have a 10A+
| power drain for no apparent reason. Of course it doesn't do
| it when I've got my voltmeter on it, except once (when the
| 10A fuse in my Fluke blew). I resigned myself to unplugging
| the battery or leaving it plugged in to a high current
| battery charger at home, and leave it running if I drive it
| somewhere.
|
| I rented a Jeep Liberty or Compass circa 2018 whose
| headlights were permanently in DRL mode: couldn't turn them
| off or on. Fortunately I didn't need to drive at night.
|
| In 2017, rented a 300 with 500 miles on it; the infotainment
| was completely broken, which hosted the controls for the seat
| heaters and temperature setting. It was well below zero in
| Minneapolis but we had to drive around with our windows down
| because the fancy climate system defaulted to max heat blast
| + max heated seats based on ambient temperature.
|
| Long ago I had a 1996 Neon where the wiring harness started
| to fail, and the speedometer would stop working. Later on the
| oil light would come on despite oil pressure being fine.
| Eventually the entire car just quit running at all at random
| - nothing but a dim oil light. I sold the car for scrap for
| $65 since I got tired of being randomly stranded.
|
| So what I'm saying is that it sounds like Chrysler has
| managed to actually keep doing the same thing for _29 years_
| : electrically unreliable vehicles.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In my personal experience with cars that had strange
| electrical problems, they tend to be on a bad ground
| somewhere in the loop. I once took a Chevy S-10 to a place
| my dad recommended. A guy walked out to ask what the issue
| was, he nodded, took a step back to look at the truck and
| asked the year of the truck. He then nodded and said "Yep",
| and then without looking reached under the dash on the
| driver's side and tightened a screw by hand. All electrical
| problems went away. He walked away after politely telling
| me to have a nice day. I was baffled, and he said it would
| cost him more in time to write the repair up than he could
| honestly charge me.
|
| The point is that stable ground connections are notoriously
| hard on something that by design shakes, rattles, and rolls
| with all of the vibrating and bouncing on our "modern"
| streets. It's also a very easy thing to misdiagnose unless
| you're a mechanic that specializes in automotive electrical
| systems. It also takes time for new year models to display
| their warts enough that non-dealer mechanics gain
| experience repairing them.
| op00to wrote:
| On a recent one week trip with my family, we went through FOUR
| Grand Wagoneers, each one with another show-stopping problem.
| kswzzl wrote:
| My 4xe died in my driveway on Saturday after the update. Let me
| explain, from the perspective of a 4xe owner, how bad the
| response has been from Jeep/Stellantis:
|
| - As of Monday 8am ET, zero legitimate communication from any
| Jeep-related accounts on any social media platform, or any other
| form of acknowledgement from the company (unless I've missed
| something?)
|
| - I only found out about the issue after finally searching a few
| Jeep groups on Facebook (of all places) to see if anyone else was
| experiencing the weird failure mode I was after the update.
|
| - The only remotely-official info was from a 'JeepCares' account
| (which is ran by Jeep) on some random off-roading forum? We were
| seriously all living off of screenshots from this forum, and the
| advice coming from the JeepCares accounts was contradictory: they
| claimed that the Uconnect update was separate from the telematics
| update, and that there was no way to stop the telematics update
| if the vehicle received it. Later they gave advice to defer the
| Uconnect update, making it sound like they were coupled.
|
| - Due to the lack of info from Jeep, people were coming up with
| all kinds of "if you reboot Uconnect while the Jeep's in ACC
| mode, it clears the check engine light". This probably did clear
| the CEL but didn't fix the fault.
|
| - There is no way to tell if you received the bad update.
|
| - There is no way to tell if you received the 'fix' either.
|
| - Dealerships have literally no idea what is going on.
|
| - You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp (power loss,
| unable to safely make it to the shoulder) and being stranded on
| the highway, even as I write this.
| SigmundA wrote:
| I really want a 4XE Wrangler to replace my aging JK at some
| point, on paper its amazing, lots of torque and power, decent
| economy for a brick with large tires, and can actually run a
| pure electric enough to get around town, plus still takes all
| the standard Wrangler parts.
|
| However in classic Jeep style they just can't get reliability
| down, and the PHEV part seems too complicated for them.
|
| If it was just reliable it would still be the best selling PHEV
| in America, they let that go.
|
| There is no sign of the 2026 Wrangler 4XE it might be canceled
| like the Gladiator version...
| kswzzl wrote:
| Agreed, it's an expensive but great vehicle. Closing the last
| mile of the reliability gap is always tough, but they need to
| figure it out.
| 20after4 wrote:
| It's probably canceled, not only for reliability reasons. EVs
| and plugin hybrids are probably doomed, at least in the US:
| The EV tax credit subsidy is gone, fuel economy requirements
| will be or already have been eliminated, electricity prices
| climbing (my rate increased almost 50% on my most recent
| bill) and the Trump administration is extremely hostile
| towards anything related to renewable energy.
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| Does the market actually want EVs and hybrids if they
| require subsidies and regulation to make significant market
| penetration?
| willdr wrote:
| Unfortunately to survive the next few hundred years, we
| may need another dictator of human behaviour than what
| the market wants.
| skywhopper wrote:
| A functioning market that priced in the externalities and
| future risks would far prefer them.
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| I've always been surprised that people even buy jeeps given
| the notorious reliability issues and frankly strange design
| choices.
|
| The times that I have been given a jeep rental while on
| vacation or work trips have always left me disappointed with
| the vehicle.
| SigmundA wrote:
| My Wrangler JK is 10 years old with almost no issues, its a
| relatively simple vehicle compared to most, easy to work on
| as well. The Pentastar V6 is well proven engine and the
| issues with it are well understood.
|
| I really like the vehicle, it has served me well and taken
| me many interesting places across the country, along with
| daily driving. I tow it with a RV and its one the few that
| can do so now days, plus its extremely capable offroad.
|
| The 4XE is very alluring, much more fun to drive (I have
| rented one) and I could charge it off home solar and still
| tow with RV (the only PHEV thats possible to do so). If
| only it was reliable...
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| There's just no comparison when you consult reliability
| reports, though. Of course, even companies like Toyota
| are going in the direction of always on, arbitrarily
| updated software and subscriptions.
|
| I have no idea what I'll buy when my 11 year old toyota
| finally retires.
| schaefer wrote:
| My condolences. I wonder if you qualify for a loss-of-use
| rental under the warranty.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Personally, I would return the vehicle as defective after an
| issue like this. No way I'm going to trust the lives of
| family, friends and myself to a company like this.
| d_sem wrote:
| How did you verify that a software update can 1. Occur during
| driving operation of the vehicle and 2. results in vehicle
| power loss?
|
| I worked in an auto supplier years ago and there where several
| protections in place to prevent the risk of update corruption
| on safety related components. One of the simplest one the UDS
| programming session having entry protections related to vehicle
| speed, vehicle driving mode, etc.
| kswzzl wrote:
| My update occurred while parked. I hit the failure mode 1-2
| hours later pulling out of my driveway.
| d_sem wrote:
| Thanks for the clarity. Wow this is a big deal.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| imho the occasional mixup is going to happen, and eventually
| it'll be big like this or like Crowdstrike, but pushing these
| out on Fridays means the critical staff isn't there to help.
| The people who could have communicated this stuff to customers
| and dealerships were in bed when people got into their jeeps at
| 6am on Saturday after an overnight update.
|
| I believe crowdstrike's update was on a Friday night as well.
|
| Unless its a serious security bug, it can wait for not only for
| better QA testing but also for next Tuesday. Read-on Fridays
| need to be an industry-wide thing.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Honestly the only thing that's going to change this is
| criminal liability for safety related software bugs.
| Otherwise, it's just business as usual and the business for
| the last 15 years has been cutting QA and asking developers
| to do testing themselves, which is literally impossible for a
| lot of software due to lack of proper staging environments
| and large permutations of configurations.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| I think the nature of capitalism will make this impossible.
| The capital owning class will not allow criminal action for
| this and will also fight any common-sense regulations. If
| the working class gets that regulation in via the
| democratic process, that's fine, but its unlikely
| especially since it hasn't happened yet since we've gone
| digital on near everything starting from the 70s and 80s.
|
| The working class lately seems more focused on 'culture
| war' issues and not economic or material or consumer or
| worker's rights issues anyway, so we're probably as far
| from any kind of regulation reform in software as possible.
| I remember a couple decades ago FOSS as an ideal seemed
| stronger and you had people like Lessig pushing hard for IP
| reform and Swartz and others for 'information must be free'
| honest-to-goodness mainstream movements and all of that
| seems to have went nowhere and is somewhat to very
| unpopular today. When was the last time you saw a populist
| movement towards liberal tech reform like this? Outside of
| some edge cases like medicine or power generation, the
| regulations here are purposely kept weak because that's
| what the wealthy desire.
|
| Maybe our kids or grandkids will have this after the
| pendulum swings back, shrug.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Aviation proves every day that this is perfectly possible
| if there is a will to do it and a regulator with teeth.
| watwut wrote:
| Aviation relators just allowed boeing to self certificate
| again. Avition has a lot of historical regulations and
| can work through sheer inertia for years.
|
| But the whole point is, regulator wont have teeth. They
| have teeth when politicians back them. And as of now,
| politicians back billionaires and deregulation. Wall
| street hates regulators, billionaires hate regulators and
| sizable part of population prefers people dying if it
| means they cam hurt libs and ennemies.
| hinkley wrote:
| Lack of QA also tilts the power dynamic with project
| management. You could have the lead engineer and tester
| tell mgmt that things are not ready.
| jms703 wrote:
| To me the bigger issue is that the infotainment system can
| affect the core function of the vehicle. That seems
| completely unacceptable, regardless of when an update is
| pushed out. The two systems should be separate with the
| infotainment system as the lesser important and unable to
| actually effect the core system.
| jlokier wrote:
| > - You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp (power
| loss, unable to safely make it to the shoulder) and being
| stranded on the highway, even as I write this.
|
| This seems extraordinary.
|
| I was going to ask: Are you really saying they kill the
| vehicle's power system, effictively the engine, _while the
| vehicle is being driven on the highway_?
|
| But no need to ask, the article says yes, that's what is
| reported:
|
| > Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving--a far
| more serious problem. For some, this happened close to home and
| at low speed, but others claim to have experienced a powertrain
| failure at highway speeds.
|
| Wow.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Ya, that is shockingly scary. It makes me think we need some
| new standards about software updates to vehicles in general
| (or perhaps these already exist but were missed for some
| reason?). I can totally imagine that software used to be this
| ancillary selling point that didn't need such tight
| regulation, but as it becomes core infrastructure for the
| vehicle this is less of an IoT toy, and deserves stricter
| standards.
| jacquesm wrote:
| How about: you get to say whether you want to update and
| when and manufacturers are required to very explicitly list
| all of the changes in an update? That would seem to be an
| acceptable minimum.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I don't think that Jeep would have sent out a message
| saying that one of the changes would brick your machine.
|
| It seems that the ability to trivially roll back any
| update would be a better choice, at least for this. (But
| I'm sure there are downstream effects I haven't thought
| about if that were implemented.)
| conductr wrote:
| How do you roll back a fatal car accident caused by the
| faulty update?
|
| Giving user's control over when the update runs allows
| them to be in a safe and secure setting when that update
| happens. Allowing them time, gives them and Jeep the
| ability to slow roll the update so they can halt it if
| initial feedback is negative.
|
| I say this as a Mac user who does not allow auto updates
| for MacOS. I wait a week or so until the chatter
| validates it as non-breaking. They pushed an OS update
| several years ago that broke a few things I rely on. So I
| don't trust them now, but these things just happen on
| OS's with third party software. I expect it. But, I also
| don't want to be forced to deal with the headaches
| immediately. I'd rather let the third parties run updates
| and advise how to deal, before I have to dive into fixing
| things. With car firmware, there's really no excuse for
| this except poor engineering / processes.
| tremon wrote:
| _Giving user's control over when the update runs allows
| them to be in a safe and secure setting when that update
| happens_
|
| FTFA:
|
| > The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car
| immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while
| driving -- a far more serious problem
|
| And from the GP upthread:
|
| > There is no way to tell if you received the bad update.
|
| > There is no way to tell if you received the 'fix'
| either.
| conductr wrote:
| Good points, I did miss those. However, if I had this
| vehicle and I was reading this article today - and had
| the ability I'm asking for - I would just keep my current
| version running until they figure this mess out. It's the
| advantage of letting other people run the updates first,
| you get to hear about issues before you experience them.
| rurp wrote:
| It's not perfect but seems reasonably easy to implement
| and would certainly help. If the user needs to approve
| each update and can see what the changes are most updates
| will either be skipped or delayed long enough that
| catastrophic bugs will only hit the small subset of cars
| that update immediately.
|
| I would bet most updates, especially from a company this
| bumbling, will be more along the lines of increasing
| telemetry or pointless UI changes than releasing actually
| useful features and bug fixes.
| danielheath wrote:
| You might not accept an update with a bunch of changes
| that didn't sound relevant to you.
|
| I certainly wouldn't accept one while I was still driving
| the car!
| skywhopper wrote:
| The update didn't happen while people were driving.
| Rather, the bug took time to occur, well after the update
| had been applied.
| throw74845858 wrote:
| There is no need to invent new regulations. We already have
| criminal liability, endangerement from gross negligence,
| and manslaughter!
|
| I do not see reason, why CEOs of big companies should be
| exempt from this!
|
| If bus driver makes mistake, or someone drives drunk....
| They get punished. This is the same thing!
| imglorp wrote:
| Yes and we have the NHTSA (unless it's already been
| neutered by the chaos) who can accumulate statistics and
| issue recalls.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| NHTSA's power is simultaneously very broad and narrow.
| They're empowered to investigate potential safety issues
| after the fact, but this may not be a safety issue in the
| very pedantic sense often used. NHTSA can proactively set
| standards, but the standards they've set (FMVSS) largely
| ignore modern electronics. So on and so forth.
| dabockster wrote:
| > There is no need to invent new regulations.
|
| The current regulations are written for a time where cars
| didn't have rolling computers in them. And even then, the
| regulations don't account for Tesla-style linked systems.
| So I say we do need new regulations.
| worik wrote:
| >> - You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp
|
| This has happened to me twice with a Nissan Leaf. I paid
| money to get a read out from the computer system, and there
| were no timestamps on the screens of data.
|
| Modern cars "computers on wheels" are dreadful.
|
| Is it possible to disconnect the power from the radios used
| for "over the air" nonsense? Then at least they would be
| stable.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Is it possible to disconnect the power from the radios
| used for "over the air" nonsense? Then at least they would
| be stable._
|
| I've read online that for some cars, you have to dig deep
| inside to disconnect the cellular antenna.
|
| I'm a little more lucky. On my car, you can pop out the SIM
| card from a slot in the ceiling, behind the rear-view
| mirror.
|
| This assumes you haven't given your car access to your home
| WiFi. (Some people do this so they don't have to pay for a
| data plan for their car, and it kinda sorta "syncs" when
| you get home.)
| iAMkenough wrote:
| In the Leaf, you can disconnect the TCU from the CAN
| gateway controller located behind the infotainment system
| to disable its remote connections.
|
| It will throw a perpetual "check engine" light and disable
| the hands-free microphone, but OVMS users have made a
| "dummy TCU" that gets around that annoyance.
|
| I have the opposite problem. The specific infotainment
| system update I need requires a $200 visit to a dealership
| with a specific model of a USB 2.0 SanDisk Flash Drive
| (NI-52727-1). Not available OTA despite the Leaf's OTA
| capabilities.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Incredible that Jeep did not think to have updates only go
| out to cars which are stationary with engine off.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is completely insane that this is happening. I did DD on a
| company in the automotive space a couple of years ago and
| flagged that they did not check if the vehicle was stationary,
| motor disabled before updating. They were all surprised at how
| I thought that this could possibly ever lead to issues.
| coldpie wrote:
| Given the state of the software industry, it's honestly more
| surprising that this doesn't happen more often. Our industry
| is a complete joke, and somehow we've been given
| responsibility over people's lives.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Given the state of the software industry, it's honestly
| more surprising that this doesn't happen more often.
|
| It probably does. We just don't notice.
|
| > Our industry is a complete joke, and somehow we've been
| given responsibility over people's lives.
|
| Amen to that. kqr made some choice comments the other day
| in that thread about the airliner that came to within a
| hair of crashing due to running out of fuel. Thinking about
| risk is not a skill that we're born with and it is always
| sobering to read the 'risks digest' for a bit and to see
| how thin the ice really is.
| hinkley wrote:
| We are really only about 60 years old as a proper
| profession, and we seem to be trailing behind doctors for
| professionalism and standard of care by about 100 years.
|
| I don't know what will turn out to be our penicillin, or
| our Joseph Lister, but in 1960 the former is something that
| didn't exist when older doctors were in school, and latter
| had only been dead for fifty years. It may not have
| happened for us yet.
| npsomaratna wrote:
| On the topic of professions: Joseph Lister was a surgeon.
| Modern surgery (which I define as surgery aided by
| anesthesia) is a relatively recent discipline dating to
| the early 19th century. The introduction of anesthesia
| made lengthy and intricate operations possible but also
| ushered in novel problems and complications. Surgery as a
| field had to learn tough lessons over time.
| hinkley wrote:
| He was known more for antiseptics but the biggest surgery
| moment for me will always be "using soap" and I wonder
| what the software equivalent is.
|
| Like I said we are still young, so it feels sort of
| arrogant saying we have figured something out when I know
| how many things are industry standard now that almost
| resulted in shouting matches trying to get done even 20
| years ago. Maybe our soap moment is coming up ten years
| from now.
|
| But I suspect automated testing may be the wash your
| hands, because it represents a sort of hygiene that "we"
| used to just say fuck it or make a minimal effort.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| I'm going on a limb here because i'm not directly on the
| software industry but my first suspect would be metrics and
| the fact that you have to deliver a product at certain time
| "no matter what".
| hinkley wrote:
| I have Java code running on commercial aircraft. You can't
| actually run Java code on commercial aircraft because the FAA
| doesn't (or at least not at the time) know how to certify it.
|
| The entire box it's on isn't powered while the plane is in
| motion ("wheels on ground"). It's shut off before preflight
| and doesn't turn back on until the plane is on the ground.
| The service my code is part of is responsible for queuing
| updates and downlinking telemetry. Updates are manual and
| obviously you can't run them while in motion if the box they
| are on doesn't even have power.
|
| Cars probably don't have to go this far, but there's a
| continuum and they're clearly in the wrong part.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Even iPhones and windows let you schedule update times.
| Just the fact that a freaking MOVING MACHINE doesn't is
| egregious on itself. Imagine if stellantis would
| manufacture industrial equipment or nuclear reactors!
| reaperducer wrote:
| _they did not check if the vehicle was stationary, motor
| disabled before updating. They were all surprised at how I
| thought that this could possibly ever lead to issues._
|
| My anecdata is that my car won't update its software without
| the owner explicitly requesting it. And then, it will only do
| it if the car has something like 50% charge, hasn't been used
| for an hour, and nobody is inside.
|
| I once tried to do the update while I was inside, and it
| refused.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's good. You may want to list the brand here.
| stavros wrote:
| My BYD wants the battery over some percentage, the
| vehicle in park, and the hood closed. The hood one was
| surprising, I wonder if it's for the safety of the car or
| of anyone working on it.
| tremon wrote:
| According to the article, that's not what is happening. The
| update itself completes fine; it's the updated firmware that
| is buggy, and seems to cause/require a reset of the ECU while
| in operation. Not that that makes it any less insane, but the
| update process does not seem to be implicated here.
| fastasucan wrote:
| Yes, and if the update happened while at home, most people
| could get the error at safe speeds (most people does not
| live <1 min from a highway).
| skywhopper wrote:
| That's not how this problem occurred. The update happened
| hours before, but the bug only manifested once the driver was
| on the road.
| hinkley wrote:
| This sounds like the sort of thing that happens when a team has
| a deliverable that slips multiple times but everyone had
| vacations planned for a responsible amount of time after the
| deadline.
|
| Under time pressure and confirmation bias they signed off on
| code that was giving off signs of being broken, pushed it, and
| now key staff are either on airplanes, out of coverage on their
| phones, or cannot work entirely from memory and don't have
| their computers with them because vacation.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I bet they already have communications ready, but everyone
| Director and above needs to "wordsmith" it to deflect blame
| and make sure nobody looks bad, and all the lawyers need to
| bless it so that it's not admitting anything. I bet you
| there's a Word doc being frantically E-mailed around all day,
| needing to be approved by 25 people before it reaches the
| light of day.
| defraudbah wrote:
| lol, i love jeeps, but you have to buy japanese cars with
| software from 60s, hopefully this does not change for another 80
| years
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558318
| mrbonner wrote:
| A side note: is it just me or not but I prefer my new car to
| still providing tactile buttons to control things? I get that
| smart cars like Tesla wants to push touch-screen on everything
| but the control mechanism just feels clunky for me. When I sit on
| a car with physical buttons, I know exactly where they are and
| what they do when I press & turn them.
| AyyEye wrote:
| Not even two weeks after Stellantis mandates vibe coding
| engineering workflows. Has to be a new record.
|
| https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2025/octob...
| piker wrote:
| Wow! But seriously this would have to be code written before
| two weeks ago to be pushed to production OTA to a fleet of
| vehicles, right?
| AyyEye wrote:
| All bets are off for any org willing to push fleetwide
| updates on a Friday afternoon.
| elcapithanos wrote:
| A few bad updates borked my Linux install and cost me hours of
| potential work and left me with a deep fear of installing
| updates. No idea what I'd do if I had a car that needs updates
| rob wrote:
| I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.
|
| I own a Land Rover and their system software also ("Pivi") seems
| to have tons of little quirks and issues.
|
| Sometimes the cameras won't work unless you restart Pivi. One
| time, the entire car wouldn't respond to locking (via the app,
| keyfob, in-car buttons) unless you disconnected the battery and
| waited ~30 mins. Many people complain that they can't even
| successfully upgrade between Pivi releases. It'll error out a lot
| of times and they have to restart the process.
|
| (Would be interested to know the kind of tech they're using if
| anybody's familiar with it!)
| Animats wrote:
| I have a Jeep Wrangler JK. I considered buying a 4XE. Now I'm
| glad I didn't.
| piker wrote:
| Just wrote about my battles with software updates[1]. Without
| getting into what should or shouldn't happen, I'll express my
| sympathy for the Jeep team and the owners. Software updates are
| hard.
|
| [Edit: a commenter notes that Jeep's parent has recently mandated
| LLM usage in development. Let's hope these two are unrelated and
| that we aren't going to start seeing more catastrophic failures
| like this over the next few months as people work out the
| limitations of this sorcery.]
|
| [1] https://tritium.legal/blog/update
| dabockster wrote:
| Software updates for cars should be rare, with the infotainment
| systems physically isolated from the rest of the car (aside from
| constant/switched power). And if it needs updates for whatever
| reason (eg a recall), they should be done at a dealership - not
| over the air.
|
| Bricking a car with an over-the-air software update is stupid and
| unacceptable behavior. Stuff like this is why I'm actually kind
| of happy to be driving a 20 year old car still.
| vivalahn wrote:
| I looked at the Jeep awhile back but their safety ratings were
| absolutely terrible. I've been in car accidents aplenty so that
| was a deal breaker for me. Just about the only real electronic
| thing in my Lexus is an ECU which rarely goes and can be replaced
| relatively easily . Forget updating the maps and other nonsense.
| Just drive the damn thing and do mechanical maintenance and a
| little grease.
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