Software Defined Vehicles
 

I'll just leave this here
https://www.sonatus.com/blog/what-is-a-software-defined-vehicle/

if you hate analog this is for you

Super Mario Kart?

This is mostly what Tesla has been doing for years. OTA updates for new capabilities, your car is always connected to the cloud, active diagnostics, etc. The article doesn’t really touch on the fact that connected cars are easier to hack and therefore control, easy to track 24/7, and give manufacturers the ability to charge for or disable features in the future. So it’s not all roses for consumers.

And ultimately also the ability for LE to track and/or disable. I don't know that LE tracking of vehicles has been done yet, but if it's possible, then it's only a matter of time. And I believe LE has used onstar to disable stolen vehicles or vehicles used in crimes.

The article is full of doublespeak. Other than making systems more independent of each other and "saving on wiring" (my paraphrase), no particular upgrade is cited. Only that upgrades are possible.

Talks a lot about hardware consolidation but limits changeable HDW functions to climate control and functions like the windows. Didn't mention wipers in the sense that they are rain activated, I suppose that's the reference to the windows, that they go up if i starts to rain while parked outside. Allows for cars to network. Great.

IOW, stuff we don't need, the just think we do.

Meanwhile people are clamoring for Kei trucks.

Well we have bought our last Lexus..... the controls are ridiculouly complicated. So much, that it is barely functional. Simple tasks require scrolling thorugh mulitple screens.

In flight test "human factors" is a huge deal when evaluating software and hardware updates and functionality.

Even my wife's 4Runner, a 2020, has some really poor operator interfaces for seemingly basic stuff.

And, btw, if I want to hear my car talk, I'll put my wife in the trunk.

Speaking of talking....so when we complained to the dealer they sent their tech guy out to "Train" us. His simple instruction was just ask the car. So we do.....and 50% of the time it doesnt understand us and it is slow very slow.
"wife in the trunk" would help some! :)

Oh and they can track every single thing you do, learn from it, charge your subscriptions then spam you with ads.

rj

Fiber optics and a big black box that controls it all.

made me think of this classic... (not that I'm trying to say anything about Mrs Hawk)

<iframe width="720" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rx6WB5YJia8" title="The offficial Trunk Monkey Trilogy." frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

100% anything/everything that you do electronically that has anything to do with a computer can be or likely is guaranteed to be tracked. Big Data!

I had a new BMW 1-series as a rental several weeks ago and HATED it. Not only did it suck to drive but even basic functions were 1-2 button pushes deep in the menu structure. Super safe when you have to take your eyes off of the road to operate a touch screen.

Yeah, so they talk about wiring being damaged by collision or other means and the complications of tracing/replacing. FO is gonna help?

Steve, we had an incident several years ago in western Nova Scotia involving a stolen GM pickup. The RCMP contacted Onstar for a vehicle location, which they provided. Onstar was able to disable the truck, after police had it in sight to ensure the slowing down and stopping would not endanger public.

And to think I despised all the electronic garbage in my 93 325 IS.

I am analog man.

All cars >2019 have an eSim.

My 2018 ram does not have a single FCC complaint part. No bluetooth, wifi, gps, onstar, etc. Those were options for the upgrayyed (pun intended) OEM radio(s). No fancy radio, no tracking. That said, the basic radio sucks and I aux everything with a gen 5 iPod. 2006 called folks.

I figure I have roughly another 20yrs of driving left,give or take a few. All I have to do is make my 20yo plus vehicles last another 20.Refuse to buy any new vehicle.

Ironically, the one that will probably outlast them all is my '62 Mercury.... Simplicity at its finest.


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In college, I worked on a project that intended to find the smallest difference between the shapes of objects that a pilot could easily detect by feel. The idea was to make it easier for the pilot to distinguish between, say, the mixture control and the prop control without looking.

LOL!!
An apropos story I posted here some time ago:

I used to be pretty much in tune with any engine-powered vehicle that I operated. I could tell if a tire was low by the feel of the steering. I could tell if a spark plug was going bad or the points were closing up by the way the engine sounded. If the engine was down on power, I would listen at the exhaust pipe for the sound of a valve that’s burned or sticking. I’ll bet it’s the same with most of you who read this magazine. You could say our engines and vehicles speak to us.

I bought a used car the other day. It speaks to me, too—in French. If it’s like the car it is replacing, it’s telling me a door is open or a tire is low or service is due, but I’m not sure because I don’t understand French. My last car spoke to me in English. It told me every time a tire lost a little air pressure, or the fuel got low, which I found insulting. It was as if the people who made the car assumed anyone who would buy a car like that wouldn’t have the sense to operate the thing. I like to operate my car all on my own, thank you. I have faith in my competence, even if the people who designed my car don’t.

I could change its language to English (or German or Japanese) I suppose, if I got out the 2-inch-thick owner’s manual and looked up the instructions on how to do it. But the car was speaking French to me when I got it, and I kind of like it. I like the soothing voice of the woman who lives in the dashboard cooing to me in French when I leave the driver’s door open. You might ask how I would know the driver’s door is open if I can’t understand the language of the woman who is speaking to me. (Well, you might not ask this because as a reader of this magazine you probably have some sense, but the people this car was built for would be totally baffled). The secret is I do it the old-fashioned way; I pay attention to the cold draft and the sound of air rushing past the weather stripping.

Cars, trucks, and tractors speak to us if we listen and know the language. I remember as a kid watching an old master mechanic stand next to my dad’s John Deere 50 and listen to it tell him what it needed. Sometimes if the message wasn’t clear, he would plug a vacuum gauge into the manifold and interpret the nervous bouncing of the needle like a voodoo priest examining chicken entrails to discern what sickness it had and even predict its future. (“Gonna burn a valve if we don’t get that carbon out of there.”) Machines spoke to him in their exotic, nuanced language in which two sounds that seem the same to the uninitiated could be the difference between a loose wristpin and a bad rod bearing. I was fortunate enough to live in a time when the old language was still spoken fluently, and I picked up a little myself—not much, but enough to get by.

We are losing touch with the language of our vehicles. When I take my car to a shop these days, the mechanic plugs in a scanner, and the car sits silently while a computer decides exactly which part to replace.

New cars actually do still speak the old language, and you can hear it if you aren’t distracted by voices from the dashboard. I don’t find the French lady any more of a distraction than any other passenger, so I let her coo away while I pay attention to the car. When the fuel gauge gets low and she speaks, I imagine she is telling me how handsome I am or what a great job of driving I’m doing, and I make my own mental note of the gas situation.