Ford, and likely other OEMs, have to start from scratch and reinvent how it updates components in their cars
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hrvojepavisic_carmanufacturer-mobility-cars-activity-7084904611349757952-UfJE
by pgcwdrg
Ford, and likely other OEMs, have to start from scratch and reinvent how it updates components in their cars
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hrvojepavisic_carmanufacturer-mobility-cars-activity-7084904611349757952-UfJE
by pgcwdrg
30 Comments
Because they have quality checks lol
That is wild having that many different companies to have to engage with for changing software.
Same time, feels like 1st generation of their next gen vehicles are going to have a lot of bugs to work through when they switch to it all in house. That is going to be a big challenge for them to manage customer experience and not turn off those buyers or potential buyers. Otherwise they can put themselves in the back of the pack for EVs for a number of years to manage the customer experience as a high quality one rather than one filled with annoying bugs.
Because any software engineer with actual talent isn’t working there. My brother is a recruiter mainly targeting new hires out of college. No smart coder out of college is having a dream about working at fucking ford or GM lol.
Imagine actually believing legacy auto will even come remotely close to having superior software stacks when they never ever bothered to have serious software talent over mechanical engineers. They are never going to catch up even if they offer competitive salaries to SWEs (which they won’t because they can’t afford to with all the debt they already still have to worry about)
When I was a kid, my friends dad owned a plastics company, and they made this one tiny plastic connector piece for Toyota … that was their business. Probably millions of companies like his in the world.
This is why I really like Ford. Out of legacy automakers, they realize how screwed they are. Self awareness will be key to survival for many carmakers IMO.
The main reason is that software had no relevance for them in the past or had been outsourced to suppliers. Consequently they lack basic software understanding in particular on a management level to push things forward.
Make a better product, and all those constant updates won’t be necessary.
Automakers should focus on making simpler cars that aren’t reliant on constant software updates.
Id wager legacy automakers would be in much better shape with EVs if they did things their own way rather than trying to copy Tesla. And they don’t even copy the good things Tesla does like the Gigapress casting. Just superficial bullshit like the iPad pro dashboard.
I’d say hire some cool young tech folks but cool young tech folks don’t want to work for a legacy, old-school car manufacturer.
Tesla started from scratch too. They just don’t devote the resources required to get the job done.
Personally, I find comfort in knowing that my car won’t change or get updates just sitting in my garage. I’m in I.T., I know how stuff doesn’t always go according to plan.
Edit: I can recall several times where a new iOS made an iPhone significantly slower, conveniently when a new model came out. Sure, it added more functionality, but now I don’t even want to use the previous features it had. This isn’t even including bugs or unintended results that will happen at some point.
TL;DW is – lack of vertical integration. Like most legacy auto, Ford cars are built with suppliers’ modules all the way down each with their own software. Sounds like they are trying to get away from that, which could be a good or bad thing.
It was probably fine in the past when modules had dedicated, testable firmware that did one thing. Now though everything needs gobs of software for some reason (I’m not personally convinced that’s the only way to make a car that works), thus, it needs to get updated since there will be bugs.
Tesla does (almost) all their computer modules in house, so of course they can have an update process that flashes all of them. They also have bigger, smarter modules that do more so there are fewer things to write software for and update in the first place.
I have a Mustang Mach E and at this point it gets an update at least once a month, and often once every couple of weeks. So they are definitely doing updates.
I have seen a lot more job posts on LinkedIn by Ford for software engineers. Maybe they are trying to tackle this issue now by building everything in house? Time will tell.
Why is this a surprise now? Updating consumer devices has been a thing for at least a decade. They have had plenty of time to adapt even given the glacial pace of car development.
Seems like they should be able to adapt though. Tesla had to learn how to write code for cars too. They also had to learn how to make cars, something Ford is already experienced in. I get they’re entrenched in their old ways, but this is kind of a weak argument.
Lot of Musk fart huffing going on.
I do software engineering for a living, and my guess is that it’s easier to build software and a common layer API than it is to build reputable and competent manufacturing.
Ultimately if Ford recognizes this fault now they are building a culture to attract software engineers into the future. Because those that don’t, will die.
We all like to think of Tesla as unbeatable but Rivian is there, Lucid is there, and even BMW and Porsche are making good EVs and good EV software.
It’s not as far behind as you think, but for Tesla to improve manufacturing is something that to me, will take a lot longer. It’s also why I don’t count Toyota out, as many do but I’m happy to be wrong.
We as consumers should be rooting for competitors because it benefits us all.
Good comments here, but it is possible to still use suppliers and have components communicate with each other. This requires OEM designing an API/Common Framework shared and implemented by all components. But this requires understanding of software development, which it seems OEMs are lacking.
That was the same issue with the vw software update blunder while id3 was debuting. I remember a letter written by a top management VW guy explaining in the same way.
Meh. I just buy cars that work. Never buy a car hoping it’ll get better (and potentially worse, see Tesla disabling hardware) in the future
Ford has done a great job with OTA on the MachE. I have one of the first off the line and while it took a few months to get an OTA update, they have consistently put out meaningful improvements over the last 3 years. As someone who also owns a Tesla, I have zero complaints regarding Ford’s OTA schedule.
on the upside, making cars this way means that you dont loose your speedometer when the screen crashes.
fully centralized everything = single point of failure
Summed up… Because they all dragged their feet.
Toyota could learn a lesson from this…
Had the same discussion in the company I work at (non-auto related). “Why can’t we get our OTA up and running in 3 months?”
Well – Duh. We have many systems (some of which are third party and basivcally a blackbox to us) and none of them were designed with OTA in mind.
18 months later it’s working. Sorta. On a limited subset of subcomponents.
Tesla is pretty much a software company that makes hardware.
Ford is a hardware company that is trying to write software. Volkswagen is also trying to shift to more vertical integration.
Lucid, Rivian also are vertically integrated in software development
Not sure about everyone esle.
out dated cheap hardware that’s overloaded.. And google/apple has all the good programmers.. A couple years back they were asking chip makers to build a new plant to build 1st gen ipod equivalent chips.. They need to update the hardware and possibly make it replaceable with newer hardware and have google or apple do the software for them.. Todays cars are gonna be a nightmare in a couple years due to outdated un-upgradeable equipment. Most of their fancy screen stuff will be useless, while the car has plenty life left.
BMW does ota updates without issue. I think this guy is talking too much out loud. Shows their incompetence.
it has little to do with suppliers and everything to do with the fact that tesla’s cars were being developed from scratch in an era when FOTA was already common, and any company that has been around for a hundred years, automotive or not, has had decades of emergent design. it’s very difficult to bolt FOTA on top of an existing software architecture.
As a MachE owner, I gotta say I love the updates and tuning they have done. Went to a talk form their UI team and was pleasantly surprised to learn the dash is all Unreal Engine based too! Good on them for figuring this out 🙂