JB in AZ

I just read an interview in the November 2019 Automobile Magazine with Tadge Juechter, the Corvette Executive Chief Engineer...regarding the new C8, the first mid engine Corvette.

Automobile Magazine asked: "It's got to be a relief to be done with development, right?"

Juechter: "...The terrible thing about how complicated the electronics are in cars today is that the software is now the long lead time. Longer than giant tools that you have to make for body panels or structure, or anything..."

While it certainly seems that Acura didn't spend enough time getting the software done properly for the 3G RDX in time for it's release, (or perhaps they should have waited to release the '19 RDX until the "traditional release time" of Fall, rather than June?) I still think we need to be patient and let them get it right. It will not be a quick fix.

Just my humble opinion, and seemlngly backed up by Mr. Juedhters comment.

EFR

No doubt. You just wish there was a better, or any, communication pipeline from manufacturer to owners. Tesla seems to really do a good job of hammering out software releases, improvements and communication on what they are doing. Maybe Tesla owners would disagree, but I seem to see a lot of info on what they are doing and how they are resolving issues. On a side note, how about that C8. Of course there have only been photos so far, but that looks like one great looking car.

ceb

Agreed. Let's give them until the 2nd or 3rd year of the Gen 4 to get the Gen 3 right.

Software leadtime isn't something new and leadtime is never an excuse for pushing out a product before it is ready.

Mark S Long Island

ceb, why do you call yourself a Dog?
Je suis un Chien
I do agree with you that the 3rd Gen 2019 & 2020 RDX would be a fantastic automobile if they got the bugs out of the infotainment once & for all..
Being an unpaid beta tester sucks especially when one forks over $50k

Ender519

I greatly sympathize with this statement and I used to hold that viewpoint until I worked at a company with a ton of software engineering and dev and saw the other side of this coin. And like my other post, my point is not to stick up for Acura in any way. I think they should have done better. But the reason they don't communicate is that whenever you do, you are creating a commitment and an expectation, particularly where timing is concerned. My company makes enterprise grade products and they communicate when something has been fixed and placed in a GA release. Never before unless there is NDA and it's to select large customers. What if they commit to fixing a problem by next release and it doesn't happen? That might place them in an actionable state. People can and have sued for things like this. People can and have gotten fired for communicating this kind of stuff out of turn.

Then there is the issue that because the Infotainment system is built on Android there may be a bug with Android that Acura devs have nothing to do with. In fact the devs may be sourced out. Same happened with Ford's MyFord Touch on my last car. They farmed it out to some dipshits called BSquared who took about 2 years to work out the major bugs.

In any case, I think the need is clear for them to QA the software better but I doubt they read these forums. I suggest you put in a line to corporate and add your voice. I would expect it will take them several releases to work out the kinks. And if you go in there and start throwing out this idea that you're an unpaid beta tester or throw too much shade, you won't get very far. I've been around too many product managers and C-levels. Not saying it's right, just saying that's how it is at least IMHO. Instead my advice is to calmly and persuasively lay out your case with reasonable expectations. That they communicate better about the direction of the product and the larger flaws with it, and that they check for your specific use cases as part of their QA process to hopefully avoid it happening in the future. All software will have bugs and that's just a fact of life. But with enough people voicing the issues they are facing with the system it will hopefully cause Acura to focus on the most urgent and widespread issues first.

ceb

Probably time to change that. Remember the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France with the resulting "Je suis Charlie" slogan? Because I worked that incident from the US side and my name is Charles, I used that as my signature line.

In the middle of November of 2015, terrorists shot a police dog named Diesel during a raid in France starting the slogan "Je suis un Chien", so I changed to that since we were in the process of adopting a military working dog. I never changed it after that.

Madd Dog

Our software developers said you can’t hurry the process all that much. “ One woman can give birth in 9 months, but if you put 9 women on the job, you can’t get a baby in one month.”

Acura’s project management and software development have dropped the ball. Will I trust this team going forward as more and more software gets integrated into our cars? At the moment, no.

samiam_68

The problem with software development today is that companies are using trendy methodologies instead of good programmers. Emphasis on "Agile", "Test Driven Development", "Engineering Best Practices", "MVC Architecture", "Separation of Concerns", "Pair Programming", and other horse-poop that dominates the IT field today DOES NOT result in quality software. In fact, quite the opposite outcome is usually the case UNLESS there are a few good programmers on the team that overcome all of this nonsense and actually produce good, tight, efficient, and robust code.