GoHawks

Over on Cadillac forums there have been several threads about the process required to update CUE (Dealer has to do it). I also remember when it was determined that to fix an Navtraffic issue with my '06 RL, the dealer had to do the firmware upgrade and it took a while. Along with other posts about why can't we get certain features that seem to be available readily in the market.
Thought this article did a pretty good job explaining the differences on why automotive companies can't upgrade car technology as quickly as the next iPhone/Android product, or why we as consumers can't upgrade the technology ourselves.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...8&pageNumber=1

db22

I am not sure that I agree with much in that article:
Car companies are too slow to incorporate the technology that is available to others.
A 10 gig drive was minimal even 5 years ago and knowing that you are designing for the future, would you not design around something much bigger? NDA's to suppliers is nothing new.
Mil Spec devices are available to manufacturers that meet or beat the requirements of auto manufacturers.
Isn't it the fault of the car companies that they have so many platforms to work with? If you design and built the best infotainment system then why not put it in your whole product line instead of screwing it up for the cheaper models? Why isn't the ILX a well appointed car but smaller?
Upgrading should never be an issue - the hardware and I/O should meet or beat the specs that Boeing adheres to and the rest is software. If the telematics do not impede safety then there should be no issue updating frequently. OK it may have a bug. Then rolling back to the previous version should be a click of the mouse on your telematics control system.
All map systems should be downloaded from a central database to NVRAM. There is no need for a DVD or HDD based system. OK, so you may not have access to the satelite or wifi but why would that be necessary, your map information will be from the last time that it did communicate. The info maybe a week old but that is better than the years old POI's that we have to buy from Navtec for an extorted fee.

I think the the manufacturers want you to believe that articles BS but I cannot think of one reason that todays and tomorrows systems cannot be drastically improved. Computer makers and their peripheral manufacturers are already designing hardware to support peta byte hard drives. If your next car does not have at least a 1 tera byte drive then you know that they have their head in the sand.

GoHawks

First off I am sure there is more to the issue than simply what was stated in the article and your rebuttal. Here are my thoughts on a couple of your points....

I agree on this, but what is the demand too? I would really like to know how many people truly exploit all of the technology in today's cars. I can't tell you how many people I see driving who I know their cars have Bluetooth and Homelink, yet I still see them holding the phones to their ears while they drive or I see garage door openers clipped to their sun visors. If the majority of people either can't (or won't) learn how to pair their phone or program their Homelink, can you really expect them to perform the firmware or map updates for their cars?

There is also the fact that you have to ensure that the users can't hack or expose the cars to a virus. Think about how all of the car's processors are linked together. There was a recent publication where some researchers were able to hack into a car's telematics and take over control of the brakes and engine control. Now admittedly that hack requires a significant amount of knowledge of the car's systems that goes beyond that of the general public, but you can imagine if you allowed users to start applying updates themselves. It will only be a matter of time before someone figures out how to introduce malicious code into your cars systems.

An infected home computer is one thing. Having a malicious virus introduced into your car brings a whole new dimension to product liability.

I don't think from a business model perspective that this is realistic. You're making the assumption that the content of a ILX and an RLX should be equal and the only differentiator to move up is size. I disagree with that. Some people buying lower priced or base cars may have no interest in having a state of the art telematics system. There used to be a time where people could opt for manual (crank windows) until it has become almost more expensive now to offer that option. The electric motors have become so lightweight and inexpensive that now it's just cheaper to put power windows in all of your cars. Everybody has to open their windows. With respect to stereos and telematics, not everyone has the same desire or need to have a connected car.

Again I think you overestimate the tech savvy of most of the car buyers out there. In addition to my previous example of Bluetooth pairing and Homelink programming, I am sure many of us know friends and family who are computer illiterate. These are people who take no precautions in having virus protection on their computers or have no second thoughts about clicking on any website and exposing their computers to malware. Now you're going to allow those same people access to the complex programming of a $30K+ vehicle that if it fails could endanger the lives of their owners and others on the road.

Think of the unintended acceleration complaints against Toyota. Yeah. I know that they dismissed it to driver error, but anyone associated with software development will tell you that with software code it is frighteningly common to have programming defects that will only happen under a unique set of circumstances. Your level of risk acceptance is different when comparing the infamous Blue Screen of Death versus a 4,000 lb vehicle careening out of control.

You're also comparing Boeing with everyday automobiles? Jets that cost tens of millions of dollars with multiple redundancies built in with your everyday Honda Civic?

I don't disagree that in today's age of 1TB hard drives, a 10gb drive is laughable, but again to my initial point, how many people are truly leveraging the 10gb drive that is in there now?

My CTS comes with a 40gb HDD. Of which only 10gb is accessible by the user. I have loaded my entire iTunes library on the HDD, days and days of music available if I were to listen to in consecutively and the HDD is only about two thirds full. I can also pause and rewind live radio programming and also record (cache) about 90 minutes of programming after I shut the car off in case I go in and out to the store. Add to that full iPod connectivity that allows you to control your iPod from the car's user interface. If you have all of your music on your iPhone and you can access that music as easily as changing a radio station, you may have no desire to load the music on the onboard HDD.

I would be willing to bet that very few customers are using even those features. If I am correct, what is the benefit for the manufacturers to push down this technology to the masses?

Think about the complaints against the previous gen RL's controller, now look at the complaints against Ford's Sync or MyFord Touch, or Cadillac's CUE. I had the RL and I loved it. I have played around with CUE and I don't think it's bad, but I am a techie at heart and I am a bit more tolerant of learning and getting acclimated to the technology. Not everyone is the same, especially when most people are too lazy to read the owner's manual of their $30K vehicle.

We tend to be egocentric beings. We think most people are like us. Just by the very fact that we are discussing this on an online forum means that we are a bit more tech savvy than most people, but we are a minority.

KeithL

There is a cost analysis that must be done too. A few points, first to the HDD they say 10GB, most of the cars have 10GB that the user can access for music, but the drive is likely 20-60GB in size. The HDD in a car does indeed need to be much more reliable than the HDD in your home computer or even your DVR. The HDD is exposed to extreme temps and humidity and thus must work day in and day out for many years, probably as long or longer than many people will own the car. Put your $100 1TB drive at home through the same extremes and I bet it does not last a few months.

Sure that can predict growth, but they have to justify cost for every part in the car at the time they will build and source the components. Let's stick with the HDD, sure they could have said let's put a 500GB drive in there, but 3-4 years ago to qualify one for those environmental extremes maybe dries the cost to $1K per HDD, why would they do that when the competitor will use the cheaper drive and undercut the selling price of the car.

As for other electronics, this is just like your home computer/tablet/phone, but with far longer lead times. Withe the overhead of safety and recalls they must certify everything and track everything. Look at GM, CUE gets bashed fro being slow and laggy. Yes that was a mistake on GM's part, but they have to look at the head unit as a computer and they have to source the components, just liek HP/Dell, etc. They design the head unit to perform at a decent trade off of performance and cost, sure CPUs gets faster and cheaper, but they can't keep upgrading them every 6 months. The must find a mid point that they predict will make it either until MMC or whatever point they can justify a component change and all the testing, inventory stocking, etc such that goes with that.

I agree the car companies need to figure out how to shorten that cycle, but if your phone has a glitch that screws up your call or app not a big deal, you get a firmware update in a few months. If your car head unit has a glitch that screws up either the performance or safety of the car that is a much bigger deal.

I believe they will get better and will eventually be able to adapt and adopt technology changes quicker. Their first and foremost mission is to deliver a safe and reliable means of transportation, the rest is marketing tools to gain sales over their competitors.

Colin

I will add two additional data points to consider. Let's use only the radios with HDD's built-in for example. It's not necessarily how much something costs for the automaker but rather what the automaker stands to gain from adding it. For example, let's say you have a HDD that cost $90 to manufacture one way and $100 to manufacture it with added GB of storage. On the surface the difference is only $10, so why not simply add it? What if this this is an additional $10 in cost for 100,000 Acura vehicles using the same radio components? This is now an additional $1 million of extra cost. Would Acura gain enough additional sales from the addition of additional hard drive storage to offset $1 million?

The second thing to consider is that Acura probably enters into an agreement with Alpine or Panasonic to manufacture the radios. What if they decide that the best volume is 500,000 radios over the course of five years to get the best price? This means that they are "locked" into a specification until they purchased their allocated amount. If sales slow down (as in 2009) then it is possible that it takes longer to use your allocated number of radios. This ends up extending shelflife of "old" technology. This probably exaggerates the feeling that they could do better.

GoHawks

Both Keith's and your points are spot on. That was part of the point I was trying to make. If the majority of people wouldn't even notice the additional 10gb of storage, why bother incurring the expense?

db22

I agree with the rebuttals made but my point is also to point out that car manufacturers are very slow to adopt new and tested systems. I do not think that it is that difficult to make reliable automotive electronics and it need not be able to intrude on the safety of the car. I was more referring to the infotainment systems and not the basic automobile. E.G. if you removed the infotainment system in the RLX then you may not be able to access numerous things but the safety of the car would not be impacted.

Another way of me saying the same thing as my original post would be to replace the head unit with an Ipad: You now have music, maps, calendar, mail, internet, phonebook and entertainment plus you can remove it and take it with you so no syncing would be necessary beyond the background communication to your cloud account. Manufacturers would approve and provide apps to control some of the cars functions. OK the carpad would be more expensive but the saving in price of the application specific hardware presently used would easily be offset and also would be easily upgradable to the next version of pad.

GoHawks

With how the processors in today's cars are linked together, it's becoming more difficult to say, "just the infotainment system". The example I gave earlier about researchers hacking into the car's telematics.... That was done through Bluetooth. Manufacturers are essentially having to create firewalls within the different Common Area Networks in the cars. There used to be a time that each unit was contained. You had an ECM that managed the engine and drivetrain, you had a body control computer that controlled doors, lights, seatbelts, etc. you had your infotainment systems that handled radio, navigation, etc. All of these systems were walled off from each other. Those walls now are coming down..

I will use OnStar in my current car. From an app on my mobile device I can do the following...

Send a destination to my navigation system
Unlock the doors
Set off the panic alarm
Remote start the car (which will turn on the AC or heat and either heat or cool the seats) depending on the outside temperature.

This can all be done whether I am across the parking lot or another state away. To be able to do all the things mentioned above, the ECM, BCM and the infotainment system and the telematics all need to talk to each other.

And this is on a revised version of OnStar that came out a couple of years ago. The systems that are coming out in the RLX, and other high end cars are even more advanced.

Now expose all of these systems to a Wi-Fi and you take security, safety and authentication to another level.

KeithL

As stated separating the head unit, ECM and infotainment system is not easy especially with all makes going toward an On-Star like connected system where anything in the car can be activated and/or monitored remotely. Wait until the first car gets hacked or a virus and you will be begging them to slow down and make these systems more solid.

Colin

One of the problems manufacturers face when they need to outsource some technology is who is responsible for it should something fail. For example, post-tsunami we started seeing intermittent problems with HFL in the TSX. This was essentially the most basic HFL unit, probably dating back to the 2004 TL (still used voice directions for pairing).

Today, this is probably the simplest and most reliable system in the entire lineup. Suddenly the system would randomly un-pair with a paired device. Johnson Controls tried changing modules, updating the software etc. with no effect. They then suggested that the problem lies somewhere in the TSX wiring. Meanwhile, the customer wants it to 'just work' and is not interested where the fault lies. They are not pleased to be directed to the HFL '800' number. This is just one example of how complicated things can get with regard to this type of technology.

I agree it would be nice to see things happen faster, but IMO, those familiar with tech live in a 'distorted' world where advances happen every 6 months and cars gestate every 6 years. A modular setup could help here but don't forget that automakers are required to offer replacement parts for 15 years AFTER a car goes out of production. Just for kicks, look for some 184 pin DIMs for a Pentium 4 MB today. That chipset came out in 2000, and now imagine finding it 10-15 years from now.

db22

The RLX is really close to being a driver-less car. If you are on the freeway then the only input necessary is to hold the steering wheel but that is not to steer, it is to remind the cars brain that there is somebody in the car. So we are threfore already at a point where the software is vulnerable to a fatality. My point was to state that the systems, as good as they are, are ancient in comparison to the advances of the tech world.
Every system in a car uses ASICs and they are different for all manufacturers so the actual quantity of systems is very small and hackers go for the bigger markets. How many people are reading this on a MAC because the MAC didn't suffer from viruses because there was not that many of them? ASICs are hard coded and not suffering from the contraints of an operating system.
I understand the concerns of many of the posts but I still think that the automotive industry is the slowest to advance the possibilities of producing better systems.

Of course, the biggest issue is the human interface and the discussion broadens when one tries to comprehend what some brands try to sell. E.G. the original BMW joystick of iDrive, Microsoft and its affilliation with Ford etc.. How can it be so challenging to turn the volume down on some cars?

GoHawks

On this I will agree. Technology is supposed to make a task easier, but technology just for the sake of technology is what many manufacturers are guilty of today. Cadillac Cue with the sliding touch screen bar for the volume is a perfect example. A knob is still the best way to turn the volume up and down, and it is how God intended it to be.

Colin

Human Interface is a huge hurdle to overcome. Also with so many states' laws in flux, could this be making automakers question how much to add and the best way to control it?

db22

If you look at all of the hi tech cars out there you will find things that are good and bad. It doesn't seem that difficult to take all of the good bits and put them into your design and leave all of the bad bits for BMW.
For as long as I can remember, car interiors have been good and bad but when a manufacturer gets it right they feel compelled to screw it up with the next iteration under the guise of it being more modern.
How long will it be before we get a car with a dash GUI and you can arrange it how you desire? Of course, you will not be able to delete the speedo, fuel and temp guages but you will be able to rearrange them.

These designers have there heads so far up their a$$ they cannot see the light. In my RL i can select to look at torque vectoring on the MID but the next time I get in the car I have to select it again. If I display the titles on an MP3 disc and want to check the map and then go back to audio I have to reselect the disc and wait for it to display the list again. If I am in cruise control I cannot check the tire pressures. I know that the RLX and later RL's fixed some of these issues but why were they like it with the first iteration? I am sure that the RLX will have similar stupidity built in because the designers are not allowed to ever drive the car that they are designing. Actually, I have no evidence to substantiate that the designers can even drive.

jhr3uva90

Because 1) software UI/UX design is a totally different skill set from car design and 2) people who are talented at UI/UX design generally don't work for car companies.