- there must be a physical mechanism providing connectivity to cellular networks
- this mechanism cannot be required to handshake in order to start the car (not everywhere has cell service!)
Manufacturers can certainly increase the difficulty to remove the offending hardware, but given these two axioms is can’t be determined to be impossible.
In 2025, this is true. At some point in the future, I predict this will be false. Maddening.
It's the We Must See You Online Or We Don't Owe You The Service You've Paid For Principle. Sure it starts with software (e.g. Adobe) and content (e.g. Spotify) but I can see it extending to home appliances and vehicles. Because they can.
Word to justify this principle will be used and the words will sound positive and good and consumers will nod their heads and shrug. "For Your Protection." "Safety." "Authentication." "Copyright Protection." i.e. assumed guilty offline until proven innocent online
It's complex enough that I haven't done it yet in my Sienna, but I plan to!
I told them, don't expect reliability --- and this is an example.
What kind of complete amateur hour operation are they running there at Jeep/Stellantis?
Half the team didn’t have basic understanding of git, and exactly none of the team designing the “smart charge” scheduling had or even had driven an EV.
The complete incompetence of every vehicle OEM team I worked with outside of Tesla and Rivian is part of the reason I left that job.
Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side? I mean it's 2025, they lag behind at least a decade, but software development (infotaiment) practices seems like dark ages.
Except for MCU - from user perspective they just work.
It's more important to start with an organization that cares about quality in the first place.
China has so many people that EE and CS are a dime a dozen, thats why they have a competitive market thats low cost. People are in a jungle trying to survive.
[0]: https://youtu.be/ljOoGyCso8s?t=101
The video is (Supposedly) EEs doing customer support roles thus allowing Cheap PCB for hobbyists, the equivalent in the US does not exist.
Side Note: I hear this is also why SASS never really took off in China. Why pay someone else for software when you can get a dozen people to make your own cheaper.
I've wondered this but it does seem to me that the companies that do the best software also seem to be the newer companies that were driven by investors instead of sales/profitability.
Can classic manufacturers afford the kind of spending it takes to overcome inertia and make quick strides on the software side when it likely won't move the needle on sales anywhere near as much as it costs them?
Edit: for me, it's similar to what we see in the "flying taxi" maybe-autonomous eVTOL field: Airbus gave it a shake, but there are at least half a dozen startups bankrolled by VCs outspending them on a prayer they'll be the one to succeed.
Look at how much VW has spent. They built up entire Software company and they are now giving billions to Rivian.
VW's having to invest huge amounts of their revenue while Rivian's going around burning VC/investor cash without a care in the world for profitability.
Because they use the fight-club metrics for software too:
A x B x C = X, where A is the number of vehicles in the field, B is the probable rate of failure, and C is the average out-of-court settlement.
The company does not initiate a recall (or fix) if the calculated value X is less than the cost of the recall itself.
Edit: If anyone from a car company wants competent software engineering management to build a better team, HMU, I can put you in contact with someone. It'll never happen though.
Because MechE are even worse than EEs at doing software (and yes, having worked at EE companies it was 90% cluelessness)
(also let's not pretend that HW companies ran by SW people don't have multiple issues neither ;) )
And as per other commenter
> Because everyone is making $300k+ at MAGA and they're offering half, if that.
Yes. That as well
Not only EEs, and not only any real engineer, but the hard sciences, as well.
VW is now at their second billion dollar attempt to fix their software. It's not like they aren't trying.
Also consider how software development works at hardware companies. It is all outsourced, inside the company you have "engineers" who are "managing" the requirements" and in "best cost countries" you have the dev teams, communication is hard and the actual devs are not particularly skilled and definitely not paid to care, they just have to do the requirements.
Tesla was revolutionary because they had Software developers, which they paid normal software developer salaries. VW has just sunk Billions into Rivian to have them do the software.
This ought to be the sort of thing that management is there to remind the developers of, but in practice it seems like the opposite is true.
In my experience, management does remind developers of this. Usually after an incident that ultimately boils down to management having incentivized everything else at the cost of good operational practices.
Usually minor firmware recalls make headlines (at least for Tesla), this is a major issue without even a recall announcement?
Also: “power terrain”? For an auto mag, that’s a mistake on par with a software developer deploying to production without a backout plan.
https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
>Let the dealers upgrade
And every single customer will hate you for this.
Do not use the vehicle under any circumstances and have the dealer take it away and keep it until it is safe to drive again.
deveac•8h ago
shtzvhdx•6h ago
jmann99999•4h ago
So far, the Jeep has been fairly reliable, with my issues being:
- Electric door locks and mirrors stopped working
- Radiator leaked
- CV Joints
The Lifetime Warranty has now broken even (~$2500).
Unfortunately, now my issue is rust, and the warranty doesn't cover that.
jrnng•3h ago
ssl-3•2h ago
What I've found that works (for me):
For stuff that isn't yet rusted, Fluid Film. It's easy to buy (it's on the shelf even at Wal-Mart). It's made primarily from lanolin, which is a product of the wool industry and is how sheep stay dry. If I were Very Serious about it, I'd find a shop that would cover the whole bottom of the vehicle (and anything that can be reached through holes) in the stuff and pay them to get that done. (I buy it in spray cans; some shops buy it in 55 gallon drums.)
For stuff that is definitely already rusting, Corrosion-X. It's some kind of oily chemical soup that is supposed to prevent existing rust from getting worse, and also prevent new rust. One interesting feature is that it's available in 3 different viscosities; vaguely speaking, those viscosities are thin, medium, and elephant snot.
The thin one does a fantastic job of creeping around to cover even unseen surfaces, but it washes off the fastest. The thicker ones hang around longer and creep less. (Tradeoffs, I guess.)
I prefer Fluid Film just because it's more natural than some other things are and that makes me feel good in some way that I don't care to rationalize, but Fluid Film is not very good at recovering from existing rust.
Corrosion-X, though? I can get the thin version of that worked into the joint of a completely rusted-stuck pair of box-jointed pliers and have them working very well (and looking fairly decent, though not "new") in a few minutes with a shop rag. I've heard stories of it being used to hose down whole electrical rooms in ocean-going boats. It's amazing stuff. (And it's expensive.)
The practical downside is that these products all feel greasy, and they all turn black with enough time and enough miles. They're all ugly.
For visible painted body panels, the best way I know to deal with small spots of rust from rock chips and stuff is to go full-ass on it. Get the Dremel out, pick an appropriate abrasive stone, and start grinding those little pinholes out until there's nothing but clean, shiny metal surrounded by paint. And then: Fill in with touchup paint that matches the factory paint code. (It's never perfect, but it does get easier to do a job that looks better than little rust spots do with some practice...and the little spots then don't turn into big spots.)
Rust never sleeps. Good luck.