<story><title>Software is eating the car</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/advanced-cars/software-eating-car</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse than the systems they replace or augment.&lt;p&gt;The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors.&lt;p&gt;Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming on the brakes in a situation where that was totally unexpected and caused a perfectly safe situation to turn into a critical one. If not for playing ping pong for many years I highly doubt I would be writing this. After the first instance I had the whole car checked out to see if there was any fault in the system, the answer was that it was all working perfectly (that time the car had braked whilst on a very narrow bridge sending the car into a skid which I managed to correct before going over the side). Three weeks later it did it again, this time apparently because an advertising sign in a turn generated such a strong radar return that the car thought I was about to have a frontal collision. Again, out of nowhere an emergency stop.&lt;p&gt;I sold the car and got one where the most complex piece of software is the aftermarket radio, it has ABS and an ignition control computer but nothing in the way of &amp;#x27;advanced safety features&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;My vehicle actively trying to kill me is something I can do without.&lt;p&gt;So: as far as I&amp;#x27;m concerned &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; less software on board of cars, open source it all if possible and roll it out much slower so we can get the bugs out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>liquidise</author><text>I’ll pile on with my own anecdote. Last winter I flew home to Maine to visit family. Rented a ‘21 Nissan Altima. It drove well until there was typical New England snow&amp;#x2F;slush mix.&lt;p&gt;While driving on a flat straight stretch of road the car suddenly... yanked itself sideways. Thank god no oncoming traffic was present and I was able to course correct safely. I immediately drove home and paid careful attention to the wheel response. It kept feeling like it wanted to yank me off the road.&lt;p&gt;Once home i broke open the manual and found 4 different “driver assist” and “driver comfort” functions. After disabling them all the terrifying behavior ceased.&lt;p&gt;I’ve lived my whole life in Maine, Rochester NY and Colorado. I’ve never felt as unsafe in a car as I did with those software features enabled in about an inch of snow.&lt;p&gt;Bonus, it also has collision detection warnings on the side of the car. It was convinced every puddle I drove through that splashed slush beside the car was an object I was about to collide with.</text></comment>
<story><title>Software is eating the car</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/advanced-cars/software-eating-car</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse than the systems they replace or augment.&lt;p&gt;The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors.&lt;p&gt;Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming on the brakes in a situation where that was totally unexpected and caused a perfectly safe situation to turn into a critical one. If not for playing ping pong for many years I highly doubt I would be writing this. After the first instance I had the whole car checked out to see if there was any fault in the system, the answer was that it was all working perfectly (that time the car had braked whilst on a very narrow bridge sending the car into a skid which I managed to correct before going over the side). Three weeks later it did it again, this time apparently because an advertising sign in a turn generated such a strong radar return that the car thought I was about to have a frontal collision. Again, out of nowhere an emergency stop.&lt;p&gt;I sold the car and got one where the most complex piece of software is the aftermarket radio, it has ABS and an ignition control computer but nothing in the way of &amp;#x27;advanced safety features&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;My vehicle actively trying to kill me is something I can do without.&lt;p&gt;So: as far as I&amp;#x27;m concerned &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; less software on board of cars, open source it all if possible and roll it out much slower so we can get the bugs out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>6gvONxR4sf7o</author><text>&amp;gt; The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s worse than that. The very best in the software industry has a reliability problem. And carmakers are certainly not among the best in the software industry.</text></comment>