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theacharnian ,
@theacharnian@lemmy.ca avatar

Cars have been computers on wheels for at least 15 years now.

TheObviousSolution ,
@TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee avatar

If only. They are more like rolling SmartTVs. Once they stop getting updates, only the offline features will work.

Contravariant ,

Please tell me someone thought about a switch to take them offline.

Blackmist ,

Then whatever is fucked in the electronics will be fucked forever.

Just like it has been for the last 20 years or so.

jimmy90 ,

this should be part of car safety and legislated by the govt, no?

in the uk it would be part of the MOT to see that your software is up to date and working

MDKAOD ,

Just like they legislate vehicle size, headlight brightness, and enforce fuel economy standards?

hahattpro ,

Now car do get dlx, subscription.

And when you sell a car, all dlc are lost.

Gsus4 ,
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

…linux cars? Pretty please?

jose1324 ,

God no

BilboBargains ,

Vehicle control systems are overwhelmingly programmed in C, mostly from graphical design tools such as MATLAB Simulink via an automatic process. These are real time control systems which are quite different to an interrupt based operating system such as Linux. The many individual controllers must work in concert according to a strict architecture definition and timing schedule that defines the functionality of the vehicle. It’s not at all like a PC or phone, whose OS become irrelevant over time, with respect to their environment of other systems. The vehicle environment is the same environment that we inhabit i.e. the one with gravity, friction, charge and the other SI units. This is slowly changing with advent of self driving but, yeah.

Gsus4 ,
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

fine, fine, I learned 3/4 new things there, thanks for taking the time

Lumisal ,

Yeah but the infotainment system can be Linux based.

0x0 ,

These are real time control systems which are quite different to an interrupt based operating system such as Linux.

You do know you can operate the linux kernel in real time, right?

SapientLasagna ,

It’s not a hard real time OS though. Real Time Linux would be appropriate for some subsystems in a car, but not for things that are safety critical with hard timing constraints, e.g. ABS controllers.

nickwitha_k ,

This is correct. If using an OS, an RTOS like the Linux Foundation Zephyr OS is the right choice here.

dumbass ,
@dumbass@leminal.space avatar

They no roll?

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Late stage capitalism

Sam_Bass ,

Just another way to force you to buy a new one

fury ,

How is the 3G sunset not solvable by just swapping out a modem module for an LTE or 5G one and maybe installing some new modem firmware? A lot of cars are running a Linux kernel under the hood, so I’d think it’s pretty well swap and go

jwt ,

I think the question is not if it’s solvable, but ‘who pays for it?’ and ‘who can be held accountable if things go awry?’

fury ,

The company that didn’t see the 3G sunset coming, I would think. I know auto moves slow, but damn…4G was out for what, 4-5 years before development likely started on the 2019 model year?

jwt ,

I’d think so too, but (I assume) you and I don’t have a small army of lawyers and lobbyists on retainer.

boonhet ,

Ah, if only car hardware was modular and standardized… And if you had access to your infotainment system beyond touching the pretty buttons…

pumpkinseedoil ,

Are these buttons in a room with us right now

Give me my buttons back

boonhet ,

I’m lucky enough to never have owned a car without buttons - My newest car was a '19 Benz and they LUCKILY were pretty slow about hopping onto the touchscreen bandwagon

However, in my comment I meant on-screen buttons anyway, as that seems to be the norm nowadays :(

pumpkinseedoil ,

Hopefully that’ll change, iirc the EU discussed about requiring physical buttons for the highest safety rating a few months ago. Idk how that turned out but if it passed there’s hope

I love it when politicians in a democracy are doing things for the people.

fury ,

Imagine something as outlandish as user serviceable infotainment systems. Like they used to have in the old days. I’m hanging on by a thread to my basic 2014 car which still has a double DIN slot I can put my own system into…some day

NauticalNoodle ,

Cellular enabled cars are conceptually dumb. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.

ZarkleFarkle ,

Me when my car gets hack and remote controlled to drive off a cliff:

“Ahhh” D: sploosh

SynopsisTantilize ,

Makes no sense to me…but at this very moment I’m a hypocrite lol

kalleboo ,

Naw, I live in a hot as hell country I’m super jealous of people who can remote-start the air conditioning in their cars.

It should be an open interface like OBD2 though where you can choose the hardware/provider instead of being locked to the car manufacturer deprecating everything in 3 years to sell you a new car.

Anatares ,

Assuming you park next to your house a WiFi connection on the local network would be everything you need. Relatively cheap compared to the car would be a repeater to extend it for people like me who park 30-50m away I agree with you assumption that this is car manufacturers creating software based planned obsolescence. An open source framework would resolve this concern even over cell networks but defeats the entire point of also pushing power windows and seat heating as a service.

boonhet ,

Two way alarm systems with remote start have been a thing for pretty long and don’t all require cellular connection. Some are just super long distance key fobs.

sheogorath ,

You don’t really need connected cars for that. My car has no smart features but still has a remote start capability. It uses the car remote to trigger it instead of cellular connection.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I cannot remote start my car. If it’s really hot or really cold, I go outside for a few seconds to start the car and then go back inside. It’s really not that big a hardship.

0x0 ,

Crash-detection systems can use cellular to alert medical authorities, that and theft are about the only practical use cases i see for that.

ThePrivacyPolicy ,

I feel like these days the tech should be there to just leverage our cell phones for this. Most drivers have their phones paired to their cars now anyway, and perhaps some sort of emergency protocol could be created where a car could even connect through a nearby non-paired phone for an automated emergency call too. As for tracking - make cars have something like an air tag type function built in that can share both android+apple tracking networks. This is all a pipe dream anyway - there’s money to be made on connected car services so the shareholders won’t be for modernizing the approach anytime soon.

histic ,

And this is why I drive a 1980 Volkswagen rabbit pickup. better gas mileage then modern cars (50mpg+ on the highway) I can replace about any part in it for under a few hundred in most cases even a new engine can be done under 1000. And everything is dead simple to work on no fancy computers or anything.

Valmond ,

Polluting as hell though, or so I imagine?

Even in Sweden catalysators were not mandatory before like 1986 IIRC.

The rest is awesome though 👍😎

histic ,

Oh yea it’s a straight pipe diesel ain’t anything good for the environment gonna put a slightly more modern engine in it at some point for some more power the 1.6l in it currently only makes like 50 horse so when I do that it’ll be a little better but still not great

boonhet ,

Well there are a bunch of reliable late 90s and early 2000s German engines that would make that thing ridiculously fast compared to now, pollute less, burn less fuel, and would be pretty easy to maintain.

Long as you avoid all the ones with known pitfalls and research standalone ECU options first of course.

I’m partial to Mercedes engineering myself, I’d tell you to use an OM646. But there’s nothing wrong with an M47 or a VW 1.9 tdi either. The PD version of the tdi is slightly more complex than the oldschool versions (66 and 81 kW), but would get you ridiculous performance and fuel economy considering how little your car weighs.

Of course if you had more space in there, I’d suggest an OM648 or M57, but I don’t think you’d get an inline 6 to fit. MAYBE an OM647 since it’s an inline 5?

histic ,

You can get a inline 5 in it cause I know you can fit a o7k or a vr6 lol. my plan was to swap it to a TDI I actually have an 01 TDI sitting here for it just don’t have the money currently to finish it but once i do, this TDI is actually supped up some pushing 20+ psi of boost not the I will probably run that much since I plan to daily it but it can

BearOfaTime ,

And what are the pollution costs of even manufacturing a new vehicle, VS one that’s already in place?

We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.

GamingChairModel ,

We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.

Why not? Seems like a pretty simple formula: if it costs X amount of resources or pollution to save Y amount of resources or pollution per unit time, the break-even point is whenever Y times time exceeds X.

AA5B ,

You can, though. There are many lifecycle analyses using actual data to calculate the tradeoff point.

boonhet ,

This depends a lot on how much the one already in place pollutes, vs the new one.

For an EV vs a slightly older ICE, on your average western power grid (so not fully renewable, but not fully coal either), it takes just a few years till the EV’s total lifetime emissions are less.

AA5B ,

How about those crumple zones? Feel safe in your passenger cage? Hope you’re shorter than the dashboard in case of a rollover. Don’t have to worry about getting hit by those airbags, do you? Imagine that steering column spearing through your chest

New cars aren’t just about the latest infotainment, gadgets, and design. There have been huge improvements in pollution control and safety. There has also been huge improvements in efficiency, even if they’re masked by the increased weight of safety improvements, increased performance, and generally much larger size. So far a lot of that increased complexity is well worth it - I’ll never have another car without anti-lock brakes

droans ,

That’s the only reason I bought a modern car.

My parents would always buy cheap beaters. They had a car from the 90s they only recently got rid of because the transmission was shot. My first car was an '05 Caravan I drove for almost two years and got rid of in 2018.

I swallowed the pill after seeing cars get absolutely crushed to the point where the jaws of life were necessary yet passengers could just walk out.

I remember someone posted a picture of their brand new sedan. It was involved in a serious accident and sandwiched between two large pickup trucks. The entire car was squished down until it was smaller than the passenger compartment. The driver was able to walk away with minor injuries and the paramedics weren’t even surprised.

I don’t give a shit about the fancy features. I just want something that is reliable and safe.

0x0 ,

New cars aren’t just about the latest infotainment, gadgets, and design.

They mostly are, companies don’t care to innovate anymore, only to sell.

There have been huge improvements in pollution control and safety.

Safety? Some, sure. Pollution? The only reason governments regulate is because car companies want to sell you a new car every year. Ooops, big bad government whom we happen to have in our pocket wants Euro5 now…

…even if they’re masked by the increased weight of safety improvements, increased performance, and generally much larger size.

More weight/size = more raw materials, is it really that good for the environment?

If companies and governments are so keep on being green (they’re not) they’d ensure cars are easily repairable and upgradable. And they’d keep supporting older models - design a more efficient engine to replace the one in the older car why won’t they?

AA5B ,

More weight/size = more raw materials, is it really that good for the environment?

If a vehicle doubles in size, vastly improves performance, and still has similar efficiency, yes, that’s a win. If it improves safety enough to save tens of thousands of lives every year, yes it’s worth it.

todd_bonzalez ,
@todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee avatar

Cars should just come with a big open socket up front, where I can buy (or build) my own infotainment system to install there. That way I can replace it over the course of the car’s lifetime. Or, give me the option to just plug it up or install a traditional car radio or something. I should be able to cram an 8-track player in if I want.

Keep all automobile controls as physical buttons, knobs, and levers.

I haven’t owned a car in over 10 years, but whenever I look at what’s available, I can’t get past how much planned obsolescence is baked into newer cars. I would never buy one…

If automakers focused on cars, and let tech companies and focus on building the infotainment systems, we’d have better choices and less vendor lock-in.

noughtnaut ,
@noughtnaut@lemmy.world avatar

Cars should just come with a big open socket up front, where I can buy (or build) my own infotainment system to install there.

…which is precisely what we used to have, before auto makers decided to insist that they should be enclosed in a swooping dash.

todd_bonzalez ,
@todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee avatar

I’d be fine with a reinvention of the modular system with more digital I/O and connections to other features of the car. Let me buy something like a “Samsung Galaxy Drive” infotainment dash that embodies the “swooping dash” concept, or let me buy a pre-built shell that I can build out like a custom PC.

I can cram my car full of corporate apps, or I can run it on Linux. I would love to have the choice.

Any future self-driving capabilities need to be inside of their own dedicated system like an aircraft autopilot.

BigPotato ,

I mean, the DIN hole was a standard size but it certainly wasn’t a ‘socket’ and anyone who had a Ford Focus that needed a Mercedes-Benz writing harness to plug up their aftermarket radio knows what I’m on about.

Omniraptor ,

I may be weird but why would you need an infotainment system at all? I have all the infotainment I could possibly want in my phone, the car is only needed as a Bluetooth speaker and for standard playback controls.

boonhet ,

The car screen is significantly bigger than the phone screen, making it quicker to glance at it for driving instructions.

But now we’re just coming back to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I just want a big screen with physically touchable controls for those. My previous car did exactly that, but now I’ve gone near two decades older so I now get a fancy screen with no functionality beyond FM radio and DVD video lol

AA5B ,

That was also the point of Apple CarPlay/Android auto. Let the manufacturer provide the hardware but your phone can run the infotainment. Let actual software companies do that, instead of the horrible mess that car manufacturers make out of software

Laborer3652 ,

The problem with that though, at least for Android Auto, is that Google (and I also presume Apple) controls the apps that can be shown on the center console. They effectively cut out all competitors by controlling the access. I would like an Open API for this please!

NutWrench ,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

When you car can connect to the Internet, it becomes a data-mining tool that tells everyone your business. Companies would LOVE to have all that juicy location data that only Google has right now (from your phones). Insurance companies would LOVE to know your driving habits to have any excuse at all to jack up your premiums.

yesman ,

I think people are missing the fact that the features of this VW are going away because they run on 3G. What can a car manufacturer do? Correct me if I’m wrong, you can’t just drop a new antenna to fix the problem.

Cars routinely last 15 years and that’s geologic time compared to tech. This isn’t just a problem of greed or lack of foresight.

ZC3rr0r ,

What can they do? How about making the cellular models modular? 3G goes bust? Swap the modem for a 4G one next time the car is in for service.

kalleboo ,

You can get a USB 4G modem on Amazon for $40

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