Autonomous driving & Co.: German car companies push for open source
www.heise.de
German carmakers and suppliers want to create a shared open-source platform. Reference architecture should be ready by 2025, with a production vehicle by 2030.
  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.deEnglish
    70·
    3 days ago

    We once had to make an interface for a big German car manufacturers new car. It showed texts about things and stuff (I really don’t remember). The target was an embedded browser for which a not really accurate emulator existed.

    I could only develop against that emulator. They could not supply us with a computer running the real thing. For testing I had to go to a secret locked garage where the real car stood with obfuscation decals so that competitors wouldn’t be able to see the design. It was really tight and uncomfortable to work in when I had to debug something only occuring on the real hardware. And I was lucky that I had cellphone reception at all in the garage.

    One or two years later after I had left that team I saw a colleague finally having basically a full car’s cockpit in his office for testing, so things got a little bit better.

    My point is, car companies work differently than computer guys. I hope this project won’t die amid their inflexibility.

    • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
      20·
      3 days ago

      I’ve noticed some problems with how user interfaces are designed on cars. Especially google maps. Tiny hard to reach buttons with margins separating them. Sure, it looks sleeker, but when one is driving and cannot easily look at the screen, that’s the least of our concerns

      • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
        16·
        3 days ago

        Physical buttons will now be required in the EU, so hopefully that problem will be less.

        My ID4 was horrible with that. Only oversensitive capacitive touch buttons and an extremely laggy touchscreen.

        • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          This isn’t a “control the air conditioner with a touch screen” scenario. I’m actually specifically thinking of the tiny button to mute/unmute direction announcements

      • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.deEnglish
        5·
        3 days ago

        Yeah, the knob to control everything was a big reason why developing for the emulator sucked. With the emulator you could just click on buttons and links, where in the real thing the users would be stuck with an awkward knob they’d turn to select stuff.

        • waz@feddit.ukEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          I loved that ‘big awkward knob’ or the ‘idrive controller’ in the BMWs, now sadly it’s gone, so I take mine and everyone else’s life in my hands to zoom in or out on navigation, or to find a setting the car insists is default and I have to opt out of on every single journey. Knob, reach down, without taking eyes off road, feel the position, click turn idents to know how many menu levels you’re in, push down to select. You can’t feel a touchscreen to find button three of five, it literally forces you to look at it to operate. So unsafe!

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgEnglish
    51·
    3 days ago

    The core principle is to move away from proprietary software in the automotive sector, which is currently mainly developed by US companies.

    I am somewhat suspicious that managers think this means that somebody will develop the software for free.

    Sound ridiculous but exactly this is what the industry is expecting from the real-time Linux project.

  • 𞋴𝛂𝛋𝛆@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    Yay real cars will exist again after 2030. Proprietary garbage is a rental you never own when someone else controls it.

  • RedPandaRaider@feddit.orgEnglish
    144·
    3 days ago

    Let’s see if they can do that before collapsing. The past decades they’ve failed to innovate and keep up. The only decent cars were utterly overpriced. If they want to survive they’ll have to make good EVs for a lot cheaper. Otherwise China will take over that market. And I am hoping no government will try to tarif Chinese EVs just to prevent people from getting easy access to them.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Plus there was the whole lying about emissions and doubling down when called out thing.

    • jnod4@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Ehm is everyone forgetting that the Chinese ev makers pay their employees a tenth of what a German car maker would? On top of that they’re getting incredible amount of subsidising from the government? The scope is the collapse of any manufacturer outside of China by flooding with most affordable cars and then use the monopoly to gain back the losses.

      • RedPandaRaider@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        It’s the fault of German (and other) manufacturers for putting any subsidies into their own pockets than using them to offer their cars for a lower price.

        China is paying lower wages because of the difference between currency value.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      Absolutely agree, I would buy European but the quality is lower and the cost is higher. My wife has a merc and I have a kia…we both far and away prefer the kia.

      She had an older Audi but their subscription model pissed us off so we stayed away.

      VW charging over 50-60k for a golf is insanity. Skoda pricing gone mad.

      The issue is they pulled back on supply, simplified their offerings and now there just is not that much difference in most cases. I wonder have they found a momentary niche balancing costs and profits.

  • NuraShiny [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    3 days ago

    Some sort of commons, but for cars, you say? I am sorry, but history shows that this tragically never works.