Why Your New Car's Technology Is Four Years Old 455
Lucas123 writes "While you can buy a 1TB hard drive for your computer for less than $100, Ford today offers 10GB. Don't expect much more anytime soon. Apart from the obvious — a car's development process can be four years long — the automotive industry also tends to be behind the tech curve because of a lack of equipment standardization. And, while it's possible for the industry to build modular infotainment systems that could be upgraded over the life of the car, there are no plans to do so. Instead, car companies intend to offer software upgradable vehicles through 4G connectivity and data storage and entertainment streaming through the cloud, which means they have to worry less about onboard hardware reliability and standardization."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:the gizmos = huge pr0fit$ (Score:5, Informative)
That's because a lot of manufacturers bundle together unrelated systems for upgrade packages. Want in-dash navigation? You have to get our Deluxe Travelling Upgrade for only $2499, which includes a moonroof, spoiler and complimentary handjob.
Re:Better than Uncle Sammy (Score:4, Informative)
The Antarctic research bases make your Navy tech look bleeding edge. It's all about how reliable you need something and older tech typically has few or no "unknown bugs" left to stumble upon.
Ford Explorer - If electronics fail, worst case is you have to call a tow truck. More likely, you just need to switch to AM/FM until you get around to fixing the radio.
Warship - Worst case, you get blown up. More likely, you'd have to withdraw from combat for a bit and can get a replacement flown in within a few days.
Antarctic Research base - Very limited supplies and the potential to go six months in darkness until a replacement can be flown in.
Re:Not to mention... (Score:4, Informative)
You must have only become familiar with cars after they got rid of non-integrated replaceable in-dash radios.
Pure, unadulterated horseshit. There have been companies manufacturing aftermarket electronic components suited for automotive and marine use (and ones that typically exceed car manufacturers' gear) for decades.
I didn't bitch to Ford when (after 4 years in a lowered isuzu pup sitting on its bump-stops) my cd changer began skipping constantly. I understood that Pioneer did the best they could and Isuzu had nothing to do with me valuing ride height over suspension performance.
I'd love a return to DIN-sized dash openings (or even standard GM and Chrysler sized ones...anything that makes replacability an option).
Ahh, the good old days of IASCA and USAC competitions...
Automotive development time (Score:5, Informative)
I spent 3 years (2003~2006) working with a company to deliver MP3 Car Stereos for GM. I believe they still deliver vehicles with them, but keep in mind, very little change had occurred in car stereos before that. Telematics (Auto PCs) had been worked on, too, I was involved with projects at Visteon and Lear, but that was 1999~2002 time frame, and the technology just wasn't there.
There is also a lot more to development of automotive ANYTHING. Electronics have to be a lot more robust (-40degF~140degF, high humidity, vibration, shock, etc...), materials used have to match the car interiors (and be properly made to not fade 'differently' from the rest). Once a product is usable, it goes through a lot of tweaking, as product line engineers determine calibrations to set (like lighting, for example). Failure Modes need to be sorted out to make it as bullet-proof as possible.
Oh, and LOTS AND LOTS of testing. On the bench, in the cars...
We had looked at jumpstarting more advanced tech, like HDDs in the radios to act as radio 'DVRs' and store user's audio tracks. At the time, drives were cost prohibitive and there were still too many legal issues to make it practical.
Mix in the regulatory issues like Driver Distraction, and an immature market, and there are good reasons why design hasn't settled down yet. It's just not as simple as throwing in a general purpose PC with a touchscreen mounted to the dash.
Five years ago, we (drivers) were all buying dedicated GPS units - now we get those features in our smart phones and tablets and desire integration into the car. Dashcams are all the rage in Russia, and probably should be everywhere else. Cars are getting smarter with vision systems (having worked on some of those systems now in use, you cannot imagine just how complicated those are) that do everything from detecting lane changes, signs and oncoming headlights (to dim brights) to braking for unexpected hazards.
The problem with this, and why I bring it up, is that we have no idea what form factors and features we'll demand in 5 years. Automotive, much like mobile, is undergoing tremendous growth where automation is concerned. Unlike mobile, there are still a lot of things computers can do for us as features of our cars that we really haven't fully figured out yet.
Re:Not to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
"Kit in automobiles have to be built for extreme conditions "
Nice theory, in reality that does not happen. most of the electronics in your car is standard old consumer grade crap. GM is king of this. in 2001-2005 the BCM (Body Control Module) computer would wig out on most of their cars... problem was the capacitors would die because the modules were built in china with low grade caps that spewed their guts on their own after 2-3 years. I have seen the inside of the ECM, the engine computer, on most cars and there is nothing that is "extreme condition" about them.
Your car is built as cheaply as possible to maximize profits, dont ever forget that.
Re:Better than Uncle Sammy (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention that warships need electronics that are hardened against EM weaponry.
As it turns out, Moore's law works against that requirement, since smaller circuits are more susceptible to interference.
The older designs, with the larger process, are all we know how to harden right now.
Re:Not to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
I know my story is anecdotal, but I've had my car 3-5 times as long as most people keep theirs and I just haven't seen the hard drive failures you are talking about. To be fair, the empeg guys did a lot of smart things when they built it, such as using caching to memory heavily. This way that the drives could be spun down when not in use. The drives auto-parked when not active, etc.
And remember, we're talking about laptop drives. They're slow on purpose. 5400 rpm drives are preferable in a situation like this. We're not talking about 15k server class multi-TB storage units.
sarcasm? (Score:3, Informative)
Ugh. Well...
1. in many cars, prior to the anticipated accident it tightens the seat belts and applies the brakes
2. post accident it cuts off the fuel lines, unlocks the doors, turns on the hazard lights, and calls 911 and reports your GPS coords.
Re:Not to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
It's more complicated than you think (Score:2, Informative)
This, because all I really want is an empty place to mount my iPad in the dash where some cars have their nav/climate control/etc. displays. I'd rather throw that expensive and utterly useless crap out and just plug in an iPad. In fact I'd actually buy an iPad if I could do that.
It sounds appealing but I'm not sure you've really thought it through. The interface on an iPad is not designed with driving in mind. Your attention needs to be mostly on the road and the iPad interface is not designed to accommodate that fact. Using an iPad while driving would take a rather significant redesign of the interface. I don't even want to think about all the idiots who would try to email or text on it while driving.
There also are driving conditions (glare, temperature, brightness, vibration, etc) to consider which are different in a car than on your couch. IPads are designed to operate between 0C and 35C (32F and 95F) [apple.com] and cars experience both hotter and colder temperatures than this regularly.
Bonus points if they would work with Apple and add some USB devices such that the iPad could monitor some aspects of the car (speed, fuel level, climate control, etc.)
You can already do this [amazon.com] via the OBD-II ports [wikipedia.org].
Re:Not to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think there are any fundamental laws of physics that follow your claim here. Please don't go around making up imaginary laws of physics based on bad models. Of course, it may all depend on what you mean by increasing vibration. As you say, it could increase amplitude, but it could also increase the duration of the vibration. There's also no reason to think a particular, although unusual arrangement could increase the frequency as well. In fact, the right mechanical arrangement could increase amplitude, duration and frequency. Your concern about where the energy comes from is a little silly. There's plenty of energy to be exploited from the motion of the car as it is jostled around. Just look at those watches that wind themselves. While the swing arm may not be a custom designed device, the existence of such devices shows that such a thing is not absolutely impossible.
Re:Not to mention... (Score:4, Informative)
there are no hard drives in cars.
Yes there is. Plenty of OEMs built hard drive based navigation systems into their cars over the years.