Your Next Car's Electronics Will Likely Be Connected By Ethernet

Lucas123 writes "As the sophistication of automotive electronics advances, from autonomous driving capabilities to three-dimensional cameras, the industry is in need of greater bandwidth to connect devices to a car's head unit. Enter Ethernet. Industry standards groups are working to make 100Mbps and 1Gbps Ethernet de facto standards within the industry. Currently, there are as many as nine proprietary auto networking specifications, including LIN, CAN/CAN-FD, MOST and FlexRay. FlexRay, for example, has a 10Mbps transmission rate. Making Ethernet the standard in the automotive industry could also open avenues for new apps. For example, imagine a driver getting turn-by-turn navigation while a front-seat passenger streams music from the Internet, and each back-seat passenger watches streaming videos on separate displays." This might get us into trouble when the Cylons show up.

Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

"For example, imagine a driver getting turn-by-turn navigation while a front-seat passenger streams music from the Internet, and each back-seat passenger watches streaming videos on separate displays."

Imagine!

Except they're already doing it now on their fondleslabs.

What??

[plebeian]

Lucas123 wants to stream audio and video across the same switches as his throttle by wire?????, I say we sell tickets to this event!

Re:What??

[amorsen]

Mixing entertainment systems and critical safety systems on the same bus is common already. The only change is that with ethernet you get decent bandwidth and well-understood QoS.

Re:Imagine

[bob_super]

Yes, it's a stupid summary, probably from someone who doesn't have a clue on what the current buses do.
Nobody's saying "Man, I wish my CAN bus had more bandwidth so I could stream!

And really, people, if you're going to change the bus, can't you make the new one based on plastic fiber and cheap LEDs, so that we stop having fried computers every time a cable gets bad?

and be locked into the poor build in radio system

[Joe_Dragon]

and be locked into the poor build in radio system that can't be upgraded to a better 3rd part one.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:No

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

No it is not good enough. Commercial aircraft is flown by people with constant training, check lists, protocols, under the guidance of air traffic control. They are supposed to be not drunk, supposed to be well rested. Cars? driven by everyone from pimply teens giggling and texting while driving all the way up to 90 year old grandma who only has a vague nebulous feedback from her right foot when she is on arthritis medication.

Re:What??

[epyT-R]

No thanks. I don't want to deal with my car getting hacked/stolen/monitored/remote controlled, which is infinitely more likely than this overwrought system.. I don't mind it for medical care, but not for my car. Cars should be stupid simple.

Re:Huh?

[sunderland56]

Ethernet may work all the time - but there are no guarantees on packet latency. The basis of ethernet is that all traffic is equal; nobody has priority.

Which, to me, sounds all wrong. I'd much rather the packet from the collision-avoidance system to the brake system saying "holy shit stop NOW" gets higher priority than the next packet of Justin Bieber headed to the back seat.