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Transportation Hardware

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia Partner On Software-Defined Autonomous Cars (zdnet.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the driving-innovation dept.
ZDNet reports: Car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and chipmaker Nvidia have partnered to build a software-defined computing infrastructure and system that enables vehicles to receive over-the-air software updates to ensure they are equipped with the latest autonomous features. "Together, we're going to revolutionise the car ownership experience, making the vehicle software programmable and continuously upgradeable via over the air updates," Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang said.

The pair will build the software-defined architecture based on Nvidia's Drive AGX Orin system-on-chip (SoC) platform, and it will be a standard feature in the next fleet of Mercedes-Benz vehicles from 2024... "Nvidia's AI computing architecture will help us streamline our journey towards autonomous driving," said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz. "These new capabilities and upgrades will be downloaded from the cloud, improving safety, increasing value, and extending the joy of ownership for all Mercedes-Benz customers...."

The pair said the new system would enable level two and three driving autonomy, as well as automated parking functions of up to level four. This would mean, according to the two companies, vehicles would have the ability to "automate driving of regular routes from address to address".
Barron's reports: Nvidia and Mercedes are, in some respects, playing catch-up. Something the rest auto industry is used to these days regarding Tesla. Almost every other auto maker around the globe is pursuing an Electrical Vehicle (EV)-centric strategy nowadays, something unthinkable a few years ago. Tesla CEO Elon Musk deserves a lot of credit for the shift. Tesla led in EV development, and now it's leading in software too...
And Forbes adds this telling quote from NVIDIA's senior director of automotive. "Revenues can be realized at the point of sale, as well as any time during the life of the vehicle. New features may be free of charge, single charge, pay by use, or subscription-based. Customers have shown that when they see the value, they are more than willing to pay for new apps and services."
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Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia Partner On Software-Defined Autonomous Cars More

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia Partner On Software-Defined Autonomous Cars

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  • oh great (Score:3)

    by Cederic ( 9623 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @05:37AM (#60241064) Journal

    New features may be free of charge, single charge, pay by use, or subscription-based.

    Hurrah, I get to pay a subscription every month for the fuel gauge. I get to pay every time I turn on the headlights.

    My next car is going to be a second hand v8 Maserati with none of this bullshit.

    • What we actually need, is an Open Vehicle Platform.

      Most cars nowardays are already generic platforms that you slap a motor and a body and wheels etc on, and brand with one of many brands.

      The IBM PC was such a successful platform, because anyone could make compatible modules for it.

      So if we design some open standards (e.g. OpenHatchback 0.1 or OpenTruck 0.1) that fit already existing parts that you can buy, let a few designers make great car bodies to advertise, and create an almost fully automated street-le

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        I think there would be regulatory challenges. Governments are loathe to let random people download arbitrary crap off the internet and give it autonomous control over high speed multi-ton machinery.

        Even if you got somewhere, the moment someone side-loaded a control override that let them autonomously plough into a large crowd of people, your website will vanish.

        • So they trust manufacturers with little oversight because of "trade secrets"? Worked well when they trusted VW.

          • dealer only service, map updates, oil changes, etc are very bad to end users Just ask farmers about john deer

            • Re:dealer only service, map updates, oil changes, (Score:4, Informative)

              by presearch ( 214913 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @11:55AM (#60242218)

              I worked at Deere and some of my software is running in those guided tractors.

              In many ways, the issues are far more difficult than with self driving cars.
              Giant, dangerous machines, tracking a path with better than two inch accuracy,
              on a side of a hill, in soft soil, over a path possibly several miles long,
              year after year. Using ISO standard protocols, they can attach farming
              implements like tillers, seeders, and sprayers from other vendors to the
              tractors and it figures out the weight, width, and capacity, and it all shows
              up on the in-cab screen display and it is expected to just work.

              The tractors can operate in wing man mode and follow along filling or
              emptying grain and refilling fuel and herbicides, often operated by an untrained and
              ever-changing migrating work force. And this all has to happen under time, weather,
              and equipment resource constraints.

              There are some farms up in Canada that are so large, the tractors can travel
              in a strain line, using more than one fill of fuel. Again, with better than two inch
              accuracy. So much so that the curvature of the earth comes into play for guidance.

              This is not the best target for open source hacking. Deere takes a lot of heat for being
              such a closed system, but it's amazing that it works as well as it does.

              The systems are highly complex and the people building it are top notch.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by cusco ( 717999 )

                It's been interesting watching the John Deere updates on Spectrum, the IEEE magazine. One of the executives said Deere is redefining itself almost as a software company since they're processing literally an exabyte of data per day. Do you know if there is any thought to reselling some of the software services to other manufacturers, such as Massey Ferguson or Kubota?

          • For VW we didn't care how they made clean cars. However the problem was there was no external testing to prove their claims.

            I remember an old VW Commercial where there was a Geeky (In the bad terms) looking Prius owner, and a Cool Trended VW owner. Where the Prius guy was happy with its fuel economy, while the VW guys claimed the same fuel economy, but the car was so much cooler, and performed better. We didn't know at the time to match that fuel economy the performance sucked. Or when the performance w

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I think there would be regulatory challenges. Governments are loathe to let random people download arbitrary crap off the internet and give it autonomous control over high speed multi-ton machinery.

          At least in the Americas, you can build your own car easily. There's a set of rules that must be followed to make it street legal, but as long as your vehicle meets those regulations, it can be licensed and registered and of course, insured.

          People build cars all the time - TV is filled with shows on how people mo

      • IBM sold off it PC market to Lenovo in the early 2000's because there were so many competitors they couldn't keep their systems profitable compared to their other business services.

        Apple Computer Nearly died in the 1990's when they licensed Mac Compatible PC's.

        The IBM wasn't an open platform. However its BIOS was easily hacked, and a compatible one was quickly made by other companies. As well they failed to bargain a good deal with Microsoft so MS DOS would work on these compatible systems as well.

        For Vehi

        • Some have forgotten, or never knew, what a nightmare of incompatibility all of those PC clones and cards were back then.
          Over a decade of Plug and Pray, DLL hell, shuffling IRQs and address blocks, installing a new sound card killing your modem,
          blue screens, on and on. Made a nice hobby for some, but as a means to get computing work done, it was no fun.

          Doing it at 80 mph in a couple tons of steel, with possibly no manual control is dumb.
          But because it could be a continual revenue stream, they will probably t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Recently a Tesla on Self Driving Crashed into an overturned truck.

          The guy survived. On average 11 other people without self driving control crashed into trucks that same day and died. After the next software update no Tesla will make the same mistake again. Meanwhile today's 11 dead people will not be passing their experience on to anyone else.

      • Yes we need that, but cars cost money to test .. unlike software were a $300 computer is good enough. You can't make these systems on zero budget, it requires billions in investment to retrofit the car, drive it around, not to mention purchase the car itself -- who is going to invest that kind of money without owning the intellectual property? Maybe if someone organized a patent pool like 5G? But then the controls for each car brand will be different based on their drive train characteristics.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        That was essentially the plan for Ferdinand Porsche's first car (which was electric, BTW). It had interchangeable bodies for summer or winter driving. It was essentially the "skateboard" design with in-wheel motors in all four wheels that Tesla revived and improved upon. The P-1 was recently found in a warehouse in Austria, where it had been since 1902. When he entered it in the 1899 Berlin Road Race it came in first, an amazing 18 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher. Apparently the electric mot

    • If your choice of Cars is Mercedes Benz or Maserati even second hand. You probably have some extra spending cash to pay for the extra software.

      However I expect this would be like Tesla, Where the important features are in the cost of the car, while the more luxury, entertainment features can be part of a monthly fee.

      The pay per use, could be more affordable option for features you may not use. Eg. Such as self driving features, which you may only use on a long road trip. A couple times a year. So you can

    • Hurrah, I get to pay a subscription every month for the fuel gauge. I get to pay every time I turn on the headlights.

      -Car spins out in front of you *hits brakes* car dings I’m sorry, please purchase more brake cred..*Crashes* ding I’m sorry, please purchase more airbag credits. Thank you for subscribing to saf-car.

    • Don't be dramatic. Mercedes isn't dumb enough to make critical features subscription-based and their customers aren't low IQ enough to stand for something like that.

    • What it means is ham-fisted 'updates' will brick your car. "Sorry boss I'm going to be late, Mercedes updated my car software and now it keeps trying to drive into a telephone pole".
      Drive a small pickup truck. Chances are none of this stupid-ass 'SDC' crap will reach any of it.

    • You're worried about your car nickel-and-diming you to death and you want to buy a used Maserati?

      LOL

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by synaptik ( 125 ) *

      Technically, you pay to turn on the headlights, on every car.

      I'll show myself out.

  • I wonder how long before cars start tracking our habits and offering us personalized advertising during all the dead time that we used to spend driving?

    And then how long before we get free cars so long as we watch all the adverts? Finally turn us into 100% drooling consumer idiots.

    • I think the latter is called public transport. :)

      Or if you want to masturbate alone, car sharing. ;)

      I, for one, am sad that augmented reality glasses did not take off (yet?), as I had already planned a real life ad blocker. (Obscuring, not vanishing, so you'd still see that big truck and that wall.)

      For spy blocking purposes, I'd start with what the real spies already do. E.g. flooding with noise, or putting a cover between you and it.

  • I don't want "latest", I want "safe & reliable". If many software versions are being pushed will Mercedes-Benz have been able to put the effort into testing them as they can (should) the one version that goes out with a model ? I work with software, I know management pressure to get the next version out of the door. In a pressured environment where a list of new features are "vital" - the easiest way to meet deadlines is to cut down on testing, no one notices until it is too late.

    A bug that makes my web

    • That is the core problem with for-profit software, or for-profit anything really:

      There is a drive to bring out something new to keep the victims paying, even when there is no need for anything new.

      Unless they got a monopoly (See: IE6). Then everything stalls and either nothing is done at all, or prices climb to pork barrel spending levels, or both, just like business claim would be the problem of state-owned indusries and not of private ones.

      Which is why I like open source. Anyone can just add what he needs

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        That is the core problem with for-profit software, or for-profit anything really: There is a drive to bring out something new to keep the victims paying, even when there is no need for anything new. (...) Which is why I like open source. Anyone can just add what he needs. Or refuse to have it added to his fork. And if nothing new is needed, it stays as is. And the money is made only with work that actually adds that amount of value.

        Actually open source is in general massively underfunded because it has to be worth it to the people stuck with the bill - in either time or money - which is usually far fewer than those who benefit from it. Like I enjoy the fact that there's roads to drive my car on, but I've never funded a specific stretch of road. Granted, I've paid my share of taxes and toll roads but if you gave me all of that money back and told me to invest it directly into road projects I'd probably pocket the money instead. There's

    • Latest can mean safest and most reliable.

      Tesla's accident statistics keep dropping for cars with their active safety features enabled (Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure, etc...)

      Having a feedback system where you can push out updates means you can review every crash where the system failed and push out updates that hopefully capture those incidents while also reviewing false-positives where the system activated but no crashes were detected.

      This is actually one of the areas that Comma.AI was hoping

  • While this can be done securely, I fully expect they will mess it up. Then, when hacked same time later, they will do the minimal amount of fixing possible and will get hacked again some time later.

  • I don't think you understand what the word "software" means, and thought it sounded smarter, in a "iDevice user with fake hipster glasses that calls himself a nerd and kinda a techie" kind of way, when you heard "software-defined radio".

  • > software-defined computing infrastructure
    Nonsense phrase. Hardware is limited to what its design limits are. It runs software. It's like SDWAN or Software-Defined Butts or Software-Defined Toast with Jelly. It means "the hardware needs software to work" and "we'll do OTA updates so you better get our TMO or AT&T or whatever package so we can update it!"

    This is nonsense PR. Typical and of no value. But wait.

    Mercedes - a company known for not letting anyone mess with their cars.
    Nvidia - a compa

    • I may not fully understand how they are trying to use the phrase "software defined" in this context. For example, in radios, software defined came about when processing got to be fast enough that you could write software that would actually build the waveforms in real-time. You could download new software into the radio and have an all new modulation method. Just doing software updates doesn't make it "software defined."
    • Unless they mean FPGAs, they would fit the bill of of software defined computing infrastructure. We also have software defined networks.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by gavron ( 1300111 )

        > We also have software defined networks.

        No. You don't. You have PR hype.

        Your networks are ALREADY connected together. Usually layer 1 would be fiber, copper, wireless, etc.

        On top of that you set up addressing. Do you call that an SDN? No. You don't.

        On top of that you set up routing or bridging. Do you call that an SDN? No. You don't.

        For your routing you may use 1980s technology to update the routing tables, like RIP, or 1990s (OSPF and BGP). Does that make it an SDN? No. It doesn't.

        On top of

  • The more I read about this stuff the more I appreciate the song Red Barchetta.

  • ....the corporate life cycle. Well, we've thrown some great buzzwords at the wall, I for one can't wait to see how the stock performs today on the promise of over the air upgrades to my self driving autonomous Mercedes cloud ai (tm) with microtransactions for when I drive outside of my "home zone" or whatever bullshit those leering jackals have in mind.
  • Have you noticed that, when there is something obviously stupid to do in the road, a Mercedes driver is apt to do it?

  • Without end-user (also known as "the driver") input. I'm sure it'll be fine. Because updates never cause problems. And, really, who worries about crashes in cars?

  • nVidia: "Together, we're going to revolutionise the car ownership experience, making the vehicle software programmable and continuously upgradeable via over the air updates"

    Tesla *rolling eyes* : "Wow guys! What a great idea."
  • I wish my apartments had EV chargers. A huge shift to EV will hurt the poor. Im not poor, I just dont want the responsibility of owning a home.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      I think that as EVs become more popular, either laws will mandate or the market will dictate that apartments add chargers. It's not rocket science, although when you look at the logistics of billing the units need to be a little more complex than most home units. Chargepoint seems to have it figured out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Pretty much any shift in transportation hits the poor disproportionately. Sometimes that seems to be the entire point of the change, such as instituting tolls on highways that are already paid for. Eventually the poor will be buying the twenty year-old Tesla with batteries that have lost half their capacity and which will only work with "old style" chargers.

    • Especially in Europe, where many city dwellers are limited to street parking. I almost think that Europe would be better off with synthetic fuel made with renewable energy. EVs work best with at home charging at night - it helps with the longevity of the batteries and plays nicely with the electricity supply.

  • level two and three have big gaps in what they can do and need an SAFETY DRIVER ready to take over / take action on there own.

  • It's going to take them 5 years to catch up to a 2019 Tesla? Hahaha Mercedes won't be around that long at this rate. Why would people keep buying Mercedes when Tesla is far superior and cooler.

  • Once self driving ride sharing eventually happens, I am ditching my car. I have a Segway scooter which I have rode over 1000km since May 8th. I use my car maybe once a week and I am considering winter tires for my electric if bicycle to avoid using a car during the times I cannot ride a scooter.

    I am truly terrified by autonomous vehicles made by traditional automakers. Imagine a self-driving Audi? I wonder if it would drive in Dick Mode by default like the drivers. I own a BMW i3 and if I wrote software lik

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