Tesla's Lead in Car Software Updates Remains Unchallenged (wired.com) 107
No automaker has matched Tesla's ability to deliver over-the-air software updates despite years of effort and billions in spending. Tesla introduced the technology in 2012 and issued 42 updates within six months, Jean-Marie Lapeyre, Capgemini's chief technology officer for automotive, told WIRED. Other automakers ship updates "maybe once a year," Lapeyre said.
General Motors actually introduced OTA functionality first in 2010, two years before Tesla, but limited it to the OnStar telematics system. Traditional automakers treat software as one bolt-on component among many. Tesla and other digital-native brands like Rivian, Lucid and Chinese companies including BYD and Xpeng treat it as central. There are now 69 million OTA-capable vehicles in the United States, S&P Global estimates. More than 13 million vehicles were recalled in 2024 due to software-related issues, a 35 percent increase over the prior year. OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
General Motors actually introduced OTA functionality first in 2010, two years before Tesla, but limited it to the OnStar telematics system. Traditional automakers treat software as one bolt-on component among many. Tesla and other digital-native brands like Rivian, Lucid and Chinese companies including BYD and Xpeng treat it as central. There are now 69 million OTA-capable vehicles in the United States, S&P Global estimates. More than 13 million vehicles were recalled in 2024 due to software-related issues, a 35 percent increase over the prior year. OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was good.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was go (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was goo (Score:5, Insightful)
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42 (Score:2)
The answer to life meaning.
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The trick is for us, the consumer, to be able to tell the difference between "doesn't need updates because there's no bugs" and "doesn't get updates because we don't know how."
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Re:As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was goo (Score:5, Informative)
There's now a LeapMotor car in my family too. That LeapMoter also had a slick OTA update without any hassles whatsoever. They're not quite there though - registering the car with their app requires dealer action on order numbers or something, and that's still not sorted out. The OTA stuff though - couldn't fault it at all.a
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Re:As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was goo (Score:5, Informative)
Updates aren't necessarily bug fixes - I had a lot of functionality upgrades on my cars from them as well.
Yes I remember them:
Update 1: Autopilot MkI.
Update 2: Autopilot MkII - not wrap your car around a pole edition
Update 3: Auto sort of pilot - for legal reasons.
Update 4: Okay it's not autopilot but you can still use it.
Update 5: Fully Self Driving v1
Update 6: Fully Self Driving v2 (formerly known as beta 0.8-rc-not-productionready)
Update 7: Fully Self Driving we promise even though you need to keep your hand on the wheel.
And also, you're fooling yourself if you think the other cars don't need bug fixes - it's just that they don't get them until the service.
Not true. Even TFA acknowledges that other companies deliver bug fixes over the air. My car does too. I've received 2 in the past year.
You haven't received 46 new features in 6 months. - The number TFA is quoting. Those are fixing numerous bugs. Welcome to Software Defined Cars.
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The problem with feature updates that change the behaviour of the car is that they can be dangerous. Drivers come to rely on expected behaviour, and there are examples of accidents in Teslas where the driver seemed to rely on past behaviour to be repeated. I know, it's never a good idea, but that's how human beings are and you have to engineer stuff with that in mind.
Other manufacturers do alter behaviour as well, but typically only rarely and by requiring a dealer visit the owner is made fully aware. The w
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I have 3 cars that have never seen a manufacturer service center in at least 20 years. They serve me well. You are buying garbage.
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It would be great if they fixed bugs, rather than introducing new ones. They introduced one that blocked my garage door opener icon when I was in reverse, it took like 6 months for that to get fixed.
I've lost count of how many updates in the past 8 years have occsionally made my car firmware unstable and had me sitting there doing the vehicular equivalent of ctrl-alt-del.
But yeah, it's great, the updates are easy to schedule and use.
Re:As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was goo (Score:4, Insightful)
The article makes it sound as if it was "good" for a car to require frequent bug fixes. I for one would rate those cars the best that need no bug fixes - and therefore also no "over the air update" mechanism. Having the latter even gives the manufacturer an incentive to release buggy software.
Most of the cars I've driven in my lifetime have had no software updates at all and seem to have managed just fine without them. Hard to see this as a feature.
Re:As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was goo (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel like there's a comparison to games released on Steam to be had. Release day patches exist because the game is basically unfunctional without them. Releasing a product before it is even finished and the customer is the beta tester. Already bad with games, worse with a machine traveling at highway speeds.
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Yes! My Ford was perfect. 6 months later, they did an automatic update that ended up raising my electric bill by $60 a month. When I contacted ford to get them to fix this, they said I now needed to create an online account with them to manage my car. I know I am just one drop in the bucket, but I no longer buy fords. I was able to buy a toyota and opt out of automatic updates which has made my experience perfect.
Because of this, I don't see myself ever buying a tesla, or a modern electric car unless
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Are the Tesla crate motors afflicted with the same phone-home behavior as their full vehicles? I'm looking at getting an EV conversion to avoid that, but I know a lot of them are using the Tesla motors.
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Correct. When it comes to cars, it is paramount my car is ready ANY time I've got to go somewhere. The more updates, the more risk that the car is going to be bricked when I most need it.
Re: As if "leading" in frequent bugs to fix was go (Score:2)
"Software update" does not mean "bug fix", they have added features to their software over these past 13 years...
Confused by the "OTA" aspect, my Tesla requires me to connect to wifi to update the software despite having Premium Connectivity...
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The OTA comms also allow the manufacturer to download all of the data that the car logged. Including your SMS messages when you linked you phone to the car via bluetooth. Fucking morons are buying cars the enable unfettered eavesdropping and monitoring AND the US Government has zero interest in stopping it since they want a surveillance society... and you fuckers vote with your dollars to just jump head first into the deep end. Fucking morons.
Of course (Score:4, Funny)
When you beta test on your customers you roll out lots of fixes and updates. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's code to delete the self driving logs if the vehicle detects a crash. You can't be at fault if it's unproven!
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
While the "funny" rating is well deserved for the comment, it's also true. Tesla's self-driving software has been in "beta" for about 8 years or so. In addition, there was a court case that finished recently where it came out that a Tesla on autopilot got into a crash. It uploaded the data back to the "mother server" and then deleted the logs in the car. During investigation, it took the plaintiffs something like a year to get the logs because Tesla kept saying they didn't have them until it was proved they did. (Yep, Tesla lost that lawsuit, although they are appealing the $200+M award to the plaintiff.)
OTA sounds great and usually is ... until you realize that like other software updates, the update can also take away (or reduce) a feature you like, change the UI to make something harder, or even outright fail such that you have to have your car towed to a service center to have the software reinstalled by a technician. Sure, those are the edge cases and rarely happen, but there are reports of each of those things happening to multiple people.
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OTA sounds great and usually is
Really? You like the idea of an external entity being able to communicate with your car, download all the data collected, and change the operating parameters of the vehicle?
You trust other people WAY too much. You are in trouble and don't even realize it.
unsurprising (Score:5, Informative)
No automaker has matched Tesla's production of terrible quality vehicles either. Tesla ships prototypes, then exploits their ability to push updates as an excuse for their terrible engineering.
It should also be appreciated that Tesla's OTA mechanisms are built on top of open source software that has been exploited. If you enjoy the possibility of your car being hijacked, then Tesla is the car for you.
Re: unsurprising (Score:2)
Please, expand on this idea of teslas being "hijacked" by using "exploited" software...
Um... Weird flex bro (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like how Tesla brags they have the best selling model car because they only have three models. Sort of like how the commodore 64 is to this day the best selling computer model. Because everybody else constantly changes their model names and has lots of them in their lines.
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Most cars don't need 42 software updates...
I agree with the sentiment. OTOH, one needs to understand that not all of those Tesla "updates" are for bug fixes. Some of them are to give the car new features (like it being able to create fart noises -- no I'm not joking). Some are for tweaks, some are general fixes, some are to fix issues that are "soft recalls" (or a NHTSA recall that can be fixed with an OTA and no need for a service center visit). But overall, I'd agree they are changing too much too fast and that Tesla tends to gravitate toward the
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You just used a lot of words to say: 2 new features 40 bug fixes and then proceeded to define bug in multiple different ways (soft recall, tweaks, general fixes, etc). They are bugs in the design.
Re: Also Tesla cars are crap and no good for clima (Score:2)
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Smog doesn't have a single good common definition - but even the name origin of smoke+fog tells you that particulates is part of it. I would bet that the majority of tire particulates are too big to hang in the air very high or very long, but some are likely in the PM2.5 range and can still be part of smog.
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Re: Also Tesla cars are crap and no good for clim (Score:2)
Smog doesn't have a single good common definition - but even the name origin of smoke+fog tells you that particulates is part of it
No, it doesn't - neither "smoke" nor "fog" implies particles in the air.
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Anyway enjoy your definition fight and the cancer you get from all that tire particulate. And can you please ask Donald Trump to stop fucking kids? I mean he's president for God's sakes he would think he could stop for just a little while right?
Re: Also Tesla cars are crap and no good for clim (Score:2)
And can you please ask Donald Trump to stop fucking kids? I mean he's president for God's sakes he would think he could stop for just a little while right?
Were you just as upset when Biden - as President - used to sniff little (i mean little) girls hair?
Also, id love see some proof of your claim - heres proof of Biden sniffing Chris Coon's daughter. [share.google]
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Oooof. You aren't very bright are you. World is getting stupider by the day.
Here's my speculation (Score:1)
Tech companies can learn to make cars. It's not easy, but it's possible.
Car companies have trouble with tech. There is something about their management or culture that's hostile to tech workers
Maybe they hire the wrong people
Maybe they treat the people badly
Maybe something else
Car companies are an evolution or really old management practices
Tech companies are free to try new ideas
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Car companies have trouble with tech. There is something about their management or culture that's hostile to tech workers Maybe they hire the wrong people Maybe they treat the people badly Maybe something else
There is nothing wrong with a car that primarily just provides the functionality to safely drive from A to B, maybe with some air-conditioning builtin for comfort. Everything on top, like "entertainment" or navigation systems do not need to be built or sold by the car manufacturer, having a standardized slot for where to temporarily keep or mount them would be entirely sufficient. I see no reason why a car company needs to become a software or entertainment company, but apparently many investors think other
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Car companies have trouble with tech. There is something about their management or culture that's hostile to tech workers Maybe they hire the wrong people Maybe they treat the people badly Maybe something else
There is nothing wrong with a car that primarily just provides the functionality to safely drive from A to B, maybe with some air-conditioning builtin for comfort. Everything on top, like "entertainment" or navigation systems do not need to be built or sold by the car manufacturer, having a standardized slot for where to temporarily keep or mount them would be entirely sufficient. I see no reason why a car company needs to become a software or entertainment company, but apparently many investors think otherwise, because they expect the bigger profits from the latter.
The problem is, that's basically the way it works now, albeit in a badly degraded state. Car companies mostly bolt in entertainment systems from one of a small number of vendors. At some point, the entertainment system started needing to know stuff about the car itself, and without adequate standards, that meant that the systems became mostly non-swappable, but the car companies are still buying them from the same few vendors.
What this means is that you don't have competition, because it isn't readily cus
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Cars have had computers and software for decades, they just weren't "consumer facing". Automakers know how to do tech. Many of these systems (like anti-lock brakes) are life-and-death matters. Software gets tested to extremes and only updated when absolutely necessary. Yes, that mindset doesn't mesh well with silicon valley's theory of "move fast and break things" but that is not because automakers are afraid of new ideas; they are afraid of lawsuits.
Re: Here's my speculation (Score:2)
You seem to assume the updates are required to operate the vehicle, they are not
Should cars be getting frequent software updates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this something we want to strive for? My hot take is that if my car is getting frequent (and automatic/forced) software updates then something is fundamentally wrong with that car and the company making it.
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Not all updates are to fix problems. Some updates are introducing new problems .... oops, I meant features.
$66? (Score:2, Insightful)
>OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
What nonsense. When Tesla sends an update. it comes in over the internet, to my house and onto the car via wifi. I'm guessing Tesla isn't paying $66 per gigabyte for their ISP service and neither am I.
Re:$66? (Score:4, Informative)
I assumed that they're dividing the entire cost of creating, testing, packaging and delivering updates by the number of GB distributed. ISP fees would be a tiny fraction of that.
Why would anyone calculate such a silly metric in the first place? It sounds to me like the kind of thing an accountant would think up.
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Most modern upgrade are not just simple 'patches' they redeliver the entire OS image and all applications. Even containers are not that great because if you change one of the lower layers such as the kernel you need new hashes for all the following layers which can be several GB all combined.
One reason the industry moved away from binary patches, at least for embedded solutions, is that they need to be crafter for the very specific existing set of patches applied on each end user machine (or car here), whic
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>OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
What nonsense. When Tesla sends an update. it comes in over the internet, to my house and onto the car via wifi. I'm guessing Tesla isn't paying $66 per gigabyte for their ISP service and neither am I.
In cases where the vehicle can join a WIFI hot spot, this is true. For other cases cellular data is used and that gets expensive (I don't know if it's $66/GB expensive, but it certainly isn't free). If an auto manufacture wants to be able to confidently be able to remote manage vehicles, they can't depend on WIFI. For the bulk of the audience here (myself included), we generally abhor the concept of our vehicles being remote managed as well as anything that leads to a world of "car as a subscription service
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You are correct. The Nissan Ariya, for example, does its system updates over cellular data, even though it can connect to WiFi as well. I am not sure why they don't ALSO use WiFi if it is available, but OTA updating is new for Nissan and they are probably working in that direction. For now, the only updates possible via WiFi are maps. And, unlike the system software, the maps can be very, very large.
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In cases where the vehicle can join a WIFI hot spot, this is true. For other cases cellular data is used and that gets expensive (I don't know if it's $66/GB expensive, but it certainly isn't free).
Teslas won't download updates over cellular, even if you have the extra-cost Premium Connectivity. They'll tell you that one is available, but WiFi is required to download it. Probably one reason why they push so many, they don't have to pay for the data to distribute them.
And even with all these updates, they seem to have a hard time fixing little things like the car suddenly deciding the speed limit is 25 while going 80 on the freeway and immediately decelerating, or the alarm going off when remotely tu
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>OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
What nonsense. When Tesla sends an update. it comes in over the internet, to my house and onto the car via wifi. I'm guessing Tesla isn't paying $66 per gigabyte for their ISP service and neither am I.
You do you. I know most Teslas aren't connected to their house wifi. Why would they. They have internet connectivity by themselves. Heck mine car has the option and I simply don't give a hoot to connect it.
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>OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.
What nonsense. When Tesla sends an update. it comes in over the internet, to my house and onto the car via wifi. I'm guessing Tesla isn't paying $66 per gigabyte for their ISP service and neither am I.
You do you. I know most Teslas aren't connected to their house wifi. Why would they. They have internet connectivity by themselves. Heck mine car has the option and I simply don't give a hoot to connect it.
I connect it to the wifi so I get the updates overnight. If I'm not at home I can tether to my phone via wifi and get updates that way. Unlimited data on the phone is handy for that.
More Patches Does Not Mean Reliable (Score:2)
Well (Score:1)
Software company making smartphones with wheels (Score:2)
More like Tesla's Lead in Car Software Bugs (Score:2)
More like "Tesla's Lead in Car Software Bugs Remains Unchallenged," am I right?
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
My question is, why do you need so many damned updates?
Why can you get your shit right to begin with?
Do these updates benefit the consumer of the manufacturer?
Measuring any kind of "success" simply by number of updates shipped is ridiculous.
Just no (Score:1)
Re: Just no (Score:2)
Changes - not "updates" (Score:3)
Well uhh (Score:2)
NHTSB Abuses OTA updates (Score:1)
When I first got a Tesla in 2021, it had cool/fun features like use of an external speaker... to yell "Hey you!" etc. But the NHTSB decided that was too much fun and mandated Tesla send an OTA update which disabled that feature. But OTA is also great in that in 2021 there was no integration with Apple Music and Spotify, but because of OTA updates they are now integrated with the car's functionality.
I would guess other auto-makers see those types of updates as motivation to buy their new model year cars.
Or m
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A lead at sucking (Score:2)
Tesla software is great... mostly (Score:2)
Except their car autonomy (autopilot, full self driving). These "features" work poorly and are dangerous. They've been trying to get it right for almost 10 years and keep promising "by the end of the year" but they still are not ready for prime time. I think part of the problem is that they are stuck using "vision only" whereas other autonomous car systems use a combination of sensors (vision, ultrasound, radar, lidar, etc.) which seem to work better.
OTOH, the frequent software updates have improved many ot
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FSD is not anything close to self driving. You have to constantly monitor it to correct the frequent screwups.
It really a poor level 2 drive assist and not even close to level 5 which is real FSD.
What if your car got better every month? (Score:5, Informative)
I see a lot of grumbling about hypothetical bug fixes. Personal experience - my Tesla has been bug free, what does happen is the software gets better and better.
Since I purchased my car two years ago, it's gained several features I love and use:
1. Instant live video feed from the car to my phone if the alarm goes off
2. Navigation now has an "avoid highways" option and "search along route"
3. Navigation tells you the weather forecast at your destination for longer drives
4. An easy "low power mode" that turns off all optional features (like security cameras) when parked
5. Added support for Audible and a couple of other entertainment streams
6. Option to automatically reduce AC fan speeds when on calls
There are things I'd like to give the designers a hard time about - more physical controls, door controls that don't confuse guests, but the software and update system is outstanding. Like my phone, and unlike any car I've owned before, the car keeps getting incrementally better.
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My navigation app is on my phone, and my car's display is just a second screen for it. That's the way I prefer it.
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My navigation app is on my phone, and my car's display is just a second screen for it. That's the way I prefer it.
Can your phone app plan for charging stops along a route using actual battery percentage?
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My God. Why do people buy EVs and force themselves into that horribly complicated situation.
Because it isn't complicated.
For most EV owners, for most of the time, it is far more convenient than using an ICE -- plugging in the car at home takes far less time and is cleaner than refueling a gas car (or worse still, a diesel).
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For most EV owners, for most of the time, it is far more convenient than using an ICE
But is it more convenient than a PHEV? I can plug my PHEV into a standard 15 amp outlet and it will charge over night. That's enough for all/most of my daily trips. Once every month or so I need to refill the gas tank if I do enough longer trips. On long trips, I can fill up at any gas station. Because it has an initial lower emissions in manufacturing, its likely it ends up with as few or fewer lifetime emissions as an EV. The only advantage of the EV is if you do a lot of driving everyday beyond the range
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Can your phone app plan for charging stops along a route using actual battery percentage?
Yes. Far better than my car's built in nav stuff. ABRP talks to my OBD dongle, does great at it.
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>"There are things I'd like to give the designers a hard time about - more physical controls, door controls that don't confuse guests, but the software and update system is outstanding.[...] the car keeps getting incrementally better."
^^^This
I didn't even consider a Tesla precisely because I hated the "tablet on the stick" look and operation. I want a real dashboard and real controls. I also didn't like the looks (I think they are generally ugly and best-case, bland). But when it came to software, Tes
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what does happen is the software gets better and better.
Yes in many cases fixing design flaws. No you didn't get 42 new features in 6 months. You got 6 and a shitton of bug fixes.
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"Added support for Audible"????
You MUST be getting paid for a post like that.
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There are things I'd like to give the designers a hard time about - more physical controls, door controls that don't confuse guests, but the software and update system is outstanding.
You mean the door handles that can kill people because there is a "door open button" that requires power, and if there is no power than a separate handle to open the door in an emergency, a handle that is usually not obvious? https://electrek.co/2025/10/03... [electrek.co]
Capgemini chief technology officer for automotive (Score:2)
Jaguar Land Rover - Implementing a microservices based architecture [agileminds.com]
The Solution [agileminds.com]: “For JLR, we supported the development and implementation of an Information Fabric (iFAB) platform. In partnership with CapGemini who provided architecture, development and test resources, we ran the overall programme and solution roadmap”
Services Utilised:
* Project management
* Sprint planni
BS Tesla-staning. (Score:2)
Plenty of other companies have an OTA cadence on par with Tesla's now.
Rivian, Lucid, even Ford is at least in the ballpark.
Yes, Tesla's software is good, but they're not the only ones doing updates of substance with frequency any more.
Zero Day (Score:2)
My concern with connected cars is malicious actors performing a mass zero day attack that could either disable cars or turn them into homocidal weapons.
Non-OTA Updates (Score:2)
I think the way to measure how successful an automaker is with OTA updates is to look at how many firmware updates they've needed that haven't been able to be delivered OTA.
As mentioned in the summary, many automakers offer OTA updates for limited components like GM did in 2010. Telsa can update pretty much any firmware in the car, in large part because they don't outsource much of anything to other companies, which could make controlling updates more complicated.
Are Rivain, Lucid, and BYD doing just fine
I thought lead was bad. (Score:2)
OTA updates are a GOOD thing? (Score:2)
I have cars that are 20+ years old and do not need updates. Why do cars need updates? Are you changing the functionality of something AFTER someone has bought it? WTF? Is your code and QA process so poor that show stopping bugs are constantly needing to be addressed? Why are constant updates desirable?
Just because Microsoft gets away with that bullshit, it does not mean other corporations will be able to, or should be allowed, to get away with it.
Fuck you. Sell me a car that works and doesn't change other t
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This says he didnt go to the Island, just that he was invited. By someone who was making a blackmail ring of the rich and famous, being invited and refusing doesnt really scream of anything nefarious. Just hating?
Depends on whether he asked to be invited and if so, why. If the answers are "yes" and "to meet a girlfriend", then it screams of something nefarious. If the answers are pretty much anything else, it doesn't. :-)
Dude, seriously? (Score:1)
This says he didnt go to the Island, just that he was invited.
Dude, seriously? Did you get invited to the pedophile's island? No? Might that be because you didn't have an existing relationship of any kind with said pedophile?
There's the reason.