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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.

38 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.

    1. Re:Imagine by bob_super · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Imagine by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What's messed up is the article itself, especially in the belief that automakers will want to switch to this. Right now Cadillac and Lincoln cars have been using fibre in their cars for the 'drive-by-wire' system for years. As well as in parts of the HUD, and rear-display systems. Beleive you and me, they want to use this, because it's reallllly expensive it if gets toasted, and they have to replace part of the harness. This isn't really a job your layman can do, compared to say pulling and restringing an entire wiring harness inside the cab. That's something anyone with a bit of patience and weekend or two can do.

      --
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    3. Re:Imagine by ThatAblaze · · Score: 3, Funny

      What a fantastic idea! By switching to a well understood standard it will finally make our vehicles trivial to hack!

      Ohh.. wait.. maybe that isn't such a good thing? *shrug*

      Well I look forward to the day in which I no longer have to call a taxi, I can just take out my laptop and make one drive to my location.

    4. Re:Imagine by benjfowler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If somebody determined to get up to mischief, they'll do it anyway, regardless of whether or not your car is networked over CAN or Ethernet.

      What you're suggesting, is that security by obscurity works, not that CAN is all that obscure...

    5. Re:Imagine by jrumney · · Score: 2

      Ethernet is a well understood standard? I think very few people have had to deal with transport level details of ethernet since the advent of ethernet controller ICs in the 1980's (or maybe early 1990's). Most hackers work at higher levels which wouldn't necessarily be deployed on a network that needs guaranteed delivery timing.

    6. Re:Imagine by Pentium100 · · Score: 2

      Do not want. All this complexity of modern cars makes me appreciate my classic car (no computers at all) more and more.

  2. What?? by plebeian · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    "I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
    1. Re:What?? by amorsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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    2. Re:What?? by kelemvor4 · · Score: 2

      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.

      QoS is OSI level 7. Ethernet is OSI level 1. There is no reason to assume that TCP/IP or QoS will be standardized upon or even used at all here.

      Also, QoS is a total dog if you are trying to employ it on consumer grade equipment. At least, that's been my experience with numerous linksys, d-link, and netgear devices. I'm kind of down on QoS as a result. Great idea, ruined by the implementation that most consumers will ever see.

    3. Re:What?? by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      Layer 7 is application layer, which is indeed where QoS sits (it deals with the source of the data).
      Ethernet, as in 802.3 is indeed layer 2, but wikipedia confirms: its more than just that. It includes the physical layer too.

    4. Re:What?? by plebeian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As a systems/network administrator I must say that If you are relying on general purpose wan connection for life or death services you are doing it wrong. Where I work we physically segment everything that is truly critical. The fire and alarm systems have multiple redundant connections including two that are 100% separate from our data network. The closest thing we have to a critical system running on a general purpose network is the use of SIP to provide connections from our phones to the PBX and that system has had a number of minor problems in the 7 years we have been using it. Ultimately if a phone call gets dropped in an office building the chances of someone dying because of it are truly minuscule. If on the other hand a drive by wire function fails you have a lot larger chance of death. I believe they will segment mission critical systems to a dedicate physical bus with redundant links in any proposed in car network. That way a entertainment system cannot interfere with the operation of say the headlights. My comment was made to expose the naivete of the original post and not to offer any truly insightful criticism.

      --
      "I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
    5. Re:What?? by epyT-R · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Re: Stop reinventing the wheel. by jxander · · Score: 4, Funny
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  4. Re:Don't quit your day job by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    Yeah, everyone knows the Cylons are going to show up any day now.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  5. Re:Stop reinventing the wheel. by Sanhedran · · Score: 2

    Why did these morons spend time and energy to create ... CAN/CAN-FD

    If you think the CAN standards were developed by "morons", there's no educating you.

  6. People seem to be misunderstanding by kelemvor4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This article is about the L1 PHY layer, not the L2 Data Link layer. There is no reason to assume this means your car will be using TCP/IP. The diagram in TFA clearly indicates that the PHY layer being discussed here is independent of the protocol.

    In fact, the included diagram seems to indicate broadcom is pitching some kind of adapter device which would enable inclusion of the new L1 layer with no changes whatsoever to the programming of the devices on either end. One would hope that such a thing would be only considered a stop-gap measure while they reworked their components to use the new bus natively in future models. History clearly shows that such adapters tend to be inefficient.

    1. Re:People seem to be misunderstanding by jrumney · · Score: 2

      There's every reason to suspect that TCP/IP will be used for audio/video modules. There's no particular benefit to using anything else

      Except that using protocols that are designed for audio and video instead of general IP traffic ensures that you see/hear a glitch free stream without waiting for buffering before you start playback every time.

  7. No by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If it's good enough for commercial aircraft it's good enough for your car.

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    1. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      No, it really isn't. Commercial aircraft aren't traveling a few seconds' distance behind other aircraft.

    2. Re:No by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --
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    3. Re:No by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And? The network between the brake pedal and the brake doesn't give a flying fsck about the state of the driver, just make abso-%$#@!-ing-lutely sure that nothing the user (or a malfunctioning/malicious app ) can interfere with the signal. For starters don't put anything user-accessible on the same network - insert a heavily firewalled router at least, and preferably an old-fashioned air-gap.

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  8. and be locked into the poor build in radio system by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  9. Re:Micro USB by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 2

    Cables? What about chargers? Why can't I charge my electric car with my phone's charger? This needs to change!

    Can confirm unable to charge PEV with my laptop's USB port. Epic fail on the part of the manufacturer.

    --

    Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

  10. WTB IPv6 by dave562 · · Score: 2

    Need teh NATz for my car!

  11. Hmm by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    Will they provide the paperclip to reset my car when it hangs up?

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    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  12. Hope they harden it. by Revek · · Score: 2

    Ethernet is notoriously susceptible to the emp from a close lighting strike. If you don't think so, just work in the cable industry for a while. After every serious lighting storm we will have several modems that appear fine except the ethernet is blown. It is usually the only thing burned out in the house. Often the rf side is still working fine and sending information back to the management system. It will suck when you have to go into a parts store and say gimme a box of ethernet chips for my car.

  13. Yeah, but ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    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.

    Now imagine how much the data plan for your car is going to cost you. You'll be locked into a plan with the car company and pay through the nose.

    No thanks. I have a dedicated GPS, an MP3 player I can connect to my car stereo, and most everybody has portable devices which can play video already.

    Now get off my damned lawn, because I don't want or need a car which is connected to the interwebs.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  14. Re:Huh? by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Informative

    Connectivity used when shit has to just work all the time, regardless how many hipsters are in the area.

  15. Shared networking with user services? by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What a horrible, horrible idea. Not the ethernet aspect, that makes sense, reinventing the wheel is usually a bad idea, and especially so when the competition has a multi-decade lead on eliminating bugs and malicious exploits and offers cheap, reliable off-the-shelf hardware. No, it's the idea of putting anything whatsoever user-accessible on the internal network I object to. If this data bus is carrying the information that tells my increasingly fly-by-wire care to apply the brakes or turn right to avoid oncomming semis then all it takes is one misbehaving flappy-bird clone spamming the network at the wrong moment to kill me, to say nothing of malicious attacks. There's absolutely no reason *anything* but internal systems communication should be on that network. Period. If you want an media network fine, but that can probably be provided far more cheaply and conveniently by including an airgapped $10 wireless hub with a 10' range that can only talk directly to things like the steering-wheel mounted media controls and the dashboard LCD/windshield HUD. And maybe a cellular modem. You're in a pretty decent approximation of a Faraday cage, so non-malicious outside interference should be minimal, and any communication with the mission-critical network should be heavily firewalled, at an absolute minimum. Not much reason to allow bi-directional communication at all - "spam" the wireless network with multicast up-to-the-second system and diagnostc data and you're good, at 0.01% of total bandwidth. No reason for anything not physically connected to be able to say a %$#@!* thing to the mission-critical components. If ever there was a non-hyperbolic use of the term "mission critical", maintaining control of a car is it.

    * %$#@! - when no variation of "fuck" is strong enough. Bonus points if you can pronounce it. Q-Bert did, but then he had that hose-nose to work with.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    1. Re:Shared networking with user services? by fluffy99 · · Score: 2

      There are multiple busses in vehicles already, separated by function. Engine controls are usually on a higher speed can bus, stuff like the speedo and body (lights, doors, etc) on a low speed can bus. I can see adding a third bus for entertainment type stuff such as the radio sat nav, wireless hotspot etc.

    2. Re:Shared networking with user services? by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

      And then one token ring to rule them all, and in the blind spot bind them!

  16. I'm OK with ethernet in cars by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    As long as I don't have to make my own cables.

    One of the longest days of my life was many years ago when I told a friend I could wire up his little storefront business if he bought a spool of Cat5 and a bunch of connectors.

    I sat there with that crimping tool and my fumblefingers and invented entire new categories of curse words. A friend from a local Army base came by and for a few slices of pizza and a six-pack he knocked out those cables like nothing.

    It was a humbling experience. Which I probably should not have shared here on Slashdot because you guys were probably all making your own ethernet cables since your were like five years old.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  17. Re:Huh? by sunderland56 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  18. Re:Huh? by davester666 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Whatever you do, do NOT let the token fall out of the network, because you'll never find it in all the crap on the side of our roads.

    --
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  19. Re:Huh? by gewalker · · Score: 2

    Phhtt, the packet to turn off Justin Bieber should have the highest priority, forget the collision avoid avoidance system, the Bieber avoidance system is more important. You do not want to have to explain to God that, yeah, in my dying moment I was listening to Bieber.

  20. Re:Huh? by kimvette · · Score: 2

    Who says it has to be the same LAN?

    Also: CAN can already be interrupted by infotainment systems, since some vehicles have actually used the head unit (the part of the stereo you control) as the CAN bus hub. Idiotic design.

    --
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  21. Re:car bandwidth needs by Balp · · Score: 2

    First all that have video transmission, as parking assistance, nightvision, review cameras. Infotainment. I don't think the same bus, but in the future using the same technology. One technology, one open standard might bake stuff overall easier to implement, and that lowers costs or increases quality, or features, or a mix of these.