Automakers Move Toward OTA Software Upgrades

Lucas123 writes: While some carmakers today offer over-the-air software upgrades to navigation maps and infotainment head units, Tesla became the first last week to perform a powertrain upgrade overnight. But as the industry begins adopting internal vehicle bus standards with greater bandwidth and more robust security, experts believe vehicle owners will no longer be required to visit dealerships or perform downloads to USB sticks. IHS predicts that in the next three to five years, most, if not all automakers, will offer fully fledged OTA software-enabled platforms that encompass upgrades to every vehicle system — from infotainment, safety, comfort, and powertrain. First, however, carmakers must deploy more open OS platforms, remove hardened firewalls between vehicle ECUs, and deploy networking topologies such as Ethernet, with proven security.

Comments

"remove hardened firewalls between vehicle ECUs"

[SoCalChris]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:I think we need some serious open source effort

[sinij]

I ignored it as I knew from past experience, that this car had no major problems.

I am with you, the other day I was patching mission-critical server when I noticed SMART errors. I ignored it, as I know from past experiences that this server had no major problems.

At some point, at above 90% load the server started random kernel panics. Any lower load than that would be without any problems. I decided to have sysadmin check it out. He wanted $480 for a new hard disk. Without fixing, this "server would permanently lose data one day" he said.

Well, stubborn as I am, I ignored his advice. I added couple months on it without any problems at all. When it kernel panics, I would just reboot it...At one time, I thought my reset button may be dirty - it wasn't.