65,000+ Land Rovers Recalled Due To Software Bug

An anonymous reader writes with word that owners of Range Rover and Range Rover Sport SUVs (model year 2013 and newer) will need to get their cars' software updated, which means a visit to a dealer. The update will fix a bug in the cars' locking system, which occasionally resulted in car doors randomly unlocking and opening themselves (in one instance, when the car was moving). This is not the first time that a car manufacturer asked customers to contact dealers for a security update. In July, Ford has recalled over 430,000 cars in North America because of a bug that prevented the engine from shutting down even after the ignition key was put into the "off" position and removed.

Comments

for the driver with more brass than sense.

[nimbius]

As an automotive SCADA programmer, its the hillarity of a marketing driven product that causes outright lethal problems like this. We finish coding important things like o2 and knock profiles, 3d cylinder maps and such into the engine and give the vehicle the ability to start or stop with ease in damned near any environment. we also write in cockpit code that handles fun stuff like TCS and ABS for the driver. Then, suddenly, our competitor one-ups us in either horsepower, torque, or some other mundane argumentative ego stroke brought up at the dinner table of automotive shows and product spotlights. And just like that, some marketing drone instantly tasks us with a new, untested, and wholly remarkable feature we are to provide.

so another project is created in git, branches are furiously spawned, we're given a deadline to make this new system work with everything (including the legacy stuff thats 10 years old) and things like lighting controllers as well. We're told we will deliver this feature on time or all hell will rain down from above, and so we do. Its another set of servos, and because we dont have a 2 year test cycle we have to use the same ones you have to close the trunk, but this time we bolted it to keiths new handler code based on a fork of the trunk code that he spent 90 hours hacking. Sure, the newest vehicle comes out and all is well, but we just do not have enough time to make sure everything works before some talking head gets up on a stage and rails about our latest "innovation." And chances are the average driver with more brass than sense is too old to understand the technology, how it works, or when to use it so it gets disabled at the dealership for them along with a half dozen other bells and whistles that confuse and bewilder the OAP.