OTA “recall.” Sucks that there was a bug like this, but the headlines try to make these out to be bigger than they are.
Physical or otherwise “bring to the dealer” recalls are bigger news because direct owner action needs to be done, often meaning their car is unavailable for some period of time. OTA just means people will drive their car like normal and it’ll be passively fixed, which is hardly news-worthy.
A bug that causes something (that is legally required to be in a car and function properly) not to function properly or be available is not news?
The fact that they can F- it up remotely and possibly introduced a big that could cause cars to fail inspection seems newsworthy by itself.
The fact they can un-fuck it remotely seems to be the least interesting aspect of this story.
I suggest people stop letting large corporations of the hook if their lack of QA and in this case lack of separation of essential driving systems and the infotainment causes issues.
I agree, and what I said is not trying to exonerate the car companies but is pointing out the rage-bait of the news media.
“Volvo recalls ALL…” (emphasis mine), is meant to incite worry and or rage, while something like this would be truer to the details and relevance to consumers: “Volvo software bug may obscure speedometer. X number of model affected/reported. OTA fix released.”
Yeah.
I work on automotive software, and honestly have no issue with issues like this being portrayed as a big deal. I’m sick of how often I’m seeing management push shit software deliveries with the line “We’ll OTA it later, it’s fine for now.”
Screens have been in cars for a very long time at this point, there’s absolutely no reason we should be seeing issues like this aside from half-assed software being shoved out the door because we’ll hopefully fix it later via OTA.
I understand that airliners have separation between the computer systems used for entertainment and life-critical systems. That permits a less costly, lower reliability/testing standard to be used on the entertainment systems.
Unfortunately, current automobiles don’t seem to have that separation:
In a statement released today, the Sweden-based car manufacturer says EX30 vehicles can accidentally throw up a “test screen” on the center monitor, obscuring the normal driving statistics shown there including the speedometer and infotainment features. The exact cause of the bug has yet to be disclosed.
They definitely do. The vast majority of cars (Tesla being a notable exception) run their critical systems on CANbus with AUTOSAR and QNX or VxWorks. That’s why their entertainment system can still crash while the car drives on just fine. That doesn’t mean one can’t obscure the other; on VW group cars, for example, the reversing camera is run by QNX on CANbus but shown on the entertainment screen as an overlay. Occasionally you’ll see QNX starting to show the camera before the entertainment system has had a chance to draw the frame around it.
In older models the speedometer and the tachometer were analogue but new Volvos have them digital so more likely to be affected by software bugs even when the separation exists.
I don’t actually know how the analogue versions work or if they could still be affected by software bugs in the onboard computer. UI wise probably sturdier than digital I suspect.
How is this news? I have recall work done on my Honda almost every time I get an oil change. This is a Volvo software update.
Because it obscures the speedometer which could be dangerous and shows why we shouldn’t have screens for everything. They’ve still got regular gauges on airplanes for backup. I don’t see the need to change away from analog gauges.
It doesn’t help that they also just have the one screen.
They could easily have had a secondary display behind the steering wheel that shows only the important info… but no… they followed Tesla’s model to cut costs with one screen that does most everything.
This was the worst. I was happy to see a compact EV SUV I can actually afford, and I’m all for big screens; but to remove the instrument cluster/gauge and put THAT on the infotainment screen as well is so dumb.
The least they could’ve done was include a heads-up projection display as an option.
I’ll bet it’ll be there in future models.
Really wish there was more regulation on this. Everything core instruments should not require software to function.
Are analog gauges more expensive or they just cannot show ads while the driver is idling?
Yes.
Your honor, a software bug prevented me from realizing i was speeding.
EX30 is a rebadged Zeekr X which has a normal separate speedometer cluster in front of the driver, Volvo deleted that and put everything on the center screen like a Tesla.
I remember back when the Citroen C1/Peugeot 107 had just a speedo and the tachometer was an optional extra you could buy if you wanted to.
Entirely removing them all and not even offering them as an option - when you clearly have them available - is just mental.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a statement released today, the Sweden-based car manufacturer says EX30 vehicles can accidentally throw up a “test screen” on the center monitor, obscuring the normal driving statistics shown there including the speedometer and infotainment features.
"Due to a software error, the infotainment unit screen may enter a test mode during startup of the vehicle.
“Failure to display key information may potentially increase the risk of injury or death to vehicle occupants and other road users.”
When that test screen error occurs, drivers are left in the dark about exactly how fast they’re going, and that could lead to driving that’s too reckless or too cautious, neither of which are great.
The higher-end EX90 actually got delayed by half a year purely to focus on software development, according to Volvo’s public declarations.
That update was a direct response to an incident where a Cruise robo-taxi drove over a pedestrian who was already on the road after having been hit by a different vehicle, instead of just stopping after the collision happened.
The original article contains 430 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
