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by gruturo 720 days ago
Let me hazard a guess - not specific to Volkswagen:

Awful, slow, buggy, unresponsive, unergonomical, poorly-integrated, occasionally dangerous software, including the user interface, produced by a company culture that just won't change as it just doesn't see value in this, therefore either outsources it to the lowest bidder or mismanage it internally.

There's a reason Android Auto and Carplay are selling points.
3 comments
constantcrying 720 days ago
>produced by a company culture that just won't change as it just doesn't see value in this

I don't think that is the real problem. The issue is that Volkswagen has always been a hardware company and you can not make hardware like you do software. Fast iterations are not possible in hardware, so you need a careful long iterative process to fix previous problems and produce improved designs. Implementing a software process into this can only lead to disaster.

They also know that this is a major problem, which is why they founded Cariad to develop software, but that got burdened by the same problems.

Also: compared to the US, software engineering is payed terrible in the EU. If you are writing software you don't get payed more than an engineer.

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tibbydudeza 720 days ago
During the ICE era VW bought head units from Blaupunkt and Fuel Injection systems from Bosch and A/C systems from Delphi no need for a real software culture just integration expertise.

With EV's it is different ball game where software is a differentiator thanks to Telsa and the type of customers (techies) who are early adopters.

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SAI_Peregrinus 720 days ago
Anything developed using AUTOSAR is going to be awful shit. No competent programmer will willingly get within 10 feet of an AUTOSAR job posting if they've ever had to suffer through using it, and all the old ICE manufacturers standardized on AUTOSAR. They can't retain good programmers, and they can't hire programmers who have experienced their shit before, so they're left with naive newbies or overpriced contractors whose only goal is to milk the company for as many billable hours as possible.
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