Please explain why Tesla is wrong in providing over-the-air software updates.
Because if you are driving two tons of metal at seventy miles per hour, you don’t need a software update right now. Even if the only thing the computer controls is the engine timing, a bad patch could still cause a sudden and surprising loss of power which might cause a crash. And there is no guarantee that there won’t ever be a bad patch, either because of a programming error or because a hacker successfully passes their own patch off as a genuine Tesla patch.
It opens it up to hackers.
And now you’re going to tell me why that’s impossible.
I’ve worked with software too long, and there have been too many instances of exploits of secure systems, to accept that something that can be connected to and written to is ever totally un-hackable.
Imagine a time in the future when the majority of cars on our roads have wirelessly updatable software. Imagine that some hackers, maybe a foreign government, find a flaw in the security, or maybe they have a mole working for the company that writes the software. Imagine the chaos that could occur.
Take a look at this: How Does a Tesla Over-the-Air Software Update Work?
who says software updates are pushed while you’re flying down the road? AFAIK it updates when parked and (I think) connected to a charger.
I agree that updates wouldn’t be sent while you’re driving, but that doesn’t rule out defective updates or hacking.
Actually, the updates can be sent while you’re driving. They can’t be applied unless the car is in park.
Nope. It’s silly to say that it’s impossible.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “It’s just a software problem,” or “We’ll fix it in software,” on major engineering technology development programs which later went vastly overbudget or experienced major technical programs before being cancelled or several curtailed, viz. Delta III, NASP, Hyper-X, HOTOL, F-35, et cetera, I’d be sitting in a penthouse in Las Vegas pissing into milk bottles with dozens of people waiting in the wings with fraudulent wills to inherent my billions.
Stranger
Tesla has said that there’s a security key built into its patches. This sounds all well & good except, human nature being what it is, this key is almost certainly sitting in a file on some Tesla engineer’s computer, with a name like “software patch key” or “security key,” and located in an easy-to-access folder, if not sitting right on the computer desktop.
My level of admiration for Tesla just went down a couple notches. Why the hell didn’t they have this out there a couple years ago, when the Model S first appeared? Is it that they were coasting on the freakin’ huge battery pack, figuring nobody’s going to be draining that dry every day (at least, not until they got the Supercharger network up and running)? Given the heat they took from Clooney about running out of juice constantly in a Roadster, you’d think a “Hey, buddy, charge this thing once in a while, mmkay?” alarm would have been part of the standard package from day one.
I’ve seen lane keep assist functions that use braking, also.
When the hardware is in place (sensors, cameras) it really does come down to software. However, that’s also the hardest part by far. Creating an algorithm that can read road signs, discern a traffic light color or tell if a driver is watching the road takes a lot of time and money.
What do you mean by “this”? The recent announcement was about Range Assurance and Trip Planner, both of which are based on an extensive Tesla charging network that didn’t exist when the Model S was introduced.