Do Car Manufacturers Understand IT?
A tribute to the Beetle (Volkswagen’s – not John Lenon the Beatle ;-)
This post is about another everyday thing (see ‘Is IT Too Complex?’) where IT doesn’t yet necessarily add a lot of value: the sacro-sainte automobile, the holy motorcar, la santa machina, la sainte bagnole, der heilige Wagen.
My first car was a 12-year old 1959 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought it the year Intel introduced the 4004 microprocessor. At that time, a computer was the size of that car and it had only a fraction of the power and capacity of what I have today in my pocket-size Nokia 6230i (and it couldn’t take pictures!). This car was not fast but very sturdy and reliable. And very simple: when you opened the hood/bonnet (actually the trunk/boot ;-) you could actually see … the flat-four engine.
Today, when you open the hood of a modern car you can’t see the engine anymore. It is covered by a huge air filter and practically inaccessible without putting half of the car apart. Some weeks ago, I needed to replace a halogen bulb in one of the headlights of my 12-year old Volvo. I had a spare. I managed to slide my hand between several things and to locate and touch the faulty part. But I almost broke a finger trying to get the blooming bulb out. I called the Automobile Association rescue service and I was embarrassed to tell the guy that I failed. He told me not to worry; he was answering many similar calls in a week; and actually my car was a blessing: he didn’t have to remove half of the paraphernalia around the engine to get to the headlight. But it took him special tools and a solid ten minutes to get the new bulb in.
During that time I had a fresh look at all the things under the hood. Not a cubic centimetre to spare. The whole space is crammed with devices that were added besides the actual engine and, probably, after the initial design: air conditioning compressor, alarm system and so on. And it’s worse with more recent cars. To diagnose a problem, a mechanic needs an electronic box that he plugs into a socked to run some software that checks all the car’s functions. That’s rather good and effective in most of the cases. But, sometimes, it goes wrong and it creates a total mess.
Here is my take of what happened in the last twenty years or so - another case of bloated design. Manufacturers have increasingly stuffed electronics around many functions of a car - most often with excellent intentions including additional safety, passenger protection, comfort and so on – but without fully understanding how all these additions fit and work together as a system. Their culture is mainly about mechanical parts, cylinders and pistons, gear boxes, friction and thermodynamics; not about computers, data buses and software.
That could be why we keep hearing about bizarre phenomena like sudden acceleration. I suspect most of them are kind of urban legends that spread because few people are able to rationally explain what’s going on. The automobile sector hasn’t yet ‘integrated’ electronic technologies into its culture.
And the worst is with software and user interfacing. The other day, a car rental company upgraded me to a top-range piece of German autobahn hardware. The engine was marvellous and the ride super-comfortable. But it took me – a reasonably educated computer user – about ten minutes to tune the radio to my favourite station.
I had to deal with some kind of a joystick surrounded by buttons that set the system and its postcard-size screen into a given mode: radio, navigation, trip control & statistics, etc. For each mode (wink to Larry Tesler), the joystick seemed to have a different behaviour. A nightmare!
Then I pressed a button by mistake (about not skidding in snow, I think) and the damned car kept talking to me to warn me that I had a problem with the gearbox and that I should stop at an Audi garage (oh dear! I let the brand name escape) as soon as possible. It was just a question of knowing which button to push again but it wasn’t obvious, even for the mechanic. I think that the car industry still has a long way to go to really understand IT, don’t you?
This post is about another everyday thing (see ‘Is IT Too Complex?’) where IT doesn’t yet necessarily add a lot of value: the sacro-sainte automobile, the holy motorcar, la santa machina, la sainte bagnole, der heilige Wagen.
My first car was a 12-year old 1959 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought it the year Intel introduced the 4004 microprocessor. At that time, a computer was the size of that car and it had only a fraction of the power and capacity of what I have today in my pocket-size Nokia 6230i (and it couldn’t take pictures!). This car was not fast but very sturdy and reliable. And very simple: when you opened the hood/bonnet (actually the trunk/boot ;-) you could actually see … the flat-four engine.
Today, when you open the hood of a modern car you can’t see the engine anymore. It is covered by a huge air filter and practically inaccessible without putting half of the car apart. Some weeks ago, I needed to replace a halogen bulb in one of the headlights of my 12-year old Volvo. I had a spare. I managed to slide my hand between several things and to locate and touch the faulty part. But I almost broke a finger trying to get the blooming bulb out. I called the Automobile Association rescue service and I was embarrassed to tell the guy that I failed. He told me not to worry; he was answering many similar calls in a week; and actually my car was a blessing: he didn’t have to remove half of the paraphernalia around the engine to get to the headlight. But it took him special tools and a solid ten minutes to get the new bulb in.
During that time I had a fresh look at all the things under the hood. Not a cubic centimetre to spare. The whole space is crammed with devices that were added besides the actual engine and, probably, after the initial design: air conditioning compressor, alarm system and so on. And it’s worse with more recent cars. To diagnose a problem, a mechanic needs an electronic box that he plugs into a socked to run some software that checks all the car’s functions. That’s rather good and effective in most of the cases. But, sometimes, it goes wrong and it creates a total mess.
Here is my take of what happened in the last twenty years or so - another case of bloated design. Manufacturers have increasingly stuffed electronics around many functions of a car - most often with excellent intentions including additional safety, passenger protection, comfort and so on – but without fully understanding how all these additions fit and work together as a system. Their culture is mainly about mechanical parts, cylinders and pistons, gear boxes, friction and thermodynamics; not about computers, data buses and software.
That could be why we keep hearing about bizarre phenomena like sudden acceleration. I suspect most of them are kind of urban legends that spread because few people are able to rationally explain what’s going on. The automobile sector hasn’t yet ‘integrated’ electronic technologies into its culture.
And the worst is with software and user interfacing. The other day, a car rental company upgraded me to a top-range piece of German autobahn hardware. The engine was marvellous and the ride super-comfortable. But it took me – a reasonably educated computer user – about ten minutes to tune the radio to my favourite station.
I had to deal with some kind of a joystick surrounded by buttons that set the system and its postcard-size screen into a given mode: radio, navigation, trip control & statistics, etc. For each mode (wink to Larry Tesler), the joystick seemed to have a different behaviour. A nightmare!
Then I pressed a button by mistake (about not skidding in snow, I think) and the damned car kept talking to me to warn me that I had a problem with the gearbox and that I should stop at an Audi garage (oh dear! I let the brand name escape) as soon as possible. It was just a question of knowing which button to push again but it wasn’t obvious, even for the mechanic. I think that the car industry still has a long way to go to really understand IT, don’t you?
Henri Aebischer
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Electronic car bugs: What drivers need to know - tech - 29 March 2010 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527536.900-electronic-car-bugs-what-drivers-need-to-know.html