Recently, there’s been some bad news out of Detroit. Ford’s backing off on some upcoming EV models, including a three-row SUV many had been looking forward to, and will instead be focusing more on hybrids. GM has been having different problems with software, recently laying off 1,000 developers after a string of Silicon Valley types failed to acclimate to more traditional corporate culture.
While these companies would like to have us all believe that making EVs and software for EVs is simply too hard, other companies like Tesla and Rivian have been doing a lot better. Tesla is now making more EVs than anybody, even beating out ICE models in some segments. Rivian is still climbing the profit ladder, but is selling software to Volkswagen, a pretty good sign that “legacy auto” is struggling in odd ways while newcomers are having no problem churning out EVs.
So, we need to ask ourselves why these established players are struggling while newcomers are doing just fine.
I think there’s truth in both camps here.
Certainly software developers don’t understand safety critical design a lot of the time.
Also mechanical / production engineers don’t understand software development a lot of the time.
However, EVs need very little software. Trouble is, they’ve been positioned as luxury cars, which do.
IMO a good luxury car doesn’t need a bunch of bullshit software either. Making a vehicle that works primarily as a vehicle and lastly as a gadget should really be the focus IMO. But these companies all thought there was easy money to be saved by eliminating buttons and replacing it with touch screens running software. Unfortunately, very few of them compared the reliability of a button with a 10 million cycle rating to software running on an ARM processor on a commodity LCD panel.
Younger consumers that are buying expensive vehicles for the first time also don’t realize that luxury doesn’t mean sparse plastic interior with a touch screen, but rather the quality of materials and components used in the vehicle. Perhaps that’s the industry changing, or perhaps is naive people being ripped off, only time will tell.