this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
46 points (100.0% liked)
Hacker News
2806 readers
547 users here now
Posts from the RSS Feed of HackerNews.
The feed sometimes contains ads and posts that have been removed by the mod team at HN.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't understand. Cars have computer chips in them, they have had for awhile. But what needs to be updated? What part of a vehicle, that affects its ability to drive, needs to have an over the air update?
Update when you take it to a dealer? I mean I guess? The question is the same but at least then it's just 1-2 a year and updated while it's in there so if it goes wrong then they are holding the bag.
But why? What has changed in the world over the last 8 weeks the needed to be communicated to the car....
Car all now gather information and manufacturers sell this data to anyone.
This means they're often maintaining those extra communications/sensor systems.
Car also have things like sonar detectors, cameras, smart stereo systems and more. I could understand how drivers assistance or media systems that connect to ever changing cell phones need updates.
How a dead radio prevents the car from running would just be bad design. Shit should be isolated and NOTHING should prevent the car from simply running.
The legacy systems that made a car work 20 years ago should stay isolated from all the smart shit slapped on it. Lane guidance, adaptive cruise control, automated emergency braking and the like are nice but shouldnt stop the car from working.
"For driver safety" they prevent the car from working until X component is repaired.