The emergence of electric cars has been one of the most striking aspects of the automotive industry in recent years. These vehicles have a different technology to traditional fossil fuel vehicles, and are often presented by manufacturers as "vehicles defined by software", an expression intended to illustrate the innovative technology of these vehicles.
These vehicles are highly dependent on software and your problem is that it can present bugsespecially in the early versions. Take Apple, whose overheating problems in the iPhone15 model were caused by errors in the design. software. There is no hiding the situation: the bugs of software can cause serious problems, and if it is complex, identifying and correcting the problems can be complicated.
Although demand for all-electric vehicles is increasing due to competitive superiority and incentives from some governments, several manufacturers (including GM, Volkswagen and Volvo) are evaluating and reviewing their development process. GM, for example, has postponed production of its electric trucks in the United States. Volvo has postponed deliveries of its new EX30 due to "challenges" of software. As the saying goes: prevention is better than cure.
It's a common belief among consumers that you shouldn't buy a vehicle in the first year after its launch, and it's important to give manufacturers time to correct the problems that inevitably arise in any vehicle in the early days after its launch, and with technological developments, manufacturers have perfected and automated their manufacturing processes, testing all the components and their integration.
However, when it comes to software things are different: The complexity of the code, the difficulties in defining its requirements, the specificities of each vehicle, the need to recruit people with the right skills, the importance of defining appropriate software development and testing processes are some of the many problems faced by electric vehicle manufacturers.
Some manufacturers have come to recognize that the development of software was not in their area of expertise. And so we see today that several manufacturers are making a huge effort in this area, recruiting specialists in the development and testing of softwareto help them understand and properly integrate the software in their vehicles.
The original article via PopSci can be read here.
