The practical solution here would be closing the feedback loop with customers. The business does want happy customers, it's important they return to purchase in 5 years. The problem with car companies is that they don't get immediate feedback (telemetry, tickets, etc) when they do push an issue. And they obviously don't have gradual roll outs the way tesla does.

Rather than hamstring all software by requiring DOT testing before firmware updates are published, follow Tesla's model which has been very reliable within the industry

▲ AlotOfReading 2 days ago | parent [-]

    Rather than hamstring all software by requiring DOT testing before firmware updates are published...

I don't know how the rules work in the UK or Ireland where the author is, but the US has no such mandatory testing. Also, all manufacturers have telemetry these days and the ones I'm familiar with all do gradual rollouts (to varying levels of competence). You basically can't do immediate rollout given the scales involved.

Please don't take this as suggesting any of them are good at software, mind you.

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tonymet 2 days ago | parent [-]

You're right the facilities may be there for telemetry & feedback, but none of the Tesla competitors are structured to manage that telemetry and feedback. Often the brands are repackaging software from vendors (e.g. Bosch) that are terrible at fixing things.

Let's face it, this really is about Tesla, vs the rest of the major players (ford, kia, VW etc)

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AlotOfReading 2 days ago | parent [-]

Obviously I'm under NDA, but the data I've seen at $(OEM) was down to the level of variant tracking and real time geolocation. The commercial fleet management programs can do things like scheduled updates and know what hardware/software is in each component of each vehicle, which the manufacturer has to keep track of anyway for recall purposes.

	▲	tonymet 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The capability may be there, sure