Comment by Eddy_Viscosity2
7 months ago
If its drive-by-wire steering, then isn't loss of power steering the same as loss of all steering?
7 months ago
If its drive-by-wire steering, then isn't loss of power steering the same as loss of all steering?
I'm shocked (literally) to see there are production vehicles with steer-by-wire. Couple that with OTA updates and you have a vehicle I'd refuse to ride in, much less purchase.
Its wild to me that any car manufacturer would push an OTA update while the vehicle is in motion, or hell, even push one at all instead of having it be user initiated. They didn’t bother to put a simple check in place to make sure the vehicle wasn’t being driven before updating?
And then these manufacturers wonder why people just want them to have a dumb head unit with carplay/android auto. Because they absolutely suck at software and have shown no desire to improve outside of charging people subscriptions for hardware features that are already in the car.
It's impossible on my Tesla. You get a notice to install and a warning that you won't be able to drive for up to 45 minutes. You cannot click install unless the car is in park. You can always decide never to install an update.
This isn't exceptional design on the part of Tesla. It is absolutely baseline common sense. I can't believe it isn't the defacto rule. I guess it might need to be regulated because apparently some companies are THAT untrustworthy.
All regulations are written in blood.
Car could have been updated before trip, and some stackoverflow error can happen same time later while in traffic.
They pushed it out while the vehicle was parked. The bug seemed to not break the vehicle immediately, but after some time driving.
The Cybertruck is basically the only vehicle with true steer by wire. Infiniti offered cars for a brief time which had clutched steering columns (a truly baffling worst of all worlds solution). Otherwise what people mean is electrical power steering, where a power-off failure means you need to turn the wheel harder (a power-on failure can be very bad and there are a lot of safety systems to limit applied torque so a driver can always override the input).
> The Cybertruck is basically the only vehicle with true steer by wire.
It really is "The Homer" of cars isn't it.
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I think most recently developed large commercial passenger aircraft are completely fly by wire with most controls lacking any physically interlinked backup.
Thinking of this somehow reminded me of the most harrowing aircraft disaster that I've ever read about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
It's both tragic because half of the passengers were killed but also miraculous that anyone survived at all.
Hopefully I am not too naive, but I think aircraft safety redundancy remains above retail car standards. Also, in aircraft they "have time to solve some problems", versus freeway bumper cars.
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Large planes are all fly by wire. In a commercial airplane, you're talking about moving maybe a quarter-ton of metal for the rudder alone, and against high wind speeds. There is no way to move those without powerful servo motors.
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I'm still stunned by Captain Haynes's grace under pressure:
Sioux City Approach: "United Two Thirty-Two Heavy, the wind's currently three six zero at one one; three sixty at eleven. You're cleared to land on any runway."
Haynes: "[laughter] Roger. [laughter] You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?"
And here's a truly excellent long form article on the crash by the always excellent Admiral Cloudberg: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-cr...
"The contamination caused what is known as a hard alpha inclusion, where a contaminant particle in a metal alloy causes the metal around it to become brittle. The brittle titanium around the impurity then cracked during forging and fell out during final machining, leaving a cavity with microscopic cracks at the edges. For the next 18 years, the crack grew slightly each time the engine was powered up and brought to operating temperature. Eventually, the crack broke open, causing the disk to fail."
The cybertruck steer by wire IIRC has dual redundant everything including power supplies (the redundant one is powered by a DC-DC converter from the HV battery)
That's great, but are they also running redundant, independently-developed software stacks? Because software failure seems to be the issue here.
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> I'm shocked (literally) to see there are production vehicles with steer-by-wire. Couple that with OTA updates and you have a vehicle I'd refuse to ride in, much less purchase.
Indeed, the risk is far too large to ignore.
I will never own a car that has steer-by-wire or braking-by-wire. Those are two controls that absolutely must have a mechanical linkage that cannot be altered by software. Other things I can handle, but if all goes haywire, I must be able to steer and brake.
I don't think I have any issue with steer-by-wire as a concept. Yes, steering bars are very mature technology, but so are steering actuators.
Car manufacturers have just never bothered to do it right. If they cheapened as much on steering bars, it would break all the time too.
That said, OTA updates for basic functionality is an immediate blocker. Updates are by definition not mature technology.
You might need to stop dealing with cars made recently then. While steer-by-wire isn't so common, the number of cars with entirely digital drive-by-wire throttles would likely bother you.
Honda: "all Honda models use Drive-by-Wire technology" (for the accelerator pedal).
https://www.hondainfocenter.com/Shared-Technologies/Engines/...
Subaru's used it in a bunch of vehicles for decades: https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/70486-what-year-d...
Most new Toyotas, Ford, etc.
While throttle/acceleration isn't steering, if you're uncomfortable with the underlying concept of a potentiometer and a microcontroller and a small motor on the other end being used to control a vehicle and consider it unproven technology, then you'd need to avoid most new cars in order to be logically consistent.
There's fortunately two major reported problems with DbW: 1) lack of feedback, and 2) latency. It's been attempted, and customers never liked it.
Even some motorcycles have electronic throttle control now a days. When you twist the throttle, it doesn't pull a cable anymore.
Its all controlled by electronics now.
Whats so shocking? Did you ever study them? Any ideas of their design and failsafe modes?
Or are you just posting just for engagement?
Well, at some point you won't have a choice. The government is going to ban ICE vehicles, tax the existing ones, and all the electrics will be everything by wire.
There is literally no relationship between propulsion tech and steering mechanism.
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You are being downvoted and the replies so far aren't helping you understand why your statement is very wrong.
"Steer by wire" means there is nothing but copper signal wires between your steering wheel and the front wheels. Your steering wheel is essentially a video game controller.
This has nothing to do with the car's mode of propulsion though, and both EVs and ICE cars can have steer by wire controls. So far, it's only the cybertruck that has this paradigm, all other EV's all have normal power steering.
For normal power steering systems there are two types: hydraulic and electric. Both types have a solid steel shaft between your steering wheel and the front wheels. You can remove the engine/motor completely, and you'll still be able to steer the car. The hydraulic or electric motor merely helps you turn the wheel, nothing more. Hydraulic is being phased out for electric in both EVs and ICE vehicles.
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If its drive-by-wire steering…
Which it isn’t. What production passenger vehicles have no steering column? (EDIT: oh, yeah, forgot about Cybertruck.)
Tesla Cybertruck, Lexus RZ 450e, Nio ET9, Toyota bZ4X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steer-by-wire
Cybertruck for one. I searched and found several, some without any manual backup. That's crazy to me.
There are many passenger vehicles with brake-by-wire, but only one I'm aware of with steer-by-wire: cybertruck
E.g. the cybertruck. It will also be more common as vehicles become more automated.
The cyber truck, tragically.
I’ve really enjoyed it on mine. Steer by wire enables progressive steering. Having to turn the wheel over and over in other cars to maneuver in parking lots seems laughably primitive now in comparison.
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I think there are only a couple of cars that are steer-by-wire.
The Infinity Q50, QX50, QX55 and QX60 (with backup that connects upon electric failure).
Without backup, but triple redundancy, can be found in the Tesla Cybertruck. But I'd take that redundancy with a grain of salt as they don't have the best track record telling you the truth.
That said, I really with companies would go back to the good old hydraulic steering. I don't need self-parking. But self-parking needs at least electric steering (with our without steering column).
> self-parking needs at least electric steering
You can control a hydraulic system automatically. That's literally what ABS braking is on the same cars already.
Which vehicles other than the Cybertruck have drive by wire steering? To my knowledge it's the only one without a physical steering column...