Comment by lsaferite

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.

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).

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.

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)

> 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.