A thought…bug reporting for the modern world - Porsche lacks it

[daveo4EV]

one of the great "features" of software is it's malleable - and can change - but what changes to put in software and then subsequently release is a difficult undertaking. Modern companies plan software changes using all sorts of data - but most importantly they harvest feedback directly from users - both about defects and room for improvement and desired features for the future…

Porsche lacks an efficient mechanism to get feedback directly from their software users to feed into their software release plans. I know because I've attempted to get feedback to Porsche about their software and it's nearly impossible as a customer of their product to find a conduit for this feedback.

this is very "old style" and not effective in the 21st century especially for any company that wants to compete digitally…

Porsche wil continue to be backwards-ass until they realize great software is built iteratively with customer feedback as a key element of the design process - and it's never "done/baked/finished" - it's also not exclusively the purview of "designers" who curate it into a final unchanging product…not to be messed with.

this "core" value that software must iterate to be great is lacking at Porsche and seems to me being a long time customer conflicts with elements of Porsche's DNA…

digital requires rapid flexibility with feedback at the center of evolution…until Porsche integrates some modern customer feedback mechanisms for their software systems - they will continue to flail…

my $0.02 YMMV

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[daveo4EV]

Example I've been trying to get Porsche to fix the following bug for 4+ years…

Porsche app notification: "Battery charged, charging complete"
Porsche app notification: "Alarm activated, interior motion detected"

I own 4 Porsche's - which car is the notification for?

I even have spoken directly to prosche engineering and they agreed they should add the car "name" in the notification - and forwarded feedback to the engineering manager directly - 4+ years later - Porsche app notifications still lack an indication of which car the notification applies to…

so I'm away from home with one of the cars - inside a building (mall, theater, restaurant, store, gym, etc…) my watch buzzes on my wrist and tell me a vehicle alarm has been activated!

and I have no way of knowing if I should care because there is no indications as to if it is actually the car that I'm currently "with"…so it's basically a useless notification because it lacks the "name" of the car the notification belongs to.

 

[Splaktar]

Fully agreed. Software is never done.

 

[alxman]

I only own one Porsche so I have no experience with it. But, I would think you can sub-select each vehicle in the My Porsche app, then Functions, and then Alarms to see whether an alarm was triggered or not on that particular car. Is it not the case?

 

[bwbanker]

one of the great "features" of software is it's malleable - and can change - but what changes to put in software and then subsequently release is a difficult undertaking. Modern companies plan software changes using all sorts of data - but most importantly they harvest feedback directly from users - both about defects and room for improvement and desired features for the future…

Porsche lacks an efficient mechanism to get feedback directly from their software users to feed into their software release plans. I know because I've attempted to get feedback to Porsche about their software and it's nearly impossible as a customer of their product to find a conduit for this feedback.

this is very "old style" and not effective in the 21st century especially for any company that wants to compete digitally…

Porsche wil continue to be backwards-ass until they realize great software is built iteratively with customer feedback as a key element of the design process - and it's never "done/baked/finished" - it's also not exclusively the purview of "designers" who curate it into a final unchanging product…not to be messed with.

this "core" value that software must iterate to be great is lacking at Porsche and seems to me being a long time customer conflicts with elements of Porsche's DNA…

digital requires rapid flexibility with feedback at the center of evolution…until Porsche integrates some modern customer feedback mechanisms for their software systems - they will continue to flail…

my $0.02 YMMV

Wow well written and seems totally logical. Seems almost insane to update software and not know what the end user’s issues are. Thanks

 

[krissrock]

yeah, they def need a way to give feedback... but tis the way of engineers that feel their engineering is the best.
i don't know if many mfr's have feedback channels easily accessible to their customers though... usually the feedback is only received if there are documented problems.

 

[bwbanker]

yeah, they def need a way to give feedback... but tis the way of engineers that feel their engineering is the best.
i don't know if many mfr's have feedback channels easily accessible to their customers though... usually the feedback is only received if there are documented problems.

You would think that most of these software issues are common to almost all Macan EV owners. These issues are reported by owners to their dealers and they should/would pass these problems to the Manufacturer?

 

[ColdCase]

Unrealistic I think. One user's bug is another user's feature.. who is to decide..

No competitive consumer company is going to expose their release cycle details to the public, just not good business practice.. Public collaborative software projects have several tools to do this, you see many of this on the GitHub platforms. But these are volunteer hobbyist teams, not profit making enterprises, and they can get also get annoyed by the dribble.

Capturing, logging, triaging, research, reporting, tracking, fixing, customer service, resolution reporting.... cost a ton of money. The more individuals you let report bugs, the more work it is.

Dealers filter and send issues to corporate which then dispositions them.

Many software/computer companies have a customer support group that filters and organizes problem reports and converts them to engineering terms for their engineering staff. I've seen tons of customers suggest changes that violate every established HMI principle just because it feels right to them.

I don't think Porsche interfaces with their customers in traditional ways, they are more hands on in event type settings. Doesn't make it wrong.

 

[Wivenhoe]

Whilst anyone with software issues are wholly right to complain, I doubt that the problems reported on here is a reflection of the majority of cars. I feel sure if the media were made aware of widespread issues they would be reporting it. I say this as a previous Range Rover owner - their widespread quality and software problems are regularly reported and reviews always includes something about unreliability.

Please don't think that I believe there aren’t any problems as demonstrably on here there clearly are. They seem to be present in certain cars and are major - as a total ignoramus about software, I can’t understand why these issues can’t be resolved by doing a ‘wipe and reinstall’ as clearly there are versions of the software that don’t have any issues. I am happy to say that is true of my car which is 6 months old.

 

[krissrock]

some things are not "issues" per se....just oversights by the developers.

my biggest complaint, is that "random" is NOT random. It goes through the same order of songs everytime, and the "random" starts over at the beiginning of that same "random" order every time the car is started.
PLUS, if u have a long list of MP3's on USB, only half of the files are available to see unless you naturally play through them.

this is not necessarily a bug...just poor design that they probably will never know, unless they're told about it.

 

[CHP]

Whilst anyone with software issues are wholly right to complain, I doubt that the problems reported on here is a reflection of the majority of cars. I feel sure if the media were made aware of widespread issues they would be reporting it. I say this as a previous Range Rover owner - their widespread quality and software problems are regularly reported and reviews always includes something about unreliability.

Please don't think that I believe there aren’t any problems as demonstrably on here there clearly are. They seem to be present in certain cars and are major - as a total ignoramus about software, I can’t understand why these issues can’t be resolved by doing a ‘wipe and reinstall’ as clearly there are versions of the software that don’t have any issues. I am happy to say that is true of my car which is 6 months old.

I agree with your overall statement. Looking at both of my Macan EV, major problems seemed to be related to hardware problems. The last may be fixable via software update but only time will tell.

In my case, only after other reports of identical faults where logged with Porsche, they were able to narrow down potential hardware fault. Initial diagnostics (run on at least two different days) came back inconclusive with no hardware related error identified.

Based on my experience, there is supporting evidence that Porsche is unable to reliably identify malfunctioning/out of spec behaving hardware based on car diagnostics alone.

 

[jwatte]

They are a hardware company, mainly used to integrating assemblies built by other vendors. There is simply no way that the incentive structures and communication pathways in that company will be able to adapt to look like a modern customer-analytics-driven software company. Not gonna happen.

Yes, it's very frustrating, and maybe the Chinese and Teslas of the world will eventually drive them out of business because of it, but they *will* go out of business before they change their company DNA to work like software.

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