New software version coming week 36 of 2025

[Petzi]

Having run a decent sized software company ($100M) that helped manage software development for many of the largest companies on the planet including car companies, Porshe is near the bottom in terms of SW development. Such a disappointment that they can't figure out continuous development and deployment.

i do not think that this is right. The main functions of the car a exceptional. the HUD is the best in the market (given that Tesla is working on this for 10 Years now) , the steering including rear steering and the suspension and the motor management and so on. i do think that the PCM is also very good. do you think all this works by itself? all this is software controlled. obviously it is the decision at porsche to let the porsche techs make the upgrades. given that a lot of the owners did not even read the manual (one can see this every day in this forum) most likely a good decision!

Also I am amazed by the stories some folks have to tell here. I suspect that not every dealer & tech outside germany knows what they are doing.

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[agility65]

The main driving (mechanical) functions of the cars are exceptional. The hud is nice, but I doubt that Tesla cares about that since they believe computers (not humans) should be driving the car. One of our customers went from delivering new software every year to every couple of hours and they dominated until their competitors caught up. The inability of a company to do continuous delivery of software, especially electric cars and in this case through OTA updates will hurt VW group immensely until they waked up and make the needed investments and solve this problem.

Btw, reading the manual is by definition proof that the software UX is poor. Have you read the manual, it’s terrible. For 5 years the charging interface on the Taycan is still broken and could be fixed with a few days/weeks of a developers time if they could do OTA updates. Thankfully they fixed it before they released the Macan. I could go on and on about the buggy software but I love the Taycan and Macan in spite of the software. Apple carPlay makes the care better but even that is poorly implemented.

 

[Petzi]

The main driving (mechanical) functions of the cars are exceptional. The hud is nice, but I doubt that Tesla cares about that since they believe computers (not humans) should be driving the car. One of our customers went from delivering new software every year to every couple of hours and they dominated until their competitors caught up. The inability of a company to do continuous delivery of software, especially electric cars and in this case through OTA updates will hurt VW group immensely until they waked up and make the needed investments and solve this problem.

Btw, reading the manual is by definition proof that the software UX is poor. Have you read the manual, it’s terrible. For 5 years the charging interface on the Taycan is still broken and could be fixed with a few days/weeks of a developers time if they could do OTA updates. Thankfully they fixed it before they released the Macan. I could go on and on about the buggy software but I love the Taycan and Macan in spite of the software. Apple carPlay makes the care better but even that is poorly implemented.

ok but we are discussing the user interface not the functionality here. this is one of the most boring discussions..

 

[Awaz]

I could go on and on about the buggy software but I love the Taycan and Macan in spite of the software.

CARIAD software for VW Group has been a real bane for them, as it has faced significant issues, delays, restructuring.
Its partnership with China’s XPENG may bring better software in future. Chinese car companies are really progressing fast in software.

 

[daveo4EV]

VW has invested $5 billion in Rivian and Rivian has already hacked a Q6 to run their platform w/demonstrated OTA support - VW is most likely going to leverage their Rivian investment into future vehicles…

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a61421276/volkswagen-rivian-investment-development/

UPDATE 11/13/24: Volkswagen and Rivian reiterated Tuesday that they're forming a joint-venture company focused on developing next-generation EV architectures and software technology. Volkswagen increased its investment in Rivian to $5.8 billion from the previously announced $5 billion as part of a 50 percent stake in the venture. Speaking to members of the media on a conference call announcing the partnership, Oliver Blume, the chief executive of Volkswagen explained that the partnership will initially focus on developing software but may shift down the line to include EV hardware such as battery modules. The new company will be known as Rivian and VW Group Technology, it will be headquartered in Palo Alto, California

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...-do-in-years-of-spending-billions-242729.html

Rivian reportedly needed only three months to equip an Audi Q6 e-tron prototype with its zonal architecture and software. This contrasts with Volkswagen's efforts, which spent years and billions of dollars trying to build a software-defined vehicle and still failed.

 

[Wivenhoe]

One of the reasons I bought a Macan is that I didn’t want a car with Chinese software. I’m not questioning its capabilities, just mindful that the UK government (to its extreme embarrassment) decided to ban Huawei from all contracts, particularly 5g, due to spyware concerns.

Not paranoid, but don’t want to take the risk of my car being part of the potential mayhem after China invades Taiwan !

 

[sor]

It’s always good to be mindful as well that more frequent updates can mean less testing and more frequently being surprised by new bugs. From experience with other brands, fast releases are sometimes “fix three things, break a new thing”, and a wide user base being test subjects in the early phases of release.

I’m completely ok with buying a car for the features it has today, getting used to any idiosyncrasies, and seeing the occasional update that may or may not fix my pet issue or give me new features I didn’t expect.

On the contrast, I would not buy a car that gets frequent software updates, but has a major issue or poor driving experience, hoping that it would just be fixed by a software update later.

Frequent updates are nice, and stability, fixes, enhancements are welcome, but you kind of have to judge the thing as it is at time of purchase, not what you hope it might become.

Sometimes that’s easier said than done when you only get a few hours with a car, but I think most of the issues that are widely reported are minor infotainment bugs that ultimately don’t seem to stop people from liking the car, and most major issues I read about are one-off issues with a specific car.

 

[agility65]

“It’s always good to be mindful as well that more frequent updates can mean less testing and more frequently being surprised by new bugs. “

That is incorrect, wrong. In fact the opposite is true.

 

[daveo4EV]

It’s always good to be mindful as well that more frequent updates can mean less testing and more frequently being surprised by new bugs. From experience with other brands, fast releases are sometimes “fix three things, break a new thing”, and a wide user base being test subjects in the early phases of release.

I’m completely ok with buying a car for the features it has today, getting used to any idiosyncrasies, and seeing the occasional update that may or may not fix my pet issue or give me new features I didn’t expect.

On the contrast, I would not buy a car that gets frequent software updates, but has a major issue or poor driving experience, hoping that it would just be fixed by a software update later.

Frequent updates are nice, and stability, fixes, enhancements are welcome, but you kind of have to judge the thing as it is at time of purchase, not what you hope it might become.

Sometimes that’s easier said than done when you only get a few hours with a car, but I think most of the issues that are widely reported are minor infotainment bugs that ultimately don’t seem to stop people from liking the car, and most major issues I read about are one-off issues with a specific car.

this is not necessarily true - and actually flys in the face of industry experience with agile software management - what you say "can be true" - but is not necessarily true…

crappy software management = crappy softwarse
excellent software management = excellent software

the frequency has nothing to do with software quality

the management quality of the software programs is largely dominate in terms of the results produced by the organization.

frequent and well managed updates can and often do lead to excellent software.

 

[krissrock]

VW has invested $5 billion in Rivian and Rivian has already hacked a Q6 to run their platform w/demonstrated OTA support - VW is most likely going to leverage their Rivian investment into future vehicles…

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a61421276/volkswagen-rivian-investment-development/



https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...-do-in-years-of-spending-billions-242729.html

isn't this for the Scout brand or something?

 

[daveo4EV]

isn't this for the Scout brand or something?

nobody outside of VW/Rivain knows, but I would suggest with $5 billion spent they may consider it a group wide investment - the first project was an Audi Q6…I think it will not be limited to scout.

I would suggest it will be consider project by project with a goal of unifying on a common software platform where it make sense - VW is complex enough that I don't believe they can force feed it to the entire organization - but project by project it will be adopted because of product requirements for OTA and modern software platforms…limiting it to Scout would be an interesting choice given it's cost…

 

[Wivenhoe]

My experience with Range Rover updates was one where they resolved an issue but brought back a previously resolved issue - time after time. The dealer warned me each time the car was ‘updated’ and sure enough on about 6 occasions it happened. I’m hoping for a bit more stability by having fewer but more stable updates on my 4S.

 

[daveo4EV]

My experience with Range Rover updates was one where they resolved an issue but brought back a previously resolved issue - time after time. The dealer warned me each time the car was ‘updated’ and sure enough on about 6 occasions it happened. I’m hoping for a bit more stability by having fewer but more stable updates on my 4S.

poor management

 

[sor]

this is not necessarily true - and actually flys in the face of industry experience with agile software management - what you say "can be true" - but is not necessarily true…

crappy software management = crappy softwarse
excellent software management = excellent software

the frequency has nothing to do with software quality

the management quality of the software programs is largely dominate in terms of the results produced by the organization.

frequent and well managed updates can and often do lead to excellent software.

Sure, and just because I have never seen an example of a software project that releases to production frequently without needing a safety net like quick rollbacks, or batches of canary and/or beta testers to find issues and cancel a large fleet upgrade doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Nor am I necessarily saying that a periodic and thoroughly tested update is always bug-free.

I’m just saying that I am fine with thoroughness and I value predictability in a car, bugs or not. I don’t make decisions based on a promise that things will get better or a big feature will come in six months. As such I’m not constantly pining for monthly updates to my car, and I’m fine if they want to roll a bunch of fixes once a year. I don’t think that in itself makes them bad at what they do.

I agree that management plays a large role. I don’t think my comments fly in the face of industry and experience when Agile is more often than not implemented incorrectly or incompletely. Often teams focus on delivering incremental features more than testability or investing in the automation required. Agile is just a process someone wrote down for delivering incremental value quickly, but it is actually pretty difficult to do correctly.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

I've worked with Porsche software engineers and the ones I've met are excellent. A limitation for the company seems to be the part/subsystem supplier contracts and their management. I'm not surprised it will take a bit of effort to generate OTA updates, given those concerns.

I have to say that I really prefer the Porsche approach in the Macan EV, compared to a Tesla or even the Rivian. I would not have purchased FSD from Tesla because I don't trust it (after working with their software teams) and I do not want the vast majority of the other software features of a Tesla. I like the mix of "recent historical" car buttons and controls with Apple CarPlay, the dynamic dash, and the HUD. Even the passenger screen is done "well enough" for me.

The shining endorsement of the passenger screen is that my wife learned to use it with no manual or assistance of any kind and she whips through its interface every time we're in the car. She loves it, and she generally hates tech. My 90 year old father-in-law was just in the passenger front seat of the Macan EV and he (drives a Buick and) figured out his climate controls with no explanations. These are big wins.

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