UK Daily Mail
Car manufacturer Stellantis is recalling more than 200,000 SUVs and pickup trucks due to a software malfunction that may cause a vehicle’s electronic stability control systems to fail.
The company is claiming the problem is caused by a defective anti-lock braking system, which is sometimes deactivating the stability control system.
The impacted models are the 2022 Dodge Durango, and the 2022 Ram 2500 and 3500. More
I suspect that this is the way they cover for a software update to fix a bug in the RECORD EVERYTHING THIS PDT¹ DOES AND EVERYWHERE HE GOES AND SEND IT ALL TO UTAH subsystem.
1. Probable Domestic Terrorist
Stellantis — Haven’t you always lusted after an Italian Jeep?
Uncle Al
The only social media I do is Instagram. I like Instagram for a lot of reasons. Obviously I follow all conservative types, and a lot of them. There’s about 20 of them reporting they received visits from the FBI over the week end. Most filmed it. No warrant. Pure intimidation. These are fairly low level peeps. Most of them are big into memes. I think they’ve gathered enough data and are ready to start the Jack Booted Thug part of the operation.
I didn’t know software could malfunction. I mean, we’re not talking AI here. It simply does what it is programmed to do.
Not written correctly, yes. Altered incorrectly by a patch, yes. Hacked to work improperly, yes
@Harry — Software can malfunction if it is given input it wasn’t programmed to handle. This can be a set of values that result in internal variables exceeding a threshold.
Another way it can malfunction is if something outside its control feeds it data in error. Although the error is elsewhere, it appears the malfunction is local, and most programmers talk about it that way.
Modern distributed systems are so complicated they can be very difficult to debug properly. Good software testing is a demanding task, and is labor intensive. A lot of places don’t spend what they ought to in order to get a bug-free product.
I’ve done programming since 1976. It can be complicated, but more often than not, it is a dumb ass supervisor who tells you to ship it anyway. I made a point of writing the manual before I ever cracked a line of code and made everyone sign off before I coded anything. In 1984, I coded an engine dynamometer test program with 8,000+ lines of assembly code and it is still running today. to recall 200,000 vehicles because of a coding error is not a programming error, it is a management error passing the blame to an underpaid programmer. I’m tired of having these marketing type morons passing the blame downward.
@ Uncle AL
I did regression testing for COBOL for a number of years until I was questioning my sanity.
@Tsquared — Eek.
At least it wasn’t a distributed object system where the coders and their bosses didn’t know or care about the speed difference between intraserver (in-memory) signaling and interserver (network) signaling, particularly when they had servers in Austin, Atlanta, Hong Kong, Heidelberg, San Mateo, and Seoul.
“Ship it, we’ll let Product Service worry about it” – managers where I used to work.
To Harry’s point, software should do the same thing, every fucking time. It’s not like you’re throwing a bunch of new shit at it in a vehicle. Right?
Chrysler deserves to die. The gov’t keeps bailing them out with taxpayer money so the union guys will vote Democrat. I hate that my money goes, indirectly, to elect Dems.
Uncle Al – Oh I know that very well. The old addage is: “Software is never done” The real test for software is throw as many rocks at it as you can and try to break it… or just give it to the public. They’ll let you know!
The problem is putting complex software into a car can be/is dangerous as there isn’t enough time to test all the variables. Sometimes I wonder if they just keep adding on to existing software (mutating it) or if they are better off creating sofware modules for functions that are time tested, and maybe stand alone, then integtated into the master OS. Cars shouldn’t have to be that complex!
Cynic – Chrysler has changed hands many times and every time it does, stuff changes… products change and people change and not always for the good. My point is that there is a lack of stability and consistancy that fosters confusion and quality issues.
MoPar no longer exists as a domestic corporation. They are no mor a domestic company than Toyota is; President Obama sealed their fate when he gave the company to Fiat after Daimler raped them for their cash resources and discarded them.
So, please understand that if you purchase “mopar”, you are purchasing a foreign vehicle. It is a zombie brand, like Craftsman, Jacobsen, and Kenmore, to name a few.
“Chrysler deserves to die.”
All US auto manufacturers deserve to die. The only way to save them is next time they’re about to go tits up let investors by them or their component parts up.
If I were to purchase a new diesel truck right now t would be a Dodge. They suck way less than the rest.