# A02 The real Danger in connected cars
The future of the car will be connected or it won't be, many engineers have said … That's not the future, that's a reality in every new cars on the market. Apple Carplay, Android Auto are everywhere. But it's not just the interface that turns a car into a connected car. A car can now transmit informations to an emergency centre to help you or to rescue you (eCall). Vehicle to infrastructure (V2I), Vehicle to network (V2N), Vehicle to cloud (V2C), Vehicle to device (V2D) are exemples of connectivity. Updates are mostly done Over The Air (OTA), as we can see with Tesla Cars. I'm not going to talk about the dangers that have been cited for years, such as Privacy, Hackability and Reliability especially with CAN bus. Another one is known by everyone who has a smartphone for more than 5 years : Obsolescence. Did you know that the lifespan of a car is far more important than for a smartphone ? Of course you did. But did the car manufacturer and the GAFAM know it ? I'm not sure they did. In the USA, cars are 12,2
years old, in France it's 11 years old, more than 16 years old in many eastern Europe countries, far more than a smartphone (2-6 years).
## A question of Lifespan
Did you remember the first connected cars in history ? It was with GM OnStar System in Cadillac with Motorola and Continental as manufacturer of the hardware. The Gen 1 to Gen 4 of the system used analog phone. The system is now off since 2008, after only 12 years ! Of course, a class-action has been made against that. But is it a lesson from the past ? We are going to have not only hardware problems with 3G network hardware in the future but also with software updates. It is like switching from FM radio to DAB Radio. You had a radio in your car to listen to music of news. Forget it, it won't work anymore in 10 years (but the network could support both systems). It was easy to buy a car radio before, to change it yourself. It's not easy now because it's inside a global multimedia system with a LCD screen to manage that. The car engine has a better lifespan than all that, even more if it's a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV). If you are lucky, you'll find a system to make your FM radio compatible with DAB networ
k. But what about your connectivity to have some functions you paid in the car ?
Some of you have a GPS in the car, and want to update maps...In older cars, it was a CD or a DVD. That's no longer the case now and most of the manufacturer use maps from TomTom, Garmin or Google. The update is done on … a computer and then with a SD Card or an USB Stick in the car. And that's not for life, of course...A better solution is often to use an external device like a GPS or a smartphone. But for your multimedia system with connections with spotify, deezer or whatever you'll have, it won't last years because your car has its own computer and operating system inside, like a tablet or smartphone. Some apps on my Android 7 smartphone (only 7 years old) can't be updated now. Imagine with a car. You will lost functions (I also had that problem with my TV set). If it's only multimedia, it doesn't matter… Perhaps not if you paid much for this option. But for security updates or eCall, it's not the same thing. Imagine if there are security breaches in the OS of the car, like there are in some old Windo
ws computers. And of course there will be.
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It reminds me the first versions of Bluetooth devices. I'm not a big fan of this technology. Connected cars are using sometimes Bluetooth. There are known security breaches in old versions of the protocol. Bluetooth is backward compatible and I hope that every protocol used in connected cars will be. But as history showed us, I'm not sure that every technology will be updated and remain compatible. Car manufacturers are very new to this and most of them outsource IT activities with GAFAM companies. If you look at what Google is doing with its own projects, or what Microsoft is doing, for example, with Teams, compatibility between there own products, or 2FA Authenticator, it's scary.
## Software issues
I'm not at all against technology or progress but when I see how new cars are designed and developed, especially for internal softwares and engine mapping, I see all the bad habits from software developments : It doesn't matter if there are bugs, an update will be done weeks or months later. But in the real life, the breakdowns and issues on new electric cars come from...software, not hardware. Imagine if it were self-driving cars...It's not but for companies like VW, it was a disaster with the new ID line. In development, there are many software versions every week and sometimes you are not sure to have the right version for a vehicle on a test bench. It's very different from a software development with many parameters from environment, driver behavior, electromagnetic compatibility, …
Some of the new car manufacturers are starting from scratch and using skilled software engineers with good habits. It will make the difference but don't forget that there is the customer, with it's own habits to update or not his devices....and the garage with the mechanic turned into electronic specialist. I have visited a Tesla showroom with a mechanic workshop in France and it's not reassuring, with sellers knowing less on their cars, and mechanics doing ....mechanics and trusting the headquarters software. I have also worked with a service that manages the guarantees, and I know that feedback are sometimes not heard or read. It depends of who does it, from which country it is (racism ?? ). I also saw issues coming from lack of familiarity with the characteristics of sensors, in one of the world's best-rated manufacturer. There are more and more sensors in these new cars, sending informations via connected network. Cars today are not at the same level of security than planes. The development time is getti
ng shorter and shorter for a more complex car in terms of software and electronics (less in mechanics) and more and more savings made to enrich shareholders, not employees. Reliability, Obsolescence and User Satisfaction are not their friend. That's one of the challenge that will determine the future of many manufacturers.
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