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Comment by sz4kerto | Hacker News Reader

"However, to improve things further, we provided an over-the-air software update a few months ago to increase the default ground clearance of the Model S at highway speeds"

I know this is not specific to Tesla, but it's still really cool. :)

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I'm sure there are strict security measures and a rigorous testing regime in place, but still the idea of some anonymous engineer being able to push an over-the-air update to my fast moving, two-ton lump of metal makes me a little nervous.

(Tin foil hat mode) Imagine the implications of some malicious third party gaining access to that process.

Agreed, what are the chances that there is no vulnerability (say buffer overflow attack) that allows a black hat to get into the system?

Or even an "oops, I pushed that update to production instead of test"

Given the extremely dangerous potentials of such a mix-up, I would very much doubt an "Oops" moment would occur. Quite honestly, the way they run the company, I wouldn't be surprised if the process of pushing an OTA update to the automobiles is akin to launching a nuclear missile.

Fifteen years ago, NASA lost a Mars orbiter because one of their contractors used Imperial measurements when NASA used metric.

Swissair 111 crashed because the operator installed a new entertainment system which overheated.

A lot of serious systems made by serious people still end up with stupid problems.

While that is true, it also means that the 'serious firmware' developed for the car probably has stupid problems.

And it might be safer and cheaper to have the option of fixing problems when you find them, because if you don't have that option, you're forced to weigh the costs of a recall against the risks of the issue for every little thing.

I've worked in industrial process systems where firmware is pushed out to millions of devices. The process is pretty rigorous - first the engineering team develops a candidate build, they run it through full regression and acceptance. Once it passes all the various code quality tests (coverage, static analysis, etc...), it's signed. Only code which is signed can be run on the production bootloader. The process required to sign a firmware image requires M of N people to come together with their credentials (hardware keys) to have the HSM (Hardware Security Module), sign the firmware.

The actual roll out of the firmware is of course staged - in Tesla's case, they likely roll it out to all of their employees teslas for a period of time, and then to a candidate group, and eventually everyone.

The team that actually pushes the firmware, is completely separate from the team that builds, and signs - they have a fairly detailed set of procedures that ensures a quality push, which is their entire focus.

The likely difference, is that the process I described, usually took 4-6 months after the code was completed, whereas Elon Musk/Tesla can probably spin it around in 4-6 weeks.

I could get behind that process, and I don't doubt that theirs is similarly rigorous. I guess the issue is that, in the long-term, how do we know that it's still being applied consistently and that there are no security holes.

This is a much wider and rather tricky issue (how do I know that my Bitcoin exchange is performing cold storage correctly and consistently?)

You could answer: more regulations and oversight. Doesn't solve the issue.

I've done the same at smartphone OEMs, and I can tell you, even after all the precautions and testing similar to what you said, there's always a few units that get stuck in a bootloop or fail to update out of millions. That a happening for a car instead of a phone is much more dangerous.

How is it bad for the car? Are Tesla's accepting OTA updates while driving, and updating firmware while the vehicle is moving?

If so then you're right, they've made a terribly unsafe decision.

But if you have to stop the vehicle, put it in park or off, before it actually updates the software, then a bricked car isn't exactly dangerous, just a massive inconvenience and a source of incredible frustration.

I believe they update when the car is parked at home.

Yea, I would be pretty livid if one morning my car is just dead for no good reason.

You might object that a dead battery can cause that. But I take constant preventative measures, can tell when a battery is starting to go, and I can fix a dead battery.

And in 2030 we'll look back and think, yeah, OTA updates are how cars became a subscription service.

Or, god forbid, an advertisement delivery platform.

(Yeah, radios deliver ads, but I don't have to listen to the radio. Can you imagine if your car ran banner ads around the spedometer?)

It would be driving us so we won't be looking at the speedo. Because of the new "free rides while you listen to our adverts" deal. Big red button for "just buy the goddamned product and leave me in peace".

> Big red button for "just buy the goddamned product and leave me in peace".

Finally a business plan where modern advertising makes any sense: Torture based freeware. "Send us money and we'll stop. Here are the products you'll hate today..."

They could even remove products from their list after payment from manufacturers.

The counter point to you argument is the number of people who are driving right beside you at highway speeds who have been completely ignoring the TSB recalls or even general vehicle maintenance. Allowing a direct update to something computer related doesn't let these people continue to drive unsafe vehicles.

All you have to do is browse http://www.reddit.com/r/justrolledintotheshop and you'll see so many people are not capable of having general maintenance done. Like this: http://imgur.com/a/VEeR9 the guy wanted to only have the flat tire repaired even though a strut went through his hood! Or this that is supposed to be a brake rotor : http://i.imgur.com/xhz90Bq.jpg

The updates aren't installed while the car's moving. You see a dialog box asking if it's OK to install at 3am (or you can change the time, or wait til later.)

I realize that the suspension isn't unique to Tesla, but over-the-air software updates seem to be. It irks me to no end that I'm told that my Infiniti can't be updated to even work properly with my iPhone, much less the fact that they want to charge for gps map updates that are essentially free from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.

I'm pretty sure map data is expensive and those companies license it.

I realize that they license it. I dispute that it's anything but a cash cow for those companies that charge $100-$300 for map updates that many other companies make available for free.

I've purchased licenses for multiple software packages and at the scales that these car distributors work at, it's ridiculous to think that their actual gps data costs aren't nominal (ie, pennies) per vehicle.

They license it and give it away with several hundred dollar gadgets. Seems surprising that an auto manufacturer wouldn't do the same with their tens-or-hundreds-of-thousand dollars products.

The long term contracts with M2M interfaces for OTA updates are generally low bandwidth. Carriers are willing to sell these long term contracts because it consumes very little of their network capacity. If you started pushing out constant multi-gig map updates across them, then the price to operate their OTA infrastructure (their vendor) would massively increase. That's the point we're they'd probably have you download the update online and usb stick it to your car, assuming they were willing to eat the cost of new maps licenses.

Yes. My '13 Prius V MP3 player doesn't properly randomize tracks from my flash drives. Apparently no one at Toyota tested their player with a 64 gig thumb drive with ~840 directories.

I doubt Toyota will ever retro-fix the obvious software flaws. Tesla however sounds like they get it. Although many of us won't be buying an $80K vehicle any time soon, I expect that these kinds of innovations will trickle down to the mass market as people start to become dimly aware of the benefits.

Hey, people might even start to ask why all cars can't be made as survivable as a Tesla S.

My Dodge Ram has an unworkable turd as a head unit also. Built-in MP3 that is painful to use, navigation that is horrible. It will never change, I am sure of it.

Those maps are paid for in many ways, just not one where you have to swipe your card.

Tesla provides a Google Maps interface at no additional charge, even to owners who didn't purchase the Tech and/or Nav options.

If you purchase Nav though, you get GPS turn-by-turn guidance in an additional heads up display on the dashboard. That option is supposed to eventually cost money to update, I think after 5 or 7 years? And it probably won't be cheap. That said, it is really nice that it doesn't get 5 to 7 years stale before you have to pay for an update. I like the model.

Is someone able to explain this more?

"Default ground clearance" means the distance between the ground and underside of the car, yeah? How are they able to control that with software?

The Higher spec Model S' has active suspension that will lower the ride height at high speeds to reduce drag. The active suspension's control system was changed to lower it less.

All the suspension is electronically controlled for stability and responsiveness. Most expensive cars to that these days.

The software must tell the dampers to ride a bit stiffer stopping the car body being pushed lower at high speeds.

Modern luxury/sports cars have active suspension systems that allow for adjustments in firmness, response, and in this case the ground clearance of the vehicle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension

Traditionally with adjustable pneumatic 'springs' (rubber air bags) that inflate or deflate to change ride height, often in response to increased vehicle weight. Not sure if that is approach Tesla takes.

EDIT: Looks like Tesla does indeed use air suspension: http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/forum/forums/air-suspension...

The suspension in the Model S is computer controlled, so they just push an update to control it differently!

Digitally controlled suspension

Other responders answered well enough, but I'll add some additional info.

Tesla just started pushing out OTA updates to firmware 5.9 this week. One of the big improvements in it is bringing back the option to select a low height mode. When the problems mentioned in the article happened, they pushed out a rapid update that disabled the automatic low suspension setting entirely. Frankly, this upset a few of the vocal owners on the teslamotorsclub.com forums because they understood the risk and felt it was slight enough they preferred it versus the reduced handling and performance at a higher ride height.

The re-introduced low height is enhanced to allow the driver to set the speed at which it will change height. This is satisfying most if not all of those owners.

Driving a car that gets better as you own it instead of worse is a game changing model in my opinion.

Also note that some cars (the old Audi allroad) and last two generations of Audi A8 have airbags built into the suspensions at all four wheels that inflate and deflate to change the ride height.

This is different than simply adjusting the characteristics of the electronic suspension - this actually raises and lowers the car non-trivial amounts. I think a D3 A8 can raise up 4-5 inches from highway level to bumpy dirt road level...

I am genuinely curious what the raise/lower range for the tesla is - anyone know offhand ?

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