>he won't buy any of the cars running his own team's firmware.
These cars run in the millions in production numbers and are driven everyday, all day, by various types of drivers in various conditions. Where's the big firmware mess? Ignoring the limited case of this Prius issue, which seems to have a lot to do with floormats being stuck to the accelerator, I'm just not seeing it.
I think there's a problem of visibility here. If you've worked in, say, fast food, you might not want to ever eat it. Software is the same thing. You get to see how the sausage is made. That doesn't mean that the sausage is unsafe. Or that older methods, you didn't witness or were part of, were better.
You drive the rear wheel drive V8 that weighs 2x my car's weight and I'll drive mine with front drive, ABS, traction control, and incredible MPG. There are a lot of reasons to own a classic car, but safety and efficiency aren't those reasons.
I think the biggest problem with software is that it can be perfectly safe and work OK in 99.9999% of all cases, and still contain deadly bugs that strike in very specific and difficult to reproduce circumstances. That the software works very well most of the time only adds to the belief that there must be another explanation for what happened (I think even Woz could reproduce the runaway accelerator bug in his Prius?)
That a piece of software is widespread and works good most of the time simply can't be used to say whether the software is "safe". To say anything about that, you have to look at the process used to develop the software, and see whether that process has a good success rate of predicting and uncovering software bugs.
If Toyotas code is as bad as this article makes it out to be and the certification standards are so poor, I won't be surprised if we see more cases like this in the future, although they will still be rare.
> You drive the rear wheel drive V8 that weighs 2x my car's weight
Actually, a lot of newer cars weigh more, not the other way around. I believe that this is mostly due to additional safety devices. For example a 1967 Mustang weighs 2500-3000 lbs[1], while a 2014 Mustang is 3500-3700 lbs[2]. A 2014 Toyota Prius is 3000 lbs[3], while a 2014 Corolla weights 2800 lbs[4]. A 1980 Corolla weighed 2000 lbs[5]. As you see, that rear wheel drive V8 weighs the same as the Prius. I think the improvements in MPG mostly come from improvements in engine efficiencies, not weight savings. I don't know what kind of car you drive, but I'd be surprised if it only weighs 1500 lbs.
That being said, I mostly agree with your other points.
Well, yes, cars are heavier thanks to life saving crumple zones and other safety engineering. I'd rather crash in a prius than a classic mustang.
That said, its also a little unfair to compare a 4 door sedan to a 2 door sports car. Modern cars are still heavier, but the difference is a bit more sane.
I think my dad's Cadillac when I was growing up was over 5,000 lbs. The 70s and 80s certainly had heavy cars, but heavy and death-traps and super shitty mpg.
My car (Kia Soul) weighs 2700lb and is considered light. Indeed the newer models have been steadily increasing in weight as more and more features are added. Of course part of this is the consumers fault, more features means more parts which means more weight! The 2012 version of the Soul is currently up to nearly 3000lb!
These cars run in the millions in production numbers and are driven everyday, all day, by various types of drivers in various conditions. Where's the big firmware mess? Ignoring the limited case of this Prius issue, which seems to have a lot to do with floormats being stuck to the accelerator, I'm just not seeing it.
I think there's a problem of visibility here. If you've worked in, say, fast food, you might not want to ever eat it. Software is the same thing. You get to see how the sausage is made. That doesn't mean that the sausage is unsafe. Or that older methods, you didn't witness or were part of, were better.
You drive the rear wheel drive V8 that weighs 2x my car's weight and I'll drive mine with front drive, ABS, traction control, and incredible MPG. There are a lot of reasons to own a classic car, but safety and efficiency aren't those reasons.