The buyer, a New York-area leasing company called American Lease, says in a new filing that Fisker now believes there is no way to transfer the information connected to each SUV to a new server not owned by the bankrupt EV startup. Since American Lease needs that information to operate the vehicles after Fisker is dissolved, the leasing company has filed an emergency objection to the startup’s liquidation plan.
We keep adding connected tech to products that have no business having that tech.
I don’t want a car that needs software updates. Or a goddamn Bluetooth soldering iron.
On the flip side: if a car stereo has a known firmware issue causing problems with say Bluetooth connection, I DO want the manufacturer to actually provide an easy means of fixing/updating the borked software. Better that the system was properly tested and feature complete to begin with- but I’m not delusional enough to believe we can truly have nice things.
you are trading the ease of fixing a software glitch in your radio, for every manufacturer of every connected part, et phoning home on your driving location, driving location history, speed, what radio stations you listen to, what music you listen to, how hot or cold you like the air conditioning, how many passengers you have at any given time, and to realtime update all of this personal identifying information every couple miliseconds, forever
With old cars if the radio stopped working you’d go to the dealership/auto store and have it replaced. I think a lot of people would be fine having to go to a similar place for software fixes. Remote updates scare me. Rivian had an update earlier this year that blue screened the infotainment console on every car it went out to. It’s not hard to believe a similar mixup could happen with a more important system.
It’s a matter of time till we see cars bricked. Didn’t I also read something about a driver being stuck while the car was updating?
It’s already happened, it was either Fisker or another new EV manufacturer.
I’ve had cars where if there’s a programming update required, they issue it as a service action, you take the car to the dealer, and they do the software update locally with an SD card or USB stick.
You can still have easily updated software without it requiring OTA updates.
Yes that’s a nice thing to fix a problem with a software update. But isn’t it funny how the possibility of updating after purchase seems to mean that products ship without really being well tested. If there’s no possibility of fixing problems once something is in the field, then you make damn sure it works before it goes out the door.
Well, OTA update may be a bad idea. USB Key is good enough for anything and don’t rely to a server. For your radio problem, it would solve it.
A Bluetooth wat
You can buy Bluetooth soldering irons, with a companion app that lets you adjust the settings.
Jesus Christ
What cloud based information could my physical car need to be operational? I know the shift to software defined cars means there is more relience on tech and the company that makes the car but what could they possibly be keeping server side? If it’s needed to use the car what would happen if you drive the car somewhere there isn’t wifi/cell service? Does the car just stop?
A link to the purchase database for the options (checked when the car is turned on), the car telemetry data live uploaded, maintenance data (checked on start) to show maintenance and recall info and OTA update check, security and authorisation systems for admins of the back end. They might even have a remote call in to allow them to disable the car if it’s not paid. Is it needed… from a corporate perspective absolutely.
… Fisker now believes there is no way to transfer the information connected to each SUV to a new server …
There is absolutely a way. It might be hard, but there is a way.
I was thinking the same thing, but the article doesn’t go into any detail. So the information is on a Fisker server and associated with each vehicle? If so, moving it to another server seems like basic data managment.
Not an expert, but the only thing I can imagine is that it’s related to certificates or keypairs used for encrypted communication / authentication. Afaik ssl certificates can be issued to a given company, for example, and might become invalid when that company no longer exists. Or it becomes impossible to issue new ones.
Something in that vein, maybe.
My other guess was that they’ve hard-coded an IP address in their firmware and they’ve already sold off the IP range.
Or they fired all the technical staff and no longer have anyone left that “does the computers” (as my parents say about my job as a software engineer)
I suspect something like the first one, where those cars will call home to a certain IP address, and the fact that the company might not exist one day never crossed anyone’s mind.
Well this seems to go against all sorts of disaster recovery practices, so I’m torn between believing either they are truly incompetent or they are just lying.
The problem is not cars that use software - that is inevitable and OTA updates are far superior (if properly secure) than having to take the thing into a shop.
The problem is these people can’t or won’t write databases and systems that transfer from one data center to another. That stinks of either incompetence or bad faith.
Via USB is even better
Probably the stuff requires back end connection to properly work. So just the data is useless as it has references in the database to all sorts of other systems/applications and it would require all this data to also be available.
well, then, they should make those systems available to port the data or entire applications over en toto, it’s not like Fisker is going to be doing anything with them
