Software Glitches Are Forcing Carmakers to Follow Tesla’s Lead
- Chip supplier sees carmakers rethinking architecture
- Vehicles pack software, cope with bugs, STMicro says
A Tesla Model 3
Photographer: Dania Maxwell/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
There are roughly 60 million lines of code behind a platform like Facebook Inc. — and double that in a typical BMW or Mercedes. That makes it much easier to fix an online platform than an upmarket German automobile.
“Software is the number one reason cars fail and need to go into the repair shop,” said Marco Monti, who heads the automotive segment at chipmaker STMicroelectronics NV. Now carmakers want to update or patch these bugs remotely, similar to how smartphone software gets updated or Facebook evolves in the cloud without the user having to intervene.