- :
- State of Jefferson
- :
- 2017 CX-5 GT AWD+
And a little schadenfreude, if you're so inclined:
Edmunds Tesla 3 quick review
Edmunds Tesla 3 quick review
I'll be honest, I think the 2017+ Infotainment system is the best of any car I've owned. Maybe that says something about the cars I've owned... Coming from a Veloster, it's a big step up. I can't really imagine what others are driving prior to the CX-5 that they're complaining that much about the system, you'd have to imagine they downgraded vehicles if it's that big of an issue.
Well, this might force a change:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/03/09/mazda-privacy-hack-via-usb/#56559d4a4d0c
From that article: "physical access to a fired up car is required".
No worries.
That is the most important part. Physical access to any computer and enough time = compromise
I have had the luxury/opportunity to test drive 10 different infotainment system over the course of last 7 months. Why? I am part of a team who's trying to utilize certain aspects of AI/Machine Learning in combination with CA company - Blackberry for passenger vehicles, specifically QNX.
Leaving aside FEATURES like - Apple CarPlay / Android Auto and few quirks with BT ; Mazda's implementation is perhaps one of the best we have seen. Internally. You won't believe the TON of crap that's there in the internal guts of other cars. Surprisingly, the designers of this Infotainment system concentrated on performance and low usage of memory / heavy on cache. Every other car manufacturer's stuff we are seeing loads of I/O calls. Next, a large chuck of stuff is given by / written by / customized by Bosch! That was surprising.
We do NOT have access to code base. It's on a need by basis with snippets, descriptions given back to us. QNX OS is so mind-blowing in terms of speed of execution: its actually scary.
See here.
Won't force a change. Will force a new version of the software. LOL
It is bad press. Nothing causes a company to change more than bad press! The benefit of CarPlay and Android is simply that if anything is buggy with the system - Apple and Google get the blame - not Mazda.
Also a software developer, so your post and the article were kinda cool to read. I wonder if some of the issues come from many newer developers never work in a limited resource environment, or just don't think about it too much. I'm there now, but earlier in my career I was working on a system that used satellite for connectivity and had rather fast response time requirements, so we designed the heck out of it for performance. The app I support now doesn't have those limitations, but a couple of us still have that habit. We tick off some of the developers when we point out places where excess resources are used without a decent reason. Our mantra is design for performance, code for maintainability, but sometimes ... But I digress, nice view into developing these systems!