Everything is software...

       Flashing a new control routine in the ecu

Software is all around us, it controls everything, and is involved in even our toasters now. This, as in anything, is a good and bad thing.  For the vast majority of cars, it makes things better.  They run good, run clean and run longer than ever before, and a lot of this is because of computers and software.

The plain fact that computers work at all is amazing to me.  In a modern cars ecu (engine's electronic control unit) thousands of operations and calculations are being performed at dizzying speed.  The one dirty fact that is amazing is that if even one bit of that information in the control routine is bad, or wrong, everything comes to a screeching halt. We update the control routines in these cars over the internet, from Detroit, and not one bit is lost or misinterpreted (or hardly ever). They just work.

Of course, it could be said that this control is delicate, subject to static electricity, or other outside influences, but the truth is that it works pretty good.  You rarely even have idle problems now, which haunted mechanics in the 60's and 70's.  In fact, if you started your car and put it in drive and pointed it towards California, it would dutifully idle it's way there at 6mph until it ran out of gas.

Another thing that is happening is parts for cars are being replaced by software. One Suburban that had a failed E85 regulator valve (the thing on the engine that decides what you just put into the tank to adjust the engines injectors), and some engineer had figured out how to bypass that valve and do the same job.  The engines ecu was flashed with the new control routine, and the failed part was just ignored by the controller.  In another case, a failed exhaust temp sensor in the catalytic converter in a Saab was replaced by another software routine.

Computers and software have undergone many changes in the automobile and is still evolving. From independent computers of the early 80's that didn't communicate with each other to modern bus systems (networked car control units) to ecu's that combine functions of other controllers.  And it seems that carmakers can't decide on which strategy is the best one, as some go big on the bus systems, and others like to put everything in one ecu..

But one thing is sure.  It's only going to get more pervasive.  Automakers are hard at work at newer bus and computer designs to bring real time access to things in cars, like internet connectivity, and traffic  information.  All this will require faster and faster computers, bus systems, and software.