←back to thread

122 points kcon | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.332s | source

Nissan's official mobile app for their LEAF electric car doesn't have a widget for quickly checking the car's battery charge status on your phone's home screen, so for a fun side project I decided to make my own using free tools like GitHub Actions, Appium, Tailscale, and Apple Shortcuts.
Show context
light_hue_1 ◴[] No.43677758[source]
I wish that US car manufacturers would finally realize that they're software companies with a hardware device, and pivot accordingly.

The differentiating factor between car models is not the hardware in the world of EVs. It's the software. And right now, if you aren't either on Tesla, Rivian, or Polestar the software experience is horrific.

replies(5): >>43677831 #>>43677846 #>>43677874 #>>43678005 #>>43678372 #
1. kristopolous ◴[] No.43677831[source]
I used to be in the space. Basically everyone would install an SBC behind the dash to listen to the canbus and then report things over cell often with ways of shorting a circuit in order to do features.

It's whackadoodle. I mean how different are cars, really? They have wheels, doors, windows, odometers, go places at various speeds, need fuel ... you'd think there'd be some agreed universal baseline like MIDI ... you'd think.

And the manufacturers held on to their protocols like they had done their own Manhatten project so everyone just had to backwards engineer things.

Why is inoperability so precious? Ultimately the purchasing decision is the car's price, features, availability, terms of the deal... The phone app has nothing to do with it, let it go.