It is being reported that Chysler is expanding the recall of its Jeep Commander SUVs to repair engine stalling caused by a flaw in the automatic transmission software that could, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) "could cause a crash without warning."
In March, Chrysler recalled 1,338 of the 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander SUVs to repair a stalling problem in the vehicles. The NHTSA reported at the time that the “the front control module may have been incorrectly manufactured. This could cause the engine to stall while driving or nor to start.”
This month, Chrysler expanded the recall to include 24,461 Jeep Commanders equipped with the 4.7 liter engine and built before 11 January 2006.
As a point of reference, GM expects its cars to have about 100 million lines of software in them by around 2010. Software reliability issues will undoubtedly increase in cars from sheer numbers if nothing else.
Having bought a new car in the past month, I sometimes feel that it is more computer network on wheels than anything else. I am still climbing the learning curve on how to operate all the gadgets in the car.
Car manufacturers, unfortunately, seem to have taken on the same attitude of many manufacturers in the computer and electronics space - make the operating instructions to their tech toys as confusing and contradictory as possible. Car manufacturers may claim in their automobile commercials that they are spending a lot on the human factors engineering side, but from a software systems perspective, I don't see much value being created for all the money being spent.
