[colug-432] Great moments in computer science

[Steve Roggenkamp]

One problem comparing Toyota to Boeing/Airbus is the different markets
they serve.  Toyota and other car makers sell millions of vehicles to
unsophisticated consumers.  Boeing and Airbus sell a few hundred
aircraft a year to very sophisticated buyers who have very specific
requirements.  When a car crashes, it might make local news if a fiew
people die.  When an airliner crashes, it makes global news, especially
if people die.

Car/light truck buyers may select a vehicle based on how the door sounds
when it's closed, how the engine sounds when taking off from a traffic
light, or what it smells like when sitting inside it in a dealer's
showroom.  Aircraft buyers want to know how many maintenance hours are
required per flight hour, how fast can they get a part delivered when
they have an AOG (Aircraft On Ground, very, very bad),  how many hours
can parts operate between inspections and/or overhaul, operating cost
per passenger mile, etc.

An airline may operate several hundred aircraft from a manufacturer,
each for over a decade, so it's a long-term relationship between the
buyer and the manufacturer.  The manufacturer has to deliver an airplane
that will make a profit for the airline, or they won't have a buyer. 
The manufacturers have an incentive to create safe products and fix
problems when they are discovered.

Individuals may buy a car every few years from a different manufacturer,
so there is not as much commitment from the customer to the manufacturer
and vice versa.  Plus dealers come between the car buyer and the
manufacturer.  Need I say more?  Car manufacturers can sweep problems
under the rug as long as the numbers are not too big.  Look back to
Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" from the early 1960s to see that's
been the modis operandi for decades from car manufacturers.

Steve

On 06/02/2015 10:40 PM, Rick Hornsby wrote:
>
> ... stuff deleted ...
>
> Boeing, Airbus, and other aircraft manufacturers cooperate with the NTSB to figure out why a plane came down. They participate in the investigation lending their knowledge as experts on the aircraft itself. As far as I know, they're not in the habit of obstructing and lying to the NTSB.  Why? I've never really wondered about that - maybe it's because the FAA would hand their butts to them in a variety of creative ways from ADs, to grounding whole fleets, to revoking operating certificates, etc.  I like to think that Boeing and Airbus want to know what went wrong so it doesn't happen again.
>
> I'm for self driving cars. Fewer idiots in control of 4000lbs of steel barreling down the road at 75mph w/ one hand on their phone and the other a cigarette sounds promising.  I'm not for more government regulations.  The market should decide -- until the market lies, deceives, and creates products so poorly designed they are all but assured of killing someone while hiding behind IP laws to mask their treachery.  If the article remotely reflects the truth, Toyota got off easy.  They would never get away with making airbags out of Swiss cheese because it is a physical product for which they have a much harder time obfuscating, hiding, or lying. "Your airbag is made of Swiss cheese. / Nuh-uh / I tasted it. Swiss cheese."
>
> Before we let self-driving cars loose on our roads we should ensure that vehicle makers are held to the standards of cooperation given by Boeing, Airbus, Cirrus, etc. Otherwise we're blindly trusting these companies with cars completely controlled by sh*t for code.
>
> -rj
>
>
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