Vehicles long ago began to incorporate electronics and software, to the point that modern vehicles increasingly have a sort of architecture problem. The software end of things evolves ever more rapidly, but vehicles and their centralized architecture are poorly-suited to continuous updates. As a result, the automotive industry is moving away from static, hardware-defined designs and more toward dynamic, software-defined platforms. In short, the era of software-defined vehicles looms nearer every year.
There are very good reasons vehicles are the way they are, however inconvenient it may be for pushing updates. A vehicle may be in service for decades, with safety and reliability a prime concern over that lifetime. Reflecting this, automobiles are built around centralized SoCs (System-on-a-Chip) supported by tried and true components and assemblies. As mentioned, this architecture isn’t terribly well suited to meshing with a rapidly evolving software world that may also have changing computing needs. How can one accommodate this without increasing safety risks?
Some new designs are moving away from monolithic SoCs to more modular systems; ones that can support and optimize safety-critical functions and other workloads independently. Computing requirements are chosen to prioritize consistent performance and low-latency sensor fusion over raw processing power, and modern design focuses less on individual components and more on integrated hardware and software assemblies that ease manufacture and reduce design complexity.
The main goal is to design vehicles in a way that can more easily take advantage of rapid developments in software and allow easy updates, without compromising safety or reliability. Automakers haven’t completely settled on what architecture will do this best, but the era of software-defined vehicles is certainly coming closer.
There is no organic demand for “AI-driven experiences” to be integrated in cars. It’s a hallucination by the marketing departments, and a few techbros with gadgets to sell to rich people.
If I were to list what I wanted in a software defined vehicle, it would include:
Disabling any driver assistance that are more annoying than helpful
Get the touch screen’s API so I can add physical buttons
Change the suspension’s damping, ride height, spring rates, and anti-roll bar stiffness
Set different traction control and turbocharger control parameters for street and race use
Display full OBD diagnostic codes on the screen instead of just flashing the Check Engine light
Give full access to every service procedure and reset through the touch screen
Redirect all data collection that the car reports about me to /dev/null
I don’t think many OEMs would want the liability of offering this, but that is the sort of software defined vehicle I would want.
What “software defined” technically means is decoupling the software from the underlying hardware by adding some sort of abstraction between them. The functionality of the system or your access to it is then no longer defined by what the hardware/firmware was designed to do from the factory, but what the higher abstraction level software exposes or implements – or hides.
The system has to be connected to the internet to receive updates and features, which also creates the need to have security patches, which creates a means of controlling what you can do with the software. It becomes tightly integrated to the cloud, and your ownership of the car becomes “blurry” because it is no longer a self-contained independent thing. Think BMW’s subscription seat heaters: it was a PR disaster, but it will be normal tomorrow after the consumers have “adjusted” to accept it. In other words, after every car sold is like this.
Ultimately, the software defined car creates the means to obsolete it simply by not offering any more system updates and banning old and “unapproved” versions from the platform. That is what the vehicle manufacturers really want to do, so they can control the second hand market.
You say
I know what you mean but the “has to be” is not technically correct, it is a matter of convenience and manufacturer control.
There is absolutely nothing that stops the manufacturers from reverting to the “good old days”™ where a recall meant you had to actually move the car to a service centre and get whatever needed to be done done — only, the customers would cry foul and say why do I have to take 30 minutes out of my leisurely life to get it serviced when you can surveil me and get it done while I’m driving at 200 mph on a single lane country road (oops, got a bit carried away there, I’ll tell the AI to slow the car down a bit); and the manufacturers would say why should we pay the service centre to do that when we already have the technology installed to surveil the driver and make money from selling the gleaned information?
Mandatory systems like the ISA, forced by the EU since 2024, rely on a GPS speed limit database, which technically means your car has to be online by law or it can’t be sold.
Hardware stops them. Recalls are to replace defective physical parts
I mean, it’s possible to have ISA without constantly being online, but the GPS database will be out of date in a matter of days, and the car will start beeping at you for false reasons. Not that the authorities bother to update the databases in a timely manner anyhow.
For example, when you’re driving on a country road that has reduced speed limit in the winter, and in the summer they change the signage but not the GPS database, the system starts going 80-100-80-100… and people follow that because the ISA keeps gaslighting them about the last speed sign. Speed up, slow down, speed up…
Beep boop, you’re going over the limit – do you trust the car or your memory?
@Sword
If the word “recall” is the problem, we can call it “technical updates” or “software tuning” or so many other things that all imply you move the vehicle to a service centre where their droid connects a scomp link to the vehicle’s data port and
disables the rubbish compactor (garbage compactor for our cousins across the pond)Oh wait, wrong storyline — I mean, updates the software that needs updating@Dude there are some cars that use GPS for security stuff, but those are only a few models, and I doubt there is an EU mandate since GPS is unreliable really, especially these days, you could not use cars in border areas of several countries is there was GPS reliance.
BTW I know that some cars use GPS for security because of an article that some people in Moscow with German brand cars had their car go in locked alert status and refuse to drive because of the GPS scrambling in the region and the car thinking it was stolen (if I recall correctly). And people were quite outraged because they had to have the car be updated to fix it.
What “software defines” technically means is pretty close to anything, but primarily that the main functionality of the system is in software and can therefore be modified.
What “software defined” means in the context of a vehicle is that some MBA huffed too much paint. It’s fundamentally a hardware device.
Software defined hardware is like a Winmodem.
Earlier modems had the communication protocols built into the hardware, so when you’d open up a serial port and send AT commands, the modem would respond and do accordingly. Then they figured to save a bunch of money by adding only enough hardware on the device to pick up the phone and make sounds, and all the protocols and operating logic were virtualized into a software driver.
Without the software the device itself wasn’t a modem. It wasn’t anything at all because it didn’t do anything at all. The software is what defined it.
That is what the software defined vehicle is also about: the software is intellectual property that belongs to the car manufacturer. The software defines it as a car. Without the software, all you have is a car-shaped pile of metal and you don’t own the software even if you paid good money for it.
Agreed. Software define vehicles are a bane, not a boon. I want my car to run for decades and be reliable. Nothing else matters. I do not need constant software updates. Make it work on day 1 and leave it alone.
An abstraction between the high level controls and the mechanical operation sounds like the sort of design where you could replace the little four banger in a Kia K4 with a supercharged V8 and the remaining electronics would all go on functioning as they should, down to the drive by wire throttle and OE traction control. (Or you could substitute a Tesla electric motor at each end if that’s what you prefer.) That sounds appealing, but surely that’s not what they mean.
The remaining electronics may accept the swap, but i guarantee the hardware (i.e. the drivetrain) will not :D
The drivetrain might.
If the supercharged V8 was a Pontiac 301 turbo from 1980s.
Not sure what computer is going to run the computer controlled quadrajunk.
The text editor nerds are way ahead of you on this one:
https://wiki.c2.com/?IfYourCarWereEmacs
Software defined vehicles is just buzzword speak for CAAS (Cars as a service) to turn things into subscriptions instead of ownership. So you’ll get none of those, and even less.
Yep! “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy for it.” Well, you wont be happy but you’ll pretend to be to avoid the “correction squad”.
Up to 2020, with a dongle and phone software, BMW’s had unlocked ECU’s that allowed much of this (look up Bimmercode). Still possible thereafter, but the ECU must first be unlocked. Easy to adjust how many lane change signal flashes, limit seat belt reminder to light only, tune the engine and unlock more power, even have the initial screen come up as Alpina, etc. Truly an enthusiasts car. The issue with software everything is that the User Interface gets implemented on a touch screen… going to a physical button is more costly.
Latest model GMC Sierra doesn’t even have radio control buttons to switch to FM. Automatically goes to Android Auto or Carplay. And to get radio, it is a tiny drop down menu button requiring a steady finger over the defined touch area while driving, then select FM, followed by station with lots of screen lag while doing so. Demands eye’s off the road. And the buttons that are provided are for rarely adjusted functions! Thankfully, environmental controls are still button / dial based for many vehicles.
ai article? no hunan being writes like this:
“Computing requirements are chosen to prioritize consistent performance and low-latency sensor fusion over raw processing power, and modern design focuses less on individual components and more on integrated hardware and software assemblies that ease manufacture and reduce design complexity.”
or is this a marketing fluff?
Regurgitated marketing fluff.
The original EDN article is a long form piece of saying “We want to integrate more short-lifespan consumer gadgets and software in vehicles. We want to make the car into a platform for selling more stuff.”
In some senses the separation of functions could be good. For instance, if they separate the core functions of the car from all the extra, then we might be able to buy cars that are just cars again, not mobile phones on wheels. Unfortunately that won’t be the case, since the industry has lobbied “smart” features like ISA as regulations, so your car has to have cameras and GPS and be constantly online no matter what.
Nope my car’s are all 20+ years old with a really limited computer control
%s#software#buggy#g
BUGGY-DEFINED VEHICLES LOOM CLOSER EVERY YEAR
Just don’t let Micro$oft be in charge of updates! Either it’ll be unwanted ads all over your dashboard, or a message saying “Oops, sorry! We’ve bricked your car…”
Move fast and…end lives?
Be careful, this is yet another Click-a-Day article.
Don’t generate engagement, let them starve.
A couple of friends just bought Kias. I get a real chuckle seeing the marketing web page. Front and center they advertise Automatic OTA system updates and the accompanying image is a photo of the dash board screen showing:
UPDATING…
Vehicle cannot be used during the update.
With a downloading progress bar underneath.
Srsly?
I read this as Korea having a remote kill switch for any Kia.
Some aspects of the operation of motor vehicles have been “software-defined” for decades; all the way back to the 80’s, maybe even the 70’s.
Fuel maps, emission controls, ignition controls… all have been software-defined for a long time. And it’s not all ROM’s – software modification and “chipping” has been a thing for performance-oriented users since the 90’s. I, myself have participated in this practice back in my SCCA days.
The big difference now is that it’s “wireless” and you don’t necessarily need to hook up to a data port. Not a fan of that with the advent of these “subscription” features. The same issue that underlies the move away from physical media.
There’s a definition of SDV on wikipedia with multiple levels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Defined_Vehicle
What you’re describing fits levels 0-2. At level 3 you introduce an “operating system”, i.e. a higher level of abstraction above the firmware. That’s the beginning of a software defined car.
At level 4 you separate the two even further, moving the processing to its own dedicated computer to turn your car into the vehicular equivalent of a Winmodem/Softmodem. Now it cannot function without the operating system and crucially the HAL/driver software you load up. The car is now a puppet on strings – completely useless, a dead brick without the proprietary software.
Then at level 5 you add an app store and cloud integration, and assimilate the software as part of your back-end services online, so it cannot function without being connected to you. It has now become the vehicular equivalent of an IoT light bulb or a smart speaker, and the transformation is complete.
I’m not sure I understand how the Winmodem analogy would work on a vehicle – or if this isn’t something we have already had since the 1980s. Many of the control units are already set up so they’re an MCU connected to a power supply, some basic signal conditioners, and MOSFETs. There are a few ASICs and ASSPs out there, but a lot of those could be replaced with a simple ADC port if your MCU is powerful enough with enough I/O. These control units are already generic enough to the point that there are units out there that can be an engine controller or an automatic transmission controller depending on what firmware you put in them. And many of the 32 bit MCUs are using an operating system running core-independent peripherals to handle things like timing.
I went through the sources of the wiki, many German articles.
Monetization of data is mentioned many times, charging for software updates… blah blah.
But, and I found this hilarious, they expect used cars to hold value better due to continued software updates, stating in the end that OTA is already parts of phones.
My phone keeps getting slower and slower as it gets update and time passes. If the same guys get to update car software, after 10 years, I have to start it before breakfast so it is done booting by lunch time.
I work in an Autozone, and the vast majority of our customers struggle with the basics of computer use, (and several employees as well). The idea of a car being entirely software-run is just dreaming. People want/need buttons and dials, not screens, which, frankly, terrify a surprising number of people. I have met a surprising number of people who buy older cars, not because they can’t afford newer ones, but because all the new bells an whistles confuse them.
And lots of people who do not struggle at all with advanced computer use also want buttons and knobs in their vehicles. Volume controls, climate controls, wiper controls: all should be direct controls. Not 3 taps and 4 swipes away on a screen. It’s been shown time and time again that putting everything behind a touchscreen literally makes people worse drivers, no matter their computer literacy, because it’s not a skill issue, it’s an attention issue.
There is a practical side of that, too. Having tactile feedback for controls while your attention is focused on operating the vehicle and the external environment is good ergonomics and a good safety feature.
Autozone customers are ‘special’ (like special olympics).
They choose to go to the parts store with uniformly clueless counter people and the worst (Chinese knockoff/Amazon grade) parts on earth.
Get a job at NAPA.
They also have Chinese junk, but also carry good parts.
And the counter guys can usually tell you which is which.
My 1978 Reliant Kitten could be driven with the battery connected to just the ignition and starter motor: 3 wires. Tell me how we have progressed when a modern car completely shits itself if just 3 wires are disconnected?
We have moved onto 333 wires territory now, and keep adding new wires as we speak.
Recently I saw a (part of a) youtube video about how to obtain (buy) temporary decryption keys to access the CAN bus to make it possible to replace the brakepads of a car.
If you must have an electronically operated parking brake, retracting the pads via software command makes sense. You can’t back off a hardware adjuster, and REALLY don’t want to just shove the actuator in reverse with a C-clamp.
It’s usually enough to disconnect the wires to the parking brake motor and apply voltage to retract the pads. No software needed.
That’s going to work until the motor requires a NTP connection, valid certificate and a TLS handshake before it will obey instructions.
Haha, nice that you thought of the inclusion of NTP to verify the expiration of the certificate.
Make sure your car uses CRYSTALS-Dilithium though, you don’t want any quantum hacks.
Maybe it is time to move forward with the corporate-divorced Average Car that can be assembled from 100% locally procured parts bypassing the Usual Suspect and ignoring their internal problems.
Standard parts, here we come, ending pointless race to the most proprietary unsustainable (in the long run) model of NOT doing business. Make all parts a uniform global standard, purposefully limiting it to the Basic Four, compact, midsize, family sedan, truck. Be over with, and let Real Competition begin unabated, who can push forward the most affordable kinds that everyone will buy, 100% locally sourced parts, etc.
I propose forgetting our formerly useful car makers exist (GM, Ford, whatever) and go with what chinese have instead, and hear what korean and japanese car makers have to say on that. I am pretty sure there will be better results there because I don’t see any local (US) attempts at anything comparable to what they do there, kei cars, one example, a niche product that fills the void AND matches the demand.
(as far as the US makers go, they seem to keep ignoring obvious demand, say, compact trucks with the correspondingly compact price – WHERE ARE THEY? I need Holden Ute, $10K, sold everywhere, plain and simple, standard parts, standard whatever cheapest trim, get me and my compact cargo from point A to point B – the like of Jeepster Commando, could be smaller)
That was the first half of my rant.
Second one is “since companies are so hell-bent on everything-is-paid-subscription” let’s return the favor in the most uncomfortable way – their business license is now, too, paid-by-the-hour-subscription they CANNOT weasel out of. Charged directly and moneys deposited into my law-abiding tax-paying citizen account. All 50 states. No matter where you are headquartered, business license is a business license, if you sell your products in Hawaii, while being registered in Delaware, the license-by-the-hour fee goes to Hawaii buyers. That way there are no backroom secret deals period. Every state.
Alternatives will be either nationalization or self-made dis-connect into multiple smaller entities – in multiple states no less, their pick. Independent entities that CANNOT merge back a-la-Bell/Comcast/Verizon.
Will be fun to watch. No, there is no shortage of smaller companies waiting to claim the turf.
You should never accept any authority at all.
You clearly can’t handle it.
I don’t need unsupervised authority. It always grows its own legs and starts walking over people like me. Not because “I cannot handle it” because it loses its constrains. That’s how fascism starts, btw. Slavery, too.
You are just itching to purge people that disagree with you.
Nationalize like your historical idols.
On the upside, I can’t imagine anybody listening to any of your ‘thoughts’ and giving you power.
HaHa – you don’t have to agree with me. That’s the point of conversation, exchanging opinions.
Presently I am witnessing no less than THREE countries folding into fascism. One of them is stealing the private capital under the pretense of “nationalization” – if it is implied I am advocating for the same, no, I am not. I am advocating regulating back what became loose (banking, for example) and now is the drain on the economy it SUPPOSED to be serving. Yes, serving. Any for-profit entity is SERVING the economy, and if it is not, then it is a parasite on the economy, it became a thing onto itself, not needing any economy at all, it is the economy itself.
It is rather appalling that the corporate propaganda has brainwashed generations into hating obvious and simple concepts, yet, it is propaganda, and not real science. Say, why is it that only for-profit entities are allowed to have capital and ordinary Sam cannot? Sam has similar things that can be capitalized, his health he has to sell for salary, etc, and it, too, needs protection, and Sam, too, can declare his family a public trust, and not for-profit entity that has to be taxed and milked for profit.
After all, average family is actually communist entity, say, how do YOU plan to return all the investment made into your existence by your parents? Do you plan to become pregnant and give births to your parents? Or you plan to return all the money spent, adjusted for inflation and with the interest and late fees (it takes what, almost 20 years to get a real job – that’s 20 years of expenses, non-stop, every day)? These are simple questions, not complicated ones, not philosophical speculations, simply measuring financial losses/gains.
Who’s not letting you have capitol?
Get a job and spend less then you earn.
You want somebody else’s capitol?
No.
But you could convince me.
Not you, but people do all the time.
Bankers are weasels, I’ve worked for some.
Before I got to use floats professionally.
Bad old days of bean counting.
You think you can separate money and power?
Also: Define fascism.
Is difficult, because was propaganda term used between 3 very different nations.
Most definitions ether won’t cover one of the definitional, term coining, ‘fascists’ or will cover Mao, Joe or PolPot.
Only ‘right winger’ of the original 3 was Franco.
None of the original 3 were capitalists.
Hitler used capitalist as code for ‘Jewish banker’.
Stalin called Hitler ‘his socialist ally’.
Only ‘corporations’ in fascist Italy were nationally owned, so save the out of context quote.
If you can’t define it, find a different slur, you look like an idiot.
Yeah, I’m going to stick with my analog radio, manual transmission, brick nose diesel from the 80s. Y’all enjoy your SAS fees. Registrations and taxes are bad enough.
You sound like someone thinking this is a bad thing.
Manufacturers like touch screens because they are cheap to install. Plug it in and you’re done, None of those knobs to install and wire. Then they design stupid UIs for the touch screen with the nifty cascading menus to make it impossible to change the radio station without crashing your car.
I am rather pragmatic about my vehicles. An automobile is a wheeled, motorized contrivance to take me and my junk from point a to point b. That’s it.
Id like that contrivance to be reliable so I’m not left stranded. I’d like the temperature in the interior of the cabin controlled enough to avoid undue suffering when it’s 10F or 108 F outside (I’ve lived in enough places to have experienced both.)
Personally, I’m reaching saturation with regard to the seemingly arbitrary and superfluous computerization of everything. If I wanted to fly a fighter jet, I would have joined the Air Force. I don’t need–and don’t want– that experience in a passenger sedan.
I have a new vehicle with all sorts of electronic bells and whistles… most of which, after the novelty wore off, I now hate. I’m tired of having to search Google to figure out which menu swipes will turn on my fog lights. I’m tired of “patches” and “upgrades” pushed to my ECU over the cell network changing settings and machine behaviors without my consent. God only know what data of mine is being collected and sold.
I’m seriously thinking my next vehicle may be a “classic” pickup, rust and dents are fine (no worries from shopping carts in parking lots) 6 cylinder or V8, with a carb and AM radio… fresh brakes, tires, and transmission, of course… restored just enough to be reliable. Yes… I actually prefer windows with hand cranks.
How long til “Pay to drive”?
You own the car, but the software to drive it is through subscription only.
Teslas are already that way.
Of note was black artist A Guy Called Gerald stated he loved them bc he can avoid potential racial profiling/prejudice that make normal cab rides unsafe in his opinion. I found this perspective made a point worth considering
There are only two OS makers right now in cars, Apple or Android. The rest is a wishful thinking, as stated here many times. Software is expensive and hard to maintain, in many ways it is the “hardware”. Then some will have the idea that they can use coding agents to slap together that new platform, but nobody will give up a significant percentage of their income for something that works 90% of the time and tries to monetize them. That is what all those words really trying to say “Think of all these value added opportunities, if only we could find a valid use-case.” Good for us they have no creativity.
We crossed the software run car 20 or 30 years ago, as soon as the throttle went servo-driven. I’m not sure this is news.
To be clear a servo driven throttle is not necessarily a bad thing. It opens the door for neat tricks like opening the throttle fully at cruise and using a lean mixture and/or cam phasing to determine power output.
But I had a work pickup that was clearly not tuned for the manual transmission it had. Numerous times on takeoff it would detect the engine lugging for only a couple ignition events and kill the ignition dead. You could tell it was doing it on purpose because kicking the clutch pedal would bump start it. I didn’t want to rev it up to 3,000rpm and slip the clutch. Kind of a trio of problems, not a low enough first gear, not a lot of tuning or thought given to the manual version, and the tire diameter kept growing every model change, while presumably keeping the ratio the same, and weight no doubt went up.
This article is full if buzzwords and hand waving. Does this apply at all to a Slate? Should the software in the inverter need updating ever?
I contend that less updates would be needed if we would simplify what the car is doing. Sad to say a lot of the problem is ‘cheap credit’. Cheap in the opportunity cost. Car makers want all the virtual money they can get, they know $50 more a month on a car payment is a lot easier to swallow than $5,000 worth of junk added to a vehicle. At least in the USA we only get the top spec of any world car. Most economical cars don’t even make it here, we didn’t get any Lupo or the Polo, nevermind any of the diesel versions.
For the rest of my existence I won’t buy any car manufactured after 2017.
The mandatory “assistant” crap and the mandatory spyware uplink is a definitive no go.
2014 is when Honda started running pistons directly in Aluminum cylinders.
Before that, they had sensible steel sleeves, some still did after 2014, but you must do the research.
Aluminum cylinders have been tried many times.
Only the Porsche 928s still run, they ALL have been bored and sleeved, or LS swapped (the right choice).
IMHO vehicle manufacturers should be required to stick to one CAN bus variant, and one (DRM, encryption and other BS free) higher level protocol stack to ensure that components can be swapped out and upgraded at will. Ditto for the infotainment connectors and mounting brackets.
VW recently blocked Graphene OS devices from connecting to their car infotainment system citing risks they might “compromise vehicle data” or some nonsense – if their software and systems in something as safety critical as an automobile could be compromised by something you connect via bluetooth to the stereo it tells you just how bad car companies are at software.
That’d be like Airbus saying you can’t plug your phone into the USB socket on the seat in case it crashes the plane.
So many of these new systems on cars are obviously under-developed and buggy and yet they’re being rolled out as mandatory features – automated braking, automated lane assist, self driving… there’s so many examples of them getting it badly wrong and yet manufacturers are pushing them and regulators are somehow allowing them.
Just spent a weekend at a historic vehicle show that had more than a few machines over a hundred years old. Despite there being far more vehicles made now, I’d be surprised if any survived that long and still functioned.
Very soon you’ll not even be able to go around without express government authorization.
It’s basically already so for air travel really.
It’s quite impressive how much they managed to milk from the (fake) security based on some terrorists decades ago and how the whole western world was what I would describe as destroyed by them.
And at the same time the powers-that-be seem to try to aid the mass insertion of islam into the west. I am like so many unable to figure out the grand plan. I guess it’s my reluctance in reading up what the big think tanks all have as a vision due to me getting annoyed about them being able to just control the western world, as well as the incompatibility of their and my views. Oh and my knowledge that there is nothing I can do to stop them since the pliability and idiocy of humans makes a massive organised manipulation of the crowd pretty hard to counter.
Sharia banking has interesting rules and some other things (like no usury, but there are roundabout ways of selling mortgages, ha). Islam was about entire blueprint for a society at some point, but I’ll leave this as topic of discussion by those who know better.
I was born and grew up near some strictly Sharia places that were co-existing with all kinds of Other Alternatives (Bhuddists, Zoroaster, etc) and I can definitely tell that these are not compatible in any way or form. Christianity, too, wasn’t terribly helpful, and on the top of that was basically gutted by all kinds of “revolutions”. In short, neither of these can peacefully co-exist without causing some kind of calamity in the process.
Same goes for the 20 century fashion of injecting western democracy into places that had zero (or very little) experience with anything of a kind – this was doomed to fail, if not right away, then generations later. That’s why some of the “younger democracies” are really the front windows, not really inner workings, if bribing was part of life, it simply became part of the barter economy, hence, technically not related to moneys at all, yet, integral/important part of the economy nonetheless.
What I see instead is what’s been described by others smarter than me, eroding fruits of western democracy open up vacuum that presently gets filled by anything at all, including Islam. I personally know people who decided that B’Hai is Their Way, and I’ve also versed with Zoroaster followers, KrShna acolytes, etc etc. It is just that way, people have to rely on SOMETHING.
How well those integrate is not something I know well – instead, I saw that they don’t integrate at all, unless one became the dominant one and entire society has been structured around that – pretending it tolerates The Others, but to a degree that would not be destructive to the society at large. Try proselytizing, say, the Norse God Odin in Turkey or, alternatively, Shinto in Israel, and I that’s what I meant under “incompatible” – it just won’t register.
Agnostics are the majority in almost all western nations.
We tolerate most delusions just fine.
Many individuals even pay lip service to one or another.
For the sake of their parents.
You’ll never see a bunch of agnostics militantly attack a religious nut, demanding he give up his unearned certainty.
Indeed, I was going to say that religion isn’t a necessity in the west like so many from outside it seem to think, the amount of people from Islamic places who think everybody in the west is a freaking Christian is quite astounding. Simply based on that you are not allowed to be non religious in their birthplaces and thinking this is a hard rule across the planet.
Enthusiasts used to make really cool buggy cars. I’m sure the buggy cars software teams have in mind will be a lot less fun.