Cars are interesting if not only for everyone, but for many. For different reasons.


In the modern rapidly changing society, the world of the automotive industry is one of the locomotives (we are not afraid of logical tautology) of many state economies and, at the same time, “the crucible of our day’s technician”.

However, a careful observer will easily notice some confusion and vacillation not only in the huge range of opinions about “typewriters”, but even in the conceptual apparatus used in the Russian-language space for any communication on near-car topics.
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“How long ?!” - you ask. And you will be right - the situation must be corrected.

About myself and about the article

It so happened that the author worked for about five years in the German and European automotive industry in projects related to electromobility. Like much on our planet, from the inside, this universe looks a little different than what an outsider sees at first glance.

The following text is a peculiar summary of the knowledge and observations collected by the author from various sources and from work experience.

In order to save time, everything will be encrypted a lot will be recorded thesis - with a given opportunity to discuss written in the comments.

It seems to be all.

Rolled! ( hello, Gothenburg! )

We understand the definitions and terms

0. A bit about the "on-board computer"

Citizens!

Please, nowhere and never in professional communication do not use the definitions of " central control unit of the car ", " on-board computer of the car " or even " central on-board computer of the car "!

The reason for this request is trivial: there is simply no such device in the vast majority of modern cars from the point of view of the architecture of internal communication networks.

In fact, a modern car is a kind of motorized computer network with at least twenty specific microcomputers in its composition. And on average, even with 30-40-50-60 members of this network.


^{One of the variants of the illustration, representing the overview structure of the vehicle communication networks.
Such images in the network - the sea, if something.}

And the device, showing you all kinds of letters and letters in the form familiar to the human eye, is often not even a microcomputer at all, of prime importance for the successful movement of the vehicle from point A to point B.

To call this device-visualizalchik “the central on-board computer” is how to call the system unit of a stationary computer a “processor”. In principle, it is possible, and even seemingly understandable - but it mocks up too much.

Yes, some manufacturers proudly call the small window located behind the steering column between the tachometer and the speedometer, the high name "on-board computer" ( last week, for example, Ford was noticed behind this occupation ).


^{Here it is, this gentleman with proud ambitions}

But in everyday development life no one will bother with such high matters, because, as has already been said, there are dozens of computers inside.

And there is no need to single out this particular one, if only because if he is even completely tired, he blinks goodbye, disconnects and drops out of the nest to the driver’s lap - the car will continue its movement, cynically ignoring the loss.

By the way, VW has the same screen in German called “Multifunktionsanzeige”, which can be translated as “multifunctional display” or “multifunctional information panel” - and so it will be more honest, as for me.

1. There is an ECU, but there is an ECU

So, in the overwhelming majority of professional automatics publications, the abbreviation “ECU” is understood as “Electronic Control Unit” - a generic term for virtually any control device in a car (remember, a little higher was a marvelous row in “30-40-50-60”? ;)

And a very, very small part of the publications, in which we are talking directly about the microprocessor control unit of the internal combustion engine, under such an abbreviation will be taken the term "Engine Control Unit". And this is usually emphasized at the beginning of the publication.

Moreover, sometimes translated into Russian, the abbreviation "ECU" is interpreted as a memorable "on-board computer", which is already somehow uncomfortable.

Example : a 2017 article about the famous Miller and Valasek:

they presented a detailed report describing the hacking technique and published the program code for the car computer exploit (ECU) using packet transmission over the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus.

At the same time, in the above-mentioned report, the authors many times from different sides clearly indicate that the “ECU” for them is exactly the “electronic control unit”, and there are a lot of these units in the auto- tuyev huch (Miller and Valasek themselves, judging by everything, to simplify , simply call the beautiful number 50).

You can, by the way, in the presence of interest and internal spelling-grammatical zen, look at the appropriate forums for themselves what version of decryption fell in love with the ardent fans of chip tuning in the Russian-language space.

Therefore, remember: the default is " ECU " = " Electronic Control Unit ".

Well, in Russian, I would suggest that this composite matter would be referred to as “ ECU ” - “ electronic control device ”.

2. Automotive and automation

Ten years ago, the author, to his own surprise, realized that such similar words " automotive " and " automation " mean quite different areas of human activity.

Of course, historically and logically, they have much in common - but still they are different worlds.

So we fix:

• " Automotive " is all that is related to automotive topics (direct manufacturers, their suppliers, manufacturers of all kinds of automotive software, standards, regulatory prescriptions, etc., etc.).

• " Automation " is, as the name implies, everything related to automation (production in the first place, but not only) - that is, TAU, conveyor lines, all kinds of drives, IoT, digitalization, and Other Industry 4.0, and all-all-all.

3. OEM & Automotive Supplier (Automobilzulieferer)

In the automotive world, everything is very simple and not like in other worlds:

• " OEM " - directly carmakers themselves, which produce cars: i.e. Toyota, VW, BMW, Daimler, Audi, Ford, Opel, Honda, AvtoVAZ, etc.

• " Automotive Supplier " (him. " Automobilzulieferer ") - all others who supply something for the OEM.

Naturally, in everyday life it says in short: " Supplier " / " Zulieferer ".

There are also such gradations as “Tier-1 Supplier”, “Tier-2 Supplier” and the Pyramid with the Oil Suppliers “Pyramid of Suppliers” (“Zulieferpyramide” / “supply pyramid”) in general - but this is already a classification particular.

4. Sometimes everyone likes a shorter

The human brain, as we know, is extremely lazy and seeks to save resources.

The daily life of the automotive world is also subject to this rule: everybody is simply too lazy to utter and / or write some long, multi-syllable names every time, so everyone tries to shorten everything.

This leads to the fact that instead of long pompous names, as well as in Russian (suddenly!), All sorts of abbreviations are happily used ( I omit all AGs here by default ).

Instead of " Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft " - " BMW " ( even "BMW AG" already contains an unnecessary tail, therefore it is won! )

Instead of " Continental " - " Conti " ( yes, it is Konti - hello to Kiev-Konti cookies from fifteen-year-old students! )

" Daimler " is already short enough, it does not touch.

" Bosch " is also quite brief.

" VW " - here without words at all.

" VAG " - almost like " VW ", just a corporation.

Instead of " Volvo Car Corporation " - " VCC " ( and do not forget that " Volvo Trucks " is a completely separate corporation nowadays, even though they are in their homeland, of course, they are in close contact with their sleeves ).

Instead of " ZF Friedrichshafen " - " ZF ".

Instead of " Siemens AG " - " SAG ".

" Magna " - it is.

" Schaeffler " Germans can write as " Schäffler " - we save the sign, after all.

" Hyundai Mobis " - it is logical that just " Hyundai ".

And so on.

5. At the peak of attention: electric cars

In the future, in order to summarize the text, the definition of “electric vehicles” will be the same as on the part of the German government, meaning not only a “pure electric drive solution”, but also all versions of hybrid versions.

In fact, and technically, the distance of the trip on the electric drive depends mainly on the capacity of the power battery, and there is simply no fundamental difference between the Prius and the unmounted BMW i3 ( hello, Boomburum ! ).

By the way, if you are interested in a professional opinion about the state of electrical networks, all sorts of problems from energy supply, and other topics of low, medium and high-intensity, then one of the best recipients with the freshest information will be on Hikttimes and Habré colleague idiv .

Pause

For now let's stop.

And finally, I would like to remind / note that in the current community:

• comrade parakhod has a wealth of knowledge on tricky modeling stands for the European automotive industry in particular - and embedded-engineering for this industry in general;

• Comrade nad_oby at one time, before buying them, Intel was working at Mobileye (computer vision) - but the most interesting thing for him was probably to tell no way;

• Comrade old_gamer recently selflessly rode for all on the "Tesla" - and interesting updates, sho it is there, and how;

• comrade mrKron has published quite a few articles related to IoT and automotive topics simultaneously;

• Comrades ArturStepanov and MariyaVasina could have written something from BMW AG - but for some reason they don’t write ...

• For inspiration in the style of writing articles, special thanks to the comrades Boomburum , Milfgard and Meklon ! = D

Who has forgotten to mention - do not expect it, the author is openly open to comments and comments.

PS Notice, and not a word about the blockchain!