Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note:

Fueled by a significant number of hires from other car makers and real estate expansion beyond the upcoming hypergalactic spaceship HQ in Cupertino, rumors of an Apple Car keep percolating. I hope to drive an Apple Car someday… but does Apple’s personal computing software knowhow translate into the high-reliability real-time code required for a safe, reliable and, of course, elegant electric car?

Just one example of the incredibly complex interdependencies that make a car safe:

Consider the complicated, contradictory tasks that are controlled by the Electric Power Steering system (EPS). Sensors, electric motors, gears, and software make it easy for you to maneuver your vehicle at low effort parking speed and still maintain a straight line at highway speed with its variable return-to-center force. In a steep turn, EPS must provide sharper steering angle ratios and let you know if the car is starting to “push” (understeer) or if the back of your car is about to swing loose (oversteer).

To save your life, EPS software attempts to get between you and the front wheels, using speed and yaw information, comparing intended and real trajectories, and then applying steering and braking corrections. Take the “famous” Moose Test, an evasive left-right obstacle avoidance maneuver performed at highway speeds. Without assistance from sensors, software and electro-hydraulic actuators, most of us will either hit the obstacle or roll the the car into the ditch. At the highway speeds for which it is designed, a modern EPS, in collaboration with the braking subsystem, will not let you roll over, regardless of your steering input.

And:

I also have to consider that my current vehicle is more than five years old — and how many software or mechanical bugs in those five years? Null. Zero. Before that, I drove a car from the same series for four and a half years. Bugs? One out-of-the-box suspension problem that was fixed a few days later and that was it. No more problems.

On my Mac, I tolerate the occasional screen message telling me that Mail or some other service has quit.

And:

Just because the software running inside Apple’s personal computing devices is considered high quality doesn’t mean that the culture that produces it is capable of producing the high-reliability, real-time embedded software needed for an electric car.

A thoughtful column (as usual) from JLG.

To me, these issues are likely major topics of conversation within the Apple Car team. The bulletproof culture of embedded software (think about the software in your microwave oven, something that just can’t crash) is well known and, I suspect, embedded expertise is part of the talent being brought into Apple’s automobile efforts.

Ed Colligan, Palm CEO from long ago:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

We shall see.