Bolt EV OTA Updates?

7366 Views 10 Replies 8 Participants Last post by wainair, Mar 5, 2017

jeff_h

Discussion Starter · Feb 19, 2017 (Edited by Moderator)

I am pretty sure I saw a reference in another thread somewhere (but can't find it) where an article quoted a GM engineer saying that the Bolt would get OTA updates via Onstar?

Yesterday morning when I started the car, the center infotainment screen was plain blue and then "Hello Jeff" appeared for about 3 seconds, and then the normal home screen appeared.

I hadn't seen that intro screen with my name before, and thought maybe this was just one of those periodic screens that comes up now and then (like on the Volt where they post a period ironic reminder on the infotainment screen to remind driver how distracting that very screen is), but my door lock settings had all changed from what they had been since I set them several weeks prior... so I wonder if an update was sent to the car and applied?

Just wondering if others have experienced this recently.

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canehdian

· #10 · Mar 4, 2017

somms said:
I would expect OTA updates for at least the Bolt's infotainment system as indicated in the Bolt owner's manual above.
If any other non-infotainment updates would ever be avail OTA as well for the Bolt, time will only tell!

Pleasantly surprised they have a non-onstar option. Figured it would be 'only available with onstar data plan' or something like that (critical recall updates would have to be free)

wainair said:
I'm a bit paranoid of OTA updates. My uncle had that in his Explorer. It was done via cellular. He lives in Northern Ontario where the Cel network can be patchy as far as signal goes. More than once he got into his truck and it wouldn't start because it was halfway through a download of an update. I know the Bolt is over wifi which will be much more reliable than cellular but what happens if the internet goes down halfway through an update? I don't want a system file corrupted because of an interruption!

OTA software updates don't just go wild and hope for the best.
Every software package has a unique signature called a hash that is generated with a very specific analysis algorithm. No two files would have the same hash if they're not the same file.
So the master file has a hash on record, the endpoint downloads a copy, calculates the hash on the copy, and if it matches the master, ok to proceed. If not, retry download until it does match. It should not be installing while downloading on the fly.

You're more likely to brick a device because of faulty code in the package or power interruption during installation than the OTA transfer process (integrity of data).

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