"it is untenable for safety software to stop working if an infotainment system glitches, and so are exploring in-vehicle hypervisors to isolate different workloads"

The most effective way of preventing the infotainment system from stopping "safety" software working would be to isolate it with its own processor and nothing more in common with the rest of the vehicle than its power supply. The alternative proposed here is to build a SPoF.

Given the quality of the alleged "safety" S/W the best use of resources would be to concentrate on building some sanity into it.

Given the current state of the auto industry of ECUs galore, talking among themsleves over an unreliable CANBus or Automotive Eth, and each ECU being a SPoF for its own susbsytem...

...I reckon that having 2 or 3 beefy computers handling everything, and using Virtualization for separation and live migration for redundancy in case of a Big computer hardware failure seems like a better way of doing things to me.

If one single beefy computer fails, the car keeps on going (unlike today if, for example, the engine control module fails), if any susbsytem fails, the other keep on going (like today, with the example of the engine control module being isolated from the Infotaintment).

I guess if things have reached that stage (info taint ment), you're already kissing your arse goodbye!

I reckon that having 2 or 3 beefy computers handling everything, and using Virtualization for separation and live migration for redundancy in case of a Big computer hardware failure seems like a better way of doing things to me.

That's almost an aerospace approach. I'm sure you're right that its better in one sense, equally it's going to be much more expensive, and if the car has multiple CPUs, then chances are it will be deemed un-roadworthy if one of them isn't working (in the same way it won't be roadworthy if one of a dual braking circuit setup is not working). So a far more costly approach doesn't save me from the costs of failure, it simply mitigates a single cause of roadside failure. And if there's three CPUs, then I've got three times the chance of a failure.

Maybe not an idea for mass market cars.

Mobile Firewall for only $£€20 a month.

Because $badguy has figured an easy remote way into one of these computers, you need to be protected.

I passed a vintage Mini in London recently. It was tiny compared to today's 'mini' size cars. It was functional. It was cheap. It was fun. Cars today are safer, I grant that. But as fun?

Which channel you choose using the virtual switch is now telemetry and metadata to be stored for 30 years.

Numerous manufacturers have hidden away in the Term & Conditions that they reserve the right to retain voice recording from inside the car which of course will never be hacked, leaked or used against you aka Big Brother.

How did we sleepwalk into allowing this to happen ?

The rot set in when they gave the Mini wind-up windows.

It would be nice if auto makers got the bugs out of infotainment systems first. The last two cars have had serious bugs which never got fixed. My latest uses Google Automotive which extends even into the door locks. For some reason the audio sometimes doesn’t wake up for a couple of minutes, which is how I noticed the indicator relay noise is electronically generated. And the courtesy lights don’t work properly. Give me door switches and radios with knobs on any day.

(on the dashboard screen): "Out Of Memory: You are about to get into a major accident. In 30 milliseconds I will need to give more priority to the anti-lock brakes, air bags, automatic collision avoidance steering and 9-1-1 autodial. Please choose which low priority VM to kill: 1) Back seat movie #1, 2) Back seat movie #2, 3) Satellite radio, 4) GPS navigation"

My current Volvo is 7 years old. After annual software updates:

* Occasionally the whole touchscreen goes black after starting the engine and takes 5-6 minutes to reboot.

* During this period it's impossible to change the temperature, fan speed etc, all of which is controlled from the touch screen.

* A few weeks ago it was impossible to change the radio volume and the indicator click went silent until I turned it off and on again.

* The road sign speed limit indicator will occasionally not work until the car is restarted.

* The collision avoidance occasionally slams the brakes on if it sees a car parked on a bend.

It does have several positives such as the tyre pressure monitoring which tells you which tyre is low. Plus it's comfortable and my version (2 litre front WD diesel) is very economical.

A few weeks ago I had a new version on loan from the main dealer. It had all the same annoyances that my 7 year old one has plus added annoyances.

* You can turn the lane keeping function off by delving in the menus, but it turns itself on again whenever you restart the car.

* If you go 2mph over the speed limit it beeps at you repeatedly. You can't turn this off.

* Quite often it will pick up a lower speed limit sign on a side street and put the brakes on. You can't turn this off.

* Everything you turn off will reset itself every time you restart the car.

* There is no longer a Diesel version and the petrol version does 35mpg compared to the 58mpg of mine.

Any wonder that I love my Mk.2 Golf GTI so much?

No just no, running your car on a virtualised operating system doesn't sound too stable to me. For instance if updating the infotainment system caused the steering wheel to change orientation. Isolated independent dedicate hardware doing the one task is the most reliable solution.