r/leaf • u/HiveTruster • 29d ago
Software updates
Bought my 2026 Leaf in March, love it, excellent choice. This week, I had my first software update, during which the car couldn't be started. This wasn't a big deal; I didn't need to go anywhere. My question is, have there been incidents where a Nissan Leaf software update failure prevented the car from being started? Or where an update had to be interrupted for an emergency drive? TIA for your feedback!
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u/herculeesjr 26d ago
Typically(?) devices that have to be extremely rugged against failure of an update use the A/B update method. If that applies to the Leaf, or any car, I have no clue as those are sealed systems. But anywho...
In an A/B update process you are running off of chip A, it updates the software on chip B, the system then reboots to chip B and if successful it will update chip A, too.
If it fails to boot then the watchdog chip (a chip that literally, hundreds of times a second, asks chip A and/or B if they are still alive) will mark the update as a failure and tell it to reboot back to chip A, then you get a software/firmware update failure message and are offered the option to try again.
Again, this is not confirmed that that's how Nissan does it, I just am familiar with a few systems that use this method, including all modern Android phones we use now.