[Software] Software-defined vehicles are revolutionizing what it means to own a car

[Love Pulse]

The era of the software-defined vehicle has dawned, upending the established dynamic that a car depreciates once it leaves the lot. Instead it's just the starting point for the car's future functionality.

Influenced by the evolution of consumer electronics applications and fueled by the relentless improvements in technology, tools and standards, the automotive industry is entering a new era that is redefining how we think of automobiles. Consumers are interested in higher levels of automated safety features, while a concerted move towards electrified powertrains and infotainment technologies is delivering a smartphone-like experience in the car. The idea of taking a vehicle to the dealership to be hooked up to a computer to gain diagnostic information or update software and settings is becoming primitive.

Instead, the software-defined vehicle promises a far more polished, rewarding experience of car ownership. Consumers will get in their car to drive to work and, just like the software updates they're used to on their smartphones, they'll receive a notification that the steering system has been upgraded to give more precise handling, the advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) has a new capability to aid their highway driving or that their vehicle's range has just been increased based on analysis of thousands of hours of battery cycles.

Or perhaps they'll be given or offered an entirely new feature that was never part of their original purchase decision, yet one they'll grow to rely upon. That will cement their brand loyalty - at least until another manufacturer implements a superior solution.

The developer advantage
Software infrastructure companies see a huge potential for software-defined functions in the car. For example, Stefano Marzani, principal specialist, solutions architect, autonomous vehicles at Amazon Web Services, sees the software-defined vehicle as a simple definition with enormous potential.

“It’s a standard compute platform for vehicles with everything that standards imply,” he said. Marzani recently participated in an Arm DevSummit 2021 panel discussion with me and other industry experts. He compared the new design approach to the methodologies used in mobile development: “So you develop an application on your computer or Mac, and then you just deploy it on iPhones or Android phones, and it just works. The developer doesn't doubt that it is working.”

As more automotive functions become defined by software, the more opportunities arise throughout the whole value chain of the automotive industry. These include new business and bill-of-materials efficiencies by having software-defined functions rather than everything being hardware specific. There's also new potential revenue from either services or applications or even upgrades to the vehicle.

When the car leaves the dealer's lot, for example, you don't end the relationship between the automotive manufacturer and the consumer; it's just beginning. That’s because there are going to be these remote touchpoints through software upgrades or new services that are going to be available to the consumer.

Managing complexity
But before we get there, we have to nail the engineering, according to Martin Schleicher, head of software strategy at Continental. Asked on our panel whether it's engineering or software development that's more important for the future of the software-defined vehicle, he said:

“To be able to deliver software updates to consumers, we need to get the engineering part right. The complexity of the electronics – in particular, software – has been growing so heavily and this is expected to continue compared to other elements. This creates a big challenge of managing this complexity. The software-defined vehicle and the elements that Stefano explained earlier are mandatory for us – for the whole industry. In fact, the whole supply chain has to be able to deliver the software continuously, with high quality, and update it.”

Pierre Olivier, CTO of LeddarTech, said the consumers are calling the shots, based on their mobile phone experiences, and one harbinger of where software-defined vehicle design is headed can be seen in infotainment.

“Five years ago, everybody added discrete (infotainment) systems (to vehicles), and now consumers are demanding Android Auto and similar experiences in compliance with the standards, so it becomes a mandatory feature,” he said.

It's not just the smartphone experience that's important here; it's also the smartphone platform approach. Until the mid-2000s, a cellphone's hardware and software were coupled on the production line, with software-only updated if a significant bug was identified. It meant that annual cellphone upgrades were big business, just as trading in your car for the latest model was the only way to access new features and enhancements.

Smartphones changed this dynamic by decoupling hardware and software. The smartphone became a hardware