What is a software-defined vehicle?
The industry has broad agreement about what an SDV is. In truth, a software-defined vehicle is many things. They possess a richly upgradable system that can add services, leverage modern design practices, highly connected to the internet, and in which software is integral to the design instead of defined around fixed hardware modules. To start, an SDV is flexible. It’s based on flexible hardware that does multiple tasks programmed by software, in which software for different tasks coexist. Software-defined vehicles are also upgradable with new features and services over its entire lifecycle from pre-production to post-production to after sales enabling continuous innovation. It is also important to note that SDVs are data-driven and built around data - collection, management, and analysis. All-encompassing, they are connected. SDVs are connected to the cloud and leverages development in and management from the cloud to enable these capabilities.
Besides all these definitions, we have our own approach derived from the IT background of our team - which used to build infrastructure for data centers, cloud, and service providers. In our view, the vehicle has to be a platform, an entity that is ever-evolving over its entire lifetime. This constant evolution is based on more technologies than just the OTA – in which it often takes weeks if not months to enable a campaign update for an entire fleet. As such, a software-defined vehicle needs to be able to receive upgrades in real time and, ideally, it should not only be a platform for innovation for OEM vehicle and software engineers, but also for others in the vehicle value chain. This includes the many OEM departments that are charged with making better, more innovative vehicles and services, Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, insurance companies, fleet managers, dealers, and even consumers. In this way, obviously assuming appropriate and comprehensive safety and security measures are in place, the whole pre-production and post-production supply chains could potentially contribute to a vehicle’s innovation. Everybody has a digital life and, at the moment, the principal gateways into it are the cellphone or the PC, but soon the vehicle is going to transform into another gateway since it will become the most complex IOT device out there. This transformation extends beyond the consumer, being the biggest shift that the industry is facing and having the power to impact all aspects of society.
What are the specifics of your platform and what possible challenges could this software intensive approach bring to the industry?
First of all, we are laying the groundwork of the infrastructure layer and then we are building it up into the application. Not only the operating system is vital, but also the networks and hardware resources, the connectivity and, above all, the security of all these elements. The software needs to be reliable, flexible and quick to adapt to all kinds of unexpected situations. Since, nowadays, cars are generating much more data than a cellphone, they can be considered data centers on wheels. But all this amount of data needs not only to be processed and analyzed but also kept extremely safe so as not to have unwanted breaks into the OEM's cloud and thus affecting an entire fleet.
How will all these technological changes shape the automotive sector in the years to come?
Although the public viscerally understands this transition, the deep technology remains a mystery to many because it is difficult to grasp the value proposition and the technological implications if you have not lived through this kind of software transformation before. It took us 40 years to go through this evolution in the world of IT and, now, the automotive sector has to do it in the next ten years or so. Since 1980, computers went from being individual hardware silos to having operating systems and applications (e.g., Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop). When connectivity and network-shared storage appeared, the entire paradigm shifted and we arrived in the age of big data and cloud computing. Similarly, vehicles started out as isolated products that had several silos inside of them (e.g., engine ECU, GPS ECU, etc.) and now we have universal connectivity options that interact with each other.
The ethernet has become a central technology in our cars and as we are going forward more and more software solutions will ensue. In all this transition, our mission is to bring our expertise to bear to help accelerate vehicle software innovation because we have seen this playbook before in IT and, thus, we feel we have the right expertise to help the sector move even faster.
How much will society change thanks to software advancements over the next 20 years?
Because some groundbreaking ideas will surface only ten or twenty years from now, our goal is to develop a platform where innovation can be unlocked and promote use cases and needs we know today as well as future ones that will come next. In addition to these, we need to take into consideration the change in the ownership model of vehicle ownership. The younger generation is becoming interested in getting from point A to point B in whatever car (according to their immediate need) rather than buying and owning a single vehicle. In this context, car makers have the option to develop subscription models where people can check out various car models. However, insurance companies will be the first ones affected by these potential changes as they will not have the traditional owner-car couple so they will need to think of new approaches when it comes to equitable quotes. Last but not least, in order to successfully navigate all these software transformations, we need to make sure we have the right infrastructure in place. From Sonatus' point of view, we are simply trying to be a platform of enabling technologies and solutions that empower vehicle manufacturers to innovate boldly and realize their transformational visions for future mobility.
