The Ins and Outs of the Software Defined Vehicle

Brian Carlson, Director of Global Product and Solutions Marketing at NXP, is back on Point B to continue his discussion on the evolution of SDVs, this time with a focus on software. How are new E/E architectures (discussed in last month’s episode) changing the way automakers do software? How are OEMs navigating this new world of OTA updates and full-vehicle data logging? What challenges must be overcome to ensure success?

0:54 What is a software defined vehicle? 

3:23 Reducing build cost with SDVs

5:40 Consumer education around SDVs

8:05 The best ways to bring updates to the consumer

10:35 Bringing third parties into automotive to create better experiences

12:30 Challenges faced by the key players in SDVs

Announcer:

Welcome back to another episode of Point B, a Sibrospodcast where we interview industry experts about the latest innovations andtrends in automotive technology and the connected vehicle industry. Tune in tolearn about topics ranging from the next generation of electric vehicles toadvances in connectivity and micromobility.

Steve Schwinke:

Welcome to our Point B podcast where we discuss the futureof mobility and transportation products and services. My name is SteveSchwinke, vice president of customer engagement at Sibros. And today, joiningus again is Brian Carlson, director of global product and solutions marketingat NXP Semiconductors. And today, we're going to talk about thesoftware-defined vehicle. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Carlson:

Hey, great to be back and dig a little bit more into thesoftware side of SDV, definitely.

Steve Schwinke:

Let's just start with what is a software-defined vehicle?What is your definition of a software-defined vehicle?

Brian Carlson:

Yeah, there's a lot of definitions, just over-the-airupdates of software, which people have been doing for some time, at least insome respects, isn't enough. So software-defined vehicle, is, it'sall-encompassing of how we define and how do we deploy our vehicles goingforward. At a top level, when we talked last, I talked about the shift fromhardware-centric by defining functions in the vehicle by adding new boxes, andthat's just, that doesn't scale. That process is broken, so moving to software.So fundamentally, the first definition of software-defined vehicle is that nowwe add new capabilities, new functions, and improving that vehicle over timethrough new software that's deployed into these new architectures that wetalked about before, whether they're domain or zonal or a combination of them.

But it goes beyond that. It's not just the ability toupdate, but you have to look at the whole process and how software goingforward in automotive is going to be developed. And that side is reallyinteresting, because it really involves the cloud. It involves a lot ofvirtualization. And to be able to develop software and test software, thousandsof engineers and OEMs and tier ones in the cloud, and to be able to validatethat and then deploy that to the cloud, and that whole development process isreally interesting. It's bringing in virtualization. It's bringing inmodel-based design tools. It's bringing in realtime data from vehicles of how Ican test this with real vehicle data, and it's about this whole continuousimprovement, continuous deployment or CICD.

It's a whole DevOps flow that comes with it. And then youdo use the over-the-air update to deploy those services, whether it's throughKubernetes, containers, or other mechanisms to deploy new services to thevehicle. So it's not just about over-the-air updates. It's the whole mechanismof being able to develop and deploy software to the vehicle, and to have thehardware in place that can consolidate all of this into more, I think, higherperformance computers or system on chip like the vehicle computer, or the zonalgateways that really change the game of defining it through software, notthrough hardware boxes.

Steve Schwinke:

So with the software-defined vehicle, is there anopportunity to reduce the cost of builds, of number of vehicle builds that youhave to do because you can rely on the cloud and other tools to do thatdevelopment effort and do the testing on?

Brian Carlson:

Yeah, that's a good point. And this whole topic of avirtual development environment is really key to going forward with SDVs. Andthat does have the ability to reduce a lot of cost, because now a lot of thatwork can be done in the cloud. And that impacts us too, because the traditionalmodel is that we would provide a board or a box and then our customers would developon that, and that would have to wait until Silicon was available. But now whatwe're seeing 12 months, 18 months ahead of time, we could provide the virtualmodel of our silicon and you can extend those models even to the box level, tothe subsystem level. So what happens is now, instead of one person working on achip on their desktop or in a lab, we're seeing that this development is beingdone in the cloud with thousands of engineers. And so that allows them to getstarted and develop software up to two years, 18 months or so, ahead of actualSilicon.

That is huge. And that's what the industry is callingshift left, because we're shifting things to the left in time. Now, the otherkey part of that, it's not only for the development, but it is for the testingof the vehicles. It is for the actual production vehicles, of how do we rapidlyupdate vehicles over the life. And in the US, vehicles are, on the average, 12years old. So there's a whole opportunity to continually improve and actuallygenerate revenue from new features or subscription models for the OEMs toprovide new capabilities to these vehicles. So this whole virtual developmentenvironment is really fundamental to not only the development, the testing andthe deployment of production vehicle services over the life of the vehicle, andin the process of doing that, it does save costs. You may not have to build asmany vehicles, as many boxes, it cetera, and it sets up the future to do thingsmuch more quickly and in an agile manner so that new functionality cancontinually be developed and deployed to the vehicles.

Steve Schwinke:

I get the OEM opportunities. Less cost, faster to market,constantly updating the new vehicle. Do you think we'll ever talk to consumers,the customers of OEMs, the people that buy these cars and say, "Hey,you're getting a software defined vehicle?" Or how do we talk to peoplethat are buying cars, what this SDV really means to them?

Brian Carlson:

That's a great point, and actually, I had a conversationwith someone last week or a couple weeks ago, embedded world, and this is atopic I brought up, that much like today with electric vehicles, electricvehicles are foreign to most consumers, to really understand what they have tooffer, how they change, how you commute and how you charge, and all this. Avery similar thing, I believe, has to happen in software-defined vehiclesbecause it does change the game. It does change your vehicle, because the worstyour vehicle is ever going to be is when you get it off the lot, which isamazing. It's the opposite. You get new features. You can actually, the valueof that vehicle can increase over time in some cases as you update thecapabilities.

And so this does require a consumer education because theyneed to understand that this is a totally different model that we're actuallycan monitor what's going on in your vehicle for problems before that checkengine light comes on, so we can actually tell you that there's some wear goingon in your brakes and you're going to need to get those replaced at a certaintime. Or there's even, even more intelligent vehicle health capabilities wherewe could help extend the life before that check engine light or also streamlinethat whole operation with the supply chain even, where we can order the part,have the part ready, and we can notify you, "You're going to have aproblem with this part. We have a part ready for you. We can schedule theappointment," and make it a seamless experience.

So there is going to have to be an education about howthese cars get smarter over time, how they adapt to you, how they communicateand make the vehicle ownership more seamless for you, and how the services thatthey can provide over their lifetime can provide you benefits. So there'sdefinitely this learning model, the learning process that has to go on orteaching process to the consumers about how the game is changing, and thatneeds to start happening pretty soon, much like we're seeing the education ofelectric vehicle customers.

Steve Schwinke:

So you mentioned before that there was OTA capabilitiesthat we're going to see used more and more, not only to fix problems, but alsoto enhance the value of the vehicle, create new products and services andrevenue opportunities for OEMs. Is our industry ready to start chargingcustomers for software updates that add new products and features?

Brian Carlson:

Yeah, so putting this infrastructure in allows thecapabilities to be, whether it's enhancements, new features, whether it's asubscription model, and with the new security capabilities, you can be even betime limited. If I'm going on a trip, the ability to say, "I want morehorsepower or more range for the weekend trip I'm taking," or if I need acertain capability at a certain top of year, I think the infrastructure isbeing in place to actually enable that. Where the work has to be done is how dowe bring this to the consumer and how do we offer that in compelling packages?The issue's always been, "Do I want to pay $20 a month or somesubscription fee for services?" Is that going to be compelling enough forthe consumer to do that?

And if you look at the OEMs, they're typically talking 20million plus, or 20 billion plus annually, incremental revenue from softwareand services. I think from the perspective of the technology, theinfrastructure that's being put in place and where the work has to be happeningin parallel is how do I bring that to consumers in a way that they can reallytake advantage of that, and they're very happy because they need to get value.If they're going to be paying a subscription, they need to identify thoseservices and capabilities that provide value to them, and they're willing tospend that money to the OEMs and move the industry forward.

'Cause that's really where the innovation's going tohappen, is once we have the applications and services that can easily bedeployed, much like the smartphone area where we saw applications explode andopportunities for revenue for a lot of people as well as benefits to theconsumer, because now I can do a lot more, that vehicle becomes smarter and cando a lot more things. And so all of that has to come together. The consumershave to be educated and the services need to be packaged and bundled and pricedappropriately and providing the value to the consumers.

Steve Schwinke:

Yeah, I agree with you. It just starts with value. If thecustomer or consumer sees value that they do not have a problem paying for thatvalue, that added features, but you did bring up a interesting point around thesoftware defined vehicle maybe opens up the ecosystem to bring in thirdparties, to bring in people that are normally not part of the automotiveindustry into creating better experiences for owners of vehicles. Do you think that'sgoing to continue to grow and be enhanced?

Brian Carlson:

Yeah, I think innovation requires a whole ecosystem. It'snot just going to be the OEM or the tier one, et cetera. It needs to be a broadecosystem. And that even means companies that are not in automotive today. Andpart of the value of SDV is that it puts in the infrastructure to be able toget access to data in new ways, to be able to combine new types of data and tobe able to provide that in a common language like what Kovis is doing, of a standardlanguage. And then if you give access to mobile companies that can doapplications on the phone that can interact with the SDV or companies that arecoming into automotive. They have great ideas. They're not traditionallyautomotive, but they can bring those ideas into automotive and run actually inthe vehicle, and that's why the Silicon's really important.

We talked about, in a previous episode about the safetyand security and [inaudible] isolate. That is fundamental to SDV, but it'scritical as part of evolving this so the ecosystem can grow and bring thoseinnovations, because now that gives them a safe and secure area that they candeploy really innovative applications and it gives the opportunity for revenuesharing with the OEM also. So I think there's motivation for the OEMs to enablethis, and the hardware is being put in place to enable this whole ecosystem ofnew companies to provide services and value to consumers, and there'sopportunities for revenue for multiple parties.

Steve Schwinke:

Yeah, I always like to say that great moments are bornfrom great opportunities, but those opportunities don't come withoutchallenges. And I think you touched on them, but let's review. What are some ofthe biggest ones that you're seeing in the semiconductor world, and then howdoes that translate to what the OEMs challenges are as they move to thesedifferent architectures, and really, back to that software defined vehicle?

Brian Carlson:

Yeah, it really changes the game, on every aspects, we touchedon the hardware and how the hardware has to be designed in a new way to havemulti-tenancy and to have the safety and security to isolate them. We talkedabout the cloud, the use of the cloud not only for leveraging vehicle data, andthat's going to be used for digital twins and machine learning and the wholevirtual development environment. All of those are the challenges that whetherit's us on the Silicon or the cloud provider or the OEM of how they enable thatecosystem we talked about. There's quite a few challenges, but all the piecesare coming together.

Whether it's, like I said, what we're doing in theSilicon, how the industry comes together in organizations like Sophie or Covisaor Eclipse, the foundation that is really bringing the industry together tocome up with standard ways of doing the non-differentiating things so that theinnovation can be layered on top. So all of these pieces have to come together.All of these are new technologies, new approaches and new mechanisms that haveto be used, and by the industry collaborating, working together, that's goingto be key to the success of the STDs.

Steve Schwinke:

Thank you so much for giving us your insights into how thesoftware defined vehicle is going to be changing the way we think aboutautomotive design and what it means to the consumer, so thank you for joiningus today and look forward to talking to you again in the near future.

Brian Carlson:

Thank you. Enjoy talking about, definitely lots ofdisruption going on, but you hit the right thing, and it's about opportunityand really, the future looks bright for [inaudible], in the future, and thanksfor the opportunity to talk about it.

Announcer:

Thank you for tuning in to Point B. Join us next time formore autotech innovations and trends. Point B is brought to you by Sibros.