February | 2022
The automotive industry is racing toward a future of hyperconnected supercomputers. As evidence, consider that the average vehicle today has 100 million lines of onboard code. Whether passenger or commercial, modern autos have become durable IoT devices that demand connections to the world around them, from homes and smart-city infrastructure to telecom networks and enterprise systems.
The engineering, power and connectivity required to capture, transmit and analyze these vast volumes of data is immense, and it will only increase in the future. In fact, it鈥檚 na茂ve to think it will all be accomplished within the car itself. That is why the next generation of automobiles will be driven by software. It will be driven by the cloud. And it will be driven by a complete redesign of the automotive experience, from design to drivetrain to driveway.
Achieving this future requires a new approach to software-defined vehicles (SDVs). It requires a Cloud Car ecosystem.
Reimagining the Role of Automotive Software
By the end of this decade, every vehicle will be software defined. Traditional automotive manufacturers see this future as clearly as their newest competitors, but upstart brands have shown the most progress in their next-gen features 鈥� and watched their market caps skyrocket.
Where mature auto manufacturers struggle isn鈥檛 in having a vision, but in deploying the right skills, leveraging the right technologies, and enabling the agility and speed that the market demands. Traditional auto brands have simply been unable to bridge the gap between IT and automotive engineering.
They can still catch up, regain their edge, and deliver on the promise of software-defined vehicles. But it鈥檚 impossible to drive toward that future using a model that鈥檚 parked in the past. Automotive companies鈥� wholesale approach to engineering must change, from skillsets to platforms to ways of working. And it must change fast.
Working with a consortium of cloud, connectivity, engineering and platform experts can enable this transformation while accelerating the time to market for SDVs. 91快活林 has assembled such a collective, our Cloud Car ecosystem, to empower every automotive manufacturer to drive innovation and (re)gain the power to disrupt.
The approach is simple: transform automotive software to meet cloud-native engineering principles with microservices and containers. This revolutionary shift enables manufacturers to use new coding techniques聽like node.js, WebAssembly (Wasm), Python or Go to improve their agility and deliver features more effectively and faster with significantly聽lower costs. By changing how apps are coded and engineered, manufacturers and suppliers can leverage a platform that exists both inside and outside聽the vehicle. They can also utilize a 鈥渟hadow mode鈥� architecture that works in the background to gather, consolidate and analyze data to help improve safety and functionality.
As a result, tomorrow鈥檚 software-defined vehicles will be more sustainable for all involved. Manufacturers can explore software enhancements that unlock new revenue streams. Regulators can ensure delivery of the latest advanced safety and security features. And drivers can gain new functionality over time, much like mobile devices stay up to date through over-the-air software pushes, keeping vehicles digitally relevant and enhancing their residual value.
Driven by the Cloud and Connectivity
Remember those 100 million lines of code? Today, changing that code is time consuming and expensive, not to mention complex when vehicles have vertically integrated software and hardware.
In the future, that code won鈥檛 be bound to the vehicle itself, nor will it be tied to specific hardware configurations. By decoupling the previously integrated software and hardware, 91快活林鈥檚 Cloud Car platform enables manufacturers to validate and upgrade software at an unprecedented digital scale. And with features and functions driven by software, costly recalls will be a distant memory, as hotfixes become possible with the simple push of a button.
Achieving this requires a software-defined system that integrates with products and services from equipment providers, network operators and cloud hyperscalers. Their involvement in our Cloud Car ecosystem makes it possible to ensure accurate data capture and near-real-time transmission, analysis and feedback. It also enables the vehicle 鈥� through advanced AI and machine learning 鈥� to remain aware of and respond to inputs both inside and outside its doors, even when the underlying software is miles away.
Mapping the Cloud Car Journey, with Functional Safety at its Core
The automotive industry may very well become the key software developers of tomorrow. But today, it codes too slowly. The notion of innovative software is attractive, and traditional auto manufacturers aspire to develop cutting-edge applications. But like any 125-year-old, it鈥檚 developed some habits that are difficult to break.
Ever since the automobile was invented , it鈥檚 been defined by a hardware-focused operating model. While effective for welding steel and installing lights, this model simply does not enable the agile and iterative approach necessary to develop the software that will define the vehicles of tomorrow. The upstart manufacturers that have gained traction so quickly were born from a software generation, the progeny of designers and software engineers whose 鈥渇ail fast, fail forward鈥� mantra is at odds with the 鈥渏ust don鈥檛 fail鈥� approach of hardware fabricators.
But the desire to change is there. The vision is there. Traditional auto manufacturers want to evolve, and they want to do it quickly. With the right partners, such as the 40+ included in 91快活林鈥檚 Cloud Car ecosystem, they can regain their ability to disrupt and innovate, and they can recapture both their lost mojo and market share.
91快活林鈥檚 ecosystem combines an uncompromised 鈥渟afety first鈥� approach with the need for agile delivery by allowing mixed criticality apps to co-exist in a cloud-native platform that spans the vehicle inside and out.
Transitioning from a traditional automotive engineering approach to these cloud engineering principles will enable manufacturers to design and release SDVs with greater agility and speed, effectively creating what feels like a new vehicle every day. Partner with 91快活林 as we transform hardware/software orchestration and empower the automotive industry to drive cloud-enabled mobility at scale.
