Ever since the first mass-produced consumer vehicles rolled off production lines, manufacturers and drivers have been looking for ways to personalise the driving experience.
From the early days of in-car radios to today’s personalised maps and seat adjustments, we’ve come a long way from Henry Ford’s “Any colour you like, as long as it’s black.”
Ten years ago, the revelation that even standard cars had more than 100 million lines of code raised questions about the future of future business models in a ‘pressed metal’ industry. By then, it was clear that software was becoming a competitive advantage for automakers – the question was how to speed up development cycles to make the most of this opportunity. As one embedded systems expert told Wired magazine at the time: “The theme I hear time and time again from every single one of our customers is that you’ve got to help us move at the pace of consumer electronics. It’s no longer acceptable to move at the pace of automotive.”
How are automakers meeting the challenge?
Making the CASE
Fast forward to 2022 and we have the answer: software engineers working side-by-side with traditional engineers. Last year, Toyota announced plans to increase its intake of software engineers by 50%; GM says it will hire over 8,000 new tech employees in 2022, VW’s ‘Faculty 73’ programming school in Wolfsburg is growing in-house talent – its dedicated CARIAD software division has over 4500 developers and designers, with plans to double in size by 2025.
This shift is part of a broader industry strategy as automakers pivot to becoming tech companies that also build vehicles. In a world where the next generation of cars will be CASE – connected, autonomous, shared, electric – software plays a crucial role in shaping the future of mobility.
Partnerships are also key. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares summed it up during the Financial Times Future of the Car event: “If you don’t change, you disappear…we’re not here to protect the past, we’re here to adapt ourselves to the future…the biggest risk is the status quo.”
Software-defined development meets user-defined experience
Today, software-defined development sits front-and-centre for automakers building a new generation of user-defined experiences for their customers. By adopting a ‘code first’ approach, organisations as seemingly diverse as Bosch, Continental, Cariad and Microsoft are looking to build software stacks for core functionality to enable what the Eclipse Foundation calls an “Order of magnitude increase in the speed of innovation, speed of production, and the ability to scale the production of software-centric vehicles.”
Why is this important? Because consumers expect the same level of tech integration in their cars as they get with their smartphones and other devices. Automakers now have the opportunity to continually refine and enhance the user experience – offering services like over-the-air updates, pre-emptive maintenance, and intelligent profiling. This will enable personalised services and support the rise of mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), where users can carry their preference with them, no matter the vehicle.
Keep it simple: meeting customer expectations
However, as the pace of software-led innovation ramps up, automakers are encountering a new challenge: articulating the value proposition to customers. At the recent Future of the Car conference, McKinsey automotive expert Michele Bertoncello said that less than 50% of customers surveyed in 2022 were satisfied with the connected services and connectivity in their vehicles. The reason? Over-complication.
From complex interfaces to poorly defined features and services, there’s often a gap between what the technology can do and the customer’s ability to understand it and make use of it. Leading auto-journalist Amanda Stretton reported taking half an hour to figure out how to turn the radio on in one of the latest consumer EV models, thanks to a labyrinth of menus: “Having all the functions, all the connectivity, all the technologies is wonderful – but the really key factor is actually making it user-friendly.” For Bertoncello, this is often down to a lack of strategic clarity in terms of what automakers, suppliers and service providers want their customers to do and how they want their connected services to actually work.
The solution lies in maximising insights from customer usage data to better align the technology with what customers need. As Cubic3 CEO Barry Napier observes, customer experience as the primary driver of technology and services roadmaps is as important as building strong capabilities around digital, services and connectivity.
The future is software-defined and customer-centric
Cubic3’s connected software and analytics solutions are helping leading automakers to bring their vision of software-defined vehicles to life. Explore3 provides automakers with the connected intelligence they need to innovate new mobility services, enhance customer experiences and optimise performance through real-time monitoring and alerts.
