As the automotive industry continues to pursue the Software-Defined Vehicle, a growing number of OEMs are rolling out innovative technologies, services and business models that will, together, facilitate its arrival.

While having kick-started this innovation through its popularization of OTA updates, Tesla has now influenced many mainstream automakers into offering OTA as a core feature in both their premium and mass-market vehicles. Today, some luxury OEMs and new market entrants are now extending the scope of OTA by embedding firmware over-the-air updates (FOTA) and features-as-a-service (FaaS) into their latest models. This example represents one of many hardware and software use cases set to evolve rapidly in anticipation of the Software-Defined Vehicle and highlights the need for OEMs to gain a comprehensive understanding of the evolving landscape for SDVs as they develop their own.

In this Insight, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the SDV reports we’ve released so far in 2024, including an exciting new entry in our family of SDV reports set to launch later this year. While detailing their key features and benefits, we will also hear from Masahiro Otsuka, Senior SDV Expert for SBD Automotive Japan, who will highlight the significance of these reports and who could benefit the most from each one.

Software-Defined Vehicle: E/E Architecture

Today, legacy OEMs, newer players, and even global tech giants are developing vehicles that shift the responsibility of hardware and software from supporting select vehicle features to driving the full vehicle experience. With E/E architectures set to play a pivotal role in these new vehicles, while already representing a key component in many models today, any OEM looking to develop their own SDV must be well prepared to embrace them further by carefully planning and mapping out a holistic approach to them. Not only will this help them unlock new revenue streams, but also enable them to create cost-effective vehicles that are safer, more secure, and provide enhanced system usability

Highlighting the state-of-the-art of today’s E/E architectures and the journey to enable an SDV, helps planners and engineers navigate the vast E/E landscape. New for 2024, it provides deep insights into the decision-making practices that enable year-on-year delivery with optimal utility and costs, and profiles the latest E/E trends and technologies. The report similarly details the latest strategies and deployments from more than 30 automotive OEMs, while deeply analyzing architectures by models, vehicle 3.0 archetypes, functional domains, centralized computing, and more. Updated annually to account for new movements in the E/E landscape, the guide’s accompanying Excel version offers even more comprehensive insights, utilizing the latest data to encourage strong decision-making with thousands of data points presented with every release.

 The leading contributors provided further insights into its overall relevance to the SDV. Most notably, said, “Some OEMs have announced launches of zonal architecture over the next couple of years to help overcome challenges made by function-oriented architecture. This means the evolution of E/E architecture will continue to be a critical pillar for the continued evolution of SDVs as a whole. All the SDV stakeholders at OEMs as well as for those suppliers needing to stay on top of global trends surrounding E/E architectures.”

Software-Defined Vehicle Forecast

As the industry races towards the SDV, legacy OEMs are deploying upgraded hardware and software capabilities to offer a contemporary, high-tech user experience that complements the consumer’s digital life, while newer players and start-ups are launching all-new technologies, features, and services developed from the ground up. However, the market for these capabilities ultimately relies on the correlation between the vehicle’s E/E architecture and the platforms adopted from its ecosystem. As such, any OEM, brand, or start-up looking to develop an SDV must be equipped with strong strategies that recognize this correlation and can evolve dynamically.

Our Software-Defined Vehicle Forecast provides a grounded assessment of the growth enabling new SDV technologies in different regions and segments. The major OEM groups are expected to deploy future E/E architecture elements while comprehensively assessing how these elements are expected to evolve. The impact of OEM strategies on SDV adoption, while also understanding how the rate of adoption and SDV trends will vary from region to region. Accompanying this report is a data-driven Excel version, which offers deep analysis sorted by brand, country, and revenue.

Experts wanted to emphasize that “Although the industry in general is aiming at higher and higher levels of SDVs, there are many challenges that still need to be addressed. Some of these challenges include developing/sourcing low-cost components and architecture for level 3.0 or higher vehicles, the use of more flexible software stacks that allow for enhanced architecture scalability and many more.”

Software Development for the SDV

While sitting at the core of future SDV success, software development is already having a transformative impact across many industry processes – from the early stages of vehicle development through to the continued support of E/E platforms. At the same time, these new software development practices are elevating the roles and responsibilities of the automakers, suppliers, and technologies working towards the SDV. As today’s vehicle software and software development practices continue to advance, OEMs, suppliers, and automotive software developers must understand how and where these practices can be elevated as they work towards the Software-Defined Vehicle of tomorrow.

Automotive OEMs are facing the SDV’s most critical software development challenges. Here, it understands how organizational and technical strategies can mutually optimize vehicle software development while highlighting the capabilities of tool sets being used today, and the non-automotive software development trends set to impact the automotive value chain. A deep dive into the business side of SDV software development compares the trends between software development in-sourcing and out-sourcing while assessing the roles and strategies OEMs and suppliers are enacting to accelerate SDV development. Automakers and their partners are leveraging technologies like the cloud, digital twin, and DevOps tool kits to accelerate SDV software development and secure success.

 The software development teams and their leaders to learn and stay on top of the rapidly developing trends within software development and to help learn how to best implement new tools available within the market. The evolution of SDVs requires modern and agile software development methodology to be used while also still maintaining adaptability to new and different development tools.

Next Steps

With dozens of automakers working rapidly to realize the SDV, and more of its enabling technologies reaching the market today, it is now essential to have robust strategies in place that both recognize the impacts it will have on traditional automotive practices and enable true long-lasting innovation. From the early stages of development through to the best practices for enabling future adoption, together they provide a comprehensive source of knowledge designed to advance, strengthen, and future proof your SDV strategies.