Manufacturers and consumers alike are interested in software-defined vehicles (SDVs) and the promise of upgrades via continuous over-the-air (OTA) updates. For consumers, SDVs will deliver new features, functionality and enhanced personalized experiences. For manufacturers (and even dealers and Tier 1s), SDVs will open new revenue opportunities and business models.
Industries outside the automotive sector have already realized this vision. Mobile-device and other tech companies regularly capture and analyze usage data to define and deliver future enhancements. To make a similar leap, automotive manufacturers not only need to embrace a software-engineering mindset, but also sufficiently provision in-vehicle hardware that – when combined with the cloud – enables long-term innovation.
This mindset is a paradigm shift and different from traditional auto engineering, which relies on hardware designed to minimize cost. A new philosophy is to over-provision, in reasonable steps, the computer hardware so manufacturers can use that capacity to create new value from software. Leveraging a customer base to help create continuously better software is the mastery of digital innovation. To realize these developmental and financial benefits, manufacturers must make bold hardware decisions today that will drive their sales performance tomorrow.