The 2021 Automotive Software Survey Report

PROACTIVE ANOMALY DETECTION CRUCIAL FOR SOFTWARE SECURITY IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

  • More than one-fifth of industry experts expect software sales to account for at least ten percent of carmakers' sales as early as 2027
  • More than half (53%) of respondents expect setback for electric offensive due to semiconductor shortage
  • 45% of respondents expect each connected vehicle to receive up to six OTA updates per year from 2025 onwards

 

Aurora Labs, provider of self-healing software for connected, autonomous, and electric vehicles announces the results of its annual Automotive Software Survey conducted together with the leading market research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics. For the survey, 140 international experts from the automotive and supplier industry as well as the software sector were surveyed. The participants work for European, American and Asian organizations.

Registration of electric vehicles is on the rise. However, the mass adoption of electric vehicles is threatened with a setback. 53% of the industry experts surveyed by Strategy Analytics and Aurora Labs expect the current semiconductor shortage to delay electric vehicle programs by at least six months. 15% of respondents even expect delays of one to two years.

INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION: CARMAKERS BECOME SOFTWARE-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

The Automotive Software Survey 2021 also shows how business models in the automotive industry are changing. 56% of the respondents assume that car manufacturers will already generate more than five percent of their turnover in 2027 through the sale of software that is rolled-out to vehicles via OTA updates. 21% of the experts even assume that software sales will already account for more than ten percent of carmakers' turnover in 2027. Car manufacturers must therefore transform themselves into software-based organizations considering the increasing revenue potential in the sale of software functions.

45% of respondents believe that each connected vehicle will receive two to six OTA updates in 2025. 15% of the participants even expect up to 24 OTA updates per year. The experts thus expect a significant increase in annual wireless software updates. This illustrates the increasing demand for cost-effective solutions for OTA updates in the automotive industry. As a recent analysis by Aurora Labs and the consultancy Guidehouse shows, automotive manufacturers can save nearly $100 million annually in data transmission costs by using smaller delta files for updates. In addition to the cost of OTA updates, security and redundancy of the solution are most important to 34% of the experts surveyed, as well as a seamless user experience by performing updates without downtime for 26%.

PROACTIVE ANOMALY DETECTION ENSURES SOFTWARE QUALITY

66% of the industry experts surveyed expect that by 2027 at the latest, more than one million vehicles per year will be produced worldwide that have powerful E/E architectures. This shows how relevant the UNECE's WP.29 requirements are for regulating software updates to ensure vehicle safety. The catalogue of regulations stipulates in which cases vehicles need a new type approval after receiving a software update. According to the survey by Strategy Analytics and Aurora Labs, only 14% of experts currently assume that the automotive industry will be able to meet the WP.29 requirements as early as 2022. 37% are in favor of postponing the implementation of the regulations until 2024.

Aurora Labs and Strategy Analytics also wanted to find out in their survey how software quality management is faring in the automotive industry. 47% of the experts surveyed said that it is difficult to understand the mutual relationships between vehicle control units. This can be remedied by solutions that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the interdependencies between software systems and thus proactively detect software anomalies. Industry experts agree that these technologies are urgently needed: 93% of respondents believe that it is important or very important to proactively fix software anomalies after vehicle delivery, rather than just reacting to them to avoid recalls.

 

To read the full 2021 Automotive Software Survey report, please click here

To read the 2020 Automotive Software Survey report, please click here

Stout’s 2020 Automotive Defect & Recall Report is a wakeup call!

WHAT:

With software-related recalls on the rise, is it time to embrace predictive software maintenance?

WHY you should read this:

  • We highlight the main trends from Stout's 2020 report
  • We explore the significance of these trends: Software-related recalls and OTA updates
  • We dig deeper and explore what these trends mean for the industry
  • We question whether recalls are necessary or whether cars could be serviced remotely

Stout's 2020 Automotive Defect and Recall Report got us thinking about one of Elon Musk's tweets from 2013. In response to Tesla having to recall nearly 30,000 of its sedans because of a fire risk caused by the vehicle's charging equipment overheating, Musk tweeted: "The word "recall" needs to be recalled". And in this case, that's just what Tesla did by offering an over-the-air (OTA) software update instead of actually recalling the faulty vehicles. In many ways, this tweet was a watershed moment for the industry. And this idea of software-related recalls is echoed strongly in the latest Stout report.

As we find ourselves at the beginning of the new year, we thought it would be helpful to reflect on some of the main trends highlighted in Stout's 2020 report. Because reports like this set the stage for what's to come and in some senses hint at the bigger issues OEMs and suppliers may be forced to grapple within the coming year. The report highlights a trend we all know isn't going anywhere anytime soon and something that a relentless maverick and visionary like Musk already knew in 2013: That software-related innovation is going to play an increasingly important role in new automotive functionality, and that software-related recalls will not be far behind. The report clearly shows this trend.

But all this got us thinking: Could there be a better, more efficient way of dealing with software recalls? Perhaps it's time to embrace predictive software maintenance.

Change is in the Air: Key Trends and Highlights

In many ways Stout's 2020 Automotive Defect and Recall Report highlights what we already know to be true: Software-related recalls are on the increase.

The report highlights the fact that:

  • In 2019 we saw a significant increase in the number of software-related defects when compared to previous years: There was a ~ 10% increase in software-related defects from 2018 to 2019
  • Software-related recalls reached record numbers in 2019 with 2 of the largest recalls of the year (including a safety recall) involving software
  • An estimated 6.5 million vehicles that were recalled for electronic component defects received software remedies, making 2019 the year with the greatest number of software-based campaigns

Interestingly, the report also hints at the fact that while more and more manufacturers are warming up to the idea of OTA updates, they still aren't widely used (for the entire vehicle). We predict that this is going to change. In fact, from conversations we've had with several of our clients and announcements from various car manufacturers, we know this is changing. We predict that full-vehicle OTA updates will become increasingly popular as more and more manufacturers embrace the technology. And while this innovation will enable remote repair and may even lessen the load when it comes to recalls, we shouldn't stop here. We shouldn't just be striving to ease the load and make recalls more efficient but rather focusing on predictive software maintenance. This means being able to predict which software is causing the issue before it causes the vehicle to fail, and using OTA updates, we'll be able to fix it before any harm is caused.

Predictive Software Maintenance to the Rescue

The Stout report highlights the increase in software-related recalls and hints at the role OTA updates will come to play. But we'd argue it doesn't go far enough. Because of innovations like OTA updates, we see the emergence of a powerful trend: Predictive software maintenance. But what does that really mean? And what will this mean for the automotive industry?

Essentially, predictive software maintenance is a shift away from the tried and trusted reactive approach which only fixes problems after they have caused what often turn out to be catastrophic failures. This is unplanned, reactive maintenance and is how things have always been done (until now). On the other hand, predictive maintenance relies on real-time data and machine learning algorithms to detect anomalies and possible defects before they need fixing. Such an approach anticipates problems before they occur, making it more efficient and cost-effective.

According to our 2020 Automotive Software Survey, the ability to perform predictive maintenance on automotive software is a desired capability within the industry. Based on the survey, more than 88 percent of the 200 respondents think the ability to predict software anomalies is important or very important.

An example of predictive maintenance is a vehicle's brakes which tend to wear slowly over time. The garage does not wait for the brakes to fail before replacing the brake pads, but instead, the garage mechanic will use his experience to predict when they will fail and will suggest to replace them in advance. Line-Of-Code Behavior technology does the same for the vehicle software.

Line-Of-Code Behavior technology enables manufacturers to be proactive rather than reactive to software failures, enabling pre-error detection. This technology leverages machine learning algorithms to monitor the behaviour of the software functions over time and predicts when the software will fail. In addition, it detects the exact lines of code causing the problem, shortening the error-resolution time and giving the manufacturers the necessary time to fix, test and certify the software before it is released. Using OTA updates the new software can then be pushed to the vehicles seamlessly before the software has failed in the field, paving the way for a seamless continuous improvement process.

Conclusion

There are many takeaways from Stout's 2020 Automotive Defect & Recall Report. What stood out most for us was the significant uptick in software-related recalls. The report also hints at the increasing reliance on OTA updates. This shines a light on where the industry is headed. It also makes it clear that with the right technology and innovation, we could soon be servicing cars remotely instead of recalling them. For an industry so focused on recalls, this is a major wake up call and an opportunity to do better.

Learn more about our approach to predictive software maintenance.

The 2020 Automotive Software Survey report

The 2020 Automotive Software Survey Report, written by Ian Riches from Strategy Analytics and Roger Ordman from Aurora Labs, is now online!

Our 2020 Automotive Software Survey shows more evidence of the transformation happening in the automotive industry. Unique to this report, however, is the focus on two main vectors of transformation: more centralised vehicle architectures and more software developed in-house by the automotive OEM.

There are significant concerns as to how quickly the industry is moving and whether car manufacturers own the required skills. The function of OTA updates is crucial. Cost control and complexity will be essential to ensure that customers stay satisfied with their vehicles throughout their lifecycle.

The key conclusions of the 2020 Automotive Software Survey are as follows:

  • There was wide agreement that OEMs will develop more software in-house, but only a lukewarm affirmation that they possessed the required skills to do so.
  • This widely agreed trend is at odds with the current status quo, with the most popular answer to how many software suppliers there are to a current vehicle being 'Over 50'.
  • Domain-based architectures are coming - but most saw volume deployment in MY2027 or later.

It is clear that the importance of software is growing for the automotive industry and evolving from an enabler for the hardware, to become key differentiating features. The vehicle manufacturers are being challenged to meet the resource requirements for software to become a strategic component of the vehicle and the automotive industry.

  • Multiple aspects of ensuring software quality are seen as difficult and/or getting more difficult, with a strong expressed preference for the ability to have insight into the behavior of the software functions during the development process as well as to be able to predict software anomalies.
  • There was overwhelming agreement that OTA updates bring far more than just the ability to roll-out bug fixes. This opinion was strengthened by the fact that 83% of respondents envisaged at least two OTA updates per vehicle per year, with one-in-six (17%) predicted more than 24 updates a year - and so we're clearly looking to see more than bug fixes implemented.
  • It is clear that the OTA business will be on a very steep growth curve in the coming years. Market needs (a vehicle which continues to improve post-factory), OEM requirements (controlling the spiraling cost of physical recalls) and legislation frameworks are all now aligning.

The industry is acknowledging that software quality is no longer a single stage of the vehicle development process. Software quality is expected to be maintained throughout the vehicle's lifecycle and the vehicle manufacturers are expected to take a more proactive approach towards maintaining vehicle software quality.

 

To read the full 2020 Automotive Software Survey report with over 20 engaging graphs, please click here