(The contents of this article were originally published on Forbes.com)
Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier 1 suppliers must constantly innovate to compete and meet changing customer demands. The trends toward connected cars, software-defined vehicles, advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving require ongoing development. The ability to update products after sale can expand both the opportunity and the need for innovation.
As vendors make these transitions, many have turned to the cloud as a fundamental tool for innovation. It can help vendors streamline product development and improvement and then understand vehicle performance in the real world for ongoing optimization and upgrades.
While the cloud can benefit businesses by enabling them to add new services and integrate others from third parties, there are also key challenges to keep in mind to ensure success.
How Cloud Computing Empowers the Automotive Industry
Here are the four areas where the cloud empowers OEMs and Tier 1s to innovate and compete.
1. Data Gains Power With Integration
Vehicle sensors, applications and services generate more data every year. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) lead this trend. The cloud offers automotive companies many tools for collecting, integrating, sharing and distributing that data.
Cloud storage lets OEMs integrate data from multiple sources using a comprehensive, cloud-based data lake to cross-pollinate data points for new insights. OEMs can collect real-time vehicle data for applications such as personalizing vehicles using cloud-stored driver preferences. Maintenance data captured over the air can also be shared with dealerships and fleet managers before a vehicle arrives at the shop.
2. Analytics Multiplies Intelligence
Cloud computing provides vast processing power to analyze data for new applications. These may include performance optimization, feature refinement based on customer use and new services from partners such as insurers.
Developers can use real-time component data in a feedback loop. They observe the component’s performance, adjust its settings and then collect more data for further refinement. Data integration combined with analysis can amplify the impact. For example, an OEM could share data from a vehicle’s drivetrain with its tire supplier via the cloud and use the supplier’s insights to improve traction control.
3. Prototyping Moves Out Of The Box
Software prototyping in the cloud is faster, higher quality and less expensive. Operating systems, middleware and applications now change constantly, and using traditional hardware testbeds to simulate vehicles can slow development.
Cloud platforms can host virtual vehicle environments where unlimited teams of developers can work with the latest code. This enables shift-left testing and validation, which can resolve conflicts along the way. Teams can also simulate traffic scenarios in the cloud to test ADAS and AV software. Data collected from vehicles after sale helps OEMs improve features, create new ones and develop future models.
4. Delivery Options Abound for Automakers
The cloud is also improving over-the-air (OTA) updates. Today, OEMs may send updates to vehicles with varied software environments, sometimes causing unforeseen conflicts and failures. In the cloud, they can remotely analyze each vehicle’s software and hardware, then “test” an update to find out how it would affect the car before deploying it.
Addressing Automotive Cloud Computing Challenges
Cloud computing and digital transformation is a significant change for OEMs and comes with several challenges. The right practices and technologies can help overcome these issues.
1. Security And Privacy
Cloud-based storage and sharing of vehicle and owner data carries risks of data getting into the wrong hands. Cybercrime or accidental data leaks can hurt an OEM’s business and reputation or lead to fines for privacy violations. Cloud migration takes data outside an OEM’s secured perimeter, so it requires new protections that span partners, suppliers and cloud providers.
A complete cloud-based automotive solution includes proven security for all aspects of data handling. It can encrypt data at rest and use transport level security (TLS) to encrypt it in transit. In a shared data lake, role-based access control ensures users only have access to the information they need. All protections can be configured to comply with data protection laws worldwide.
2. Data Volume And Complexity
Linking connected cars to the cloud can generate massive amounts of data from cameras, radars and other sensors. The cost of streaming it all over networks and storing it in the cloud may cut into the benefits of cloud migration. Too much data makes analytics slower and more expensive.
A fine-grained, targetable data collection platform can help prevent unnecessary overload. To diagnose a component failure, it can upload data solely from vehicles equipped with that part and only while the part is being used. An OEM can further refine data collection and insights using inputs from other sources such as weather records and analysis tools from third parties including cloud operators.
3. Limited Vehicle Connectivity
Cloud-based monitoring and updating throughout a vehicle’s life comes with the challenge of using wireless networks that are sometimes slow and may have inconsistent connectivity in some areas. Cellular bandwidth is expensive, and lengthy software updates are inconvenient for owners and hard for OEMs to manage.
Just as targeted data collection can minimize downstream bandwidth requirements, transmitting policies instead of code slashes the need for fast upstream links to vehicles. A workflow recipe, just kilobytes in size, can instruct an in-vehicle software agent to string together a series of actions for the desired result. It may take the place of an OTA software update containing gigabytes of code.
Broader Horizons For Bold Innovators
The cloud’s wide-ranging capabilities can help free OEMs and Tier 1s from limits on data collection, integration, sharing and analysis that have hobbled software development and delivery for years. By embracing cloud technology and working to overcome any challenges, innovative vendors can use this approach to their advantage in many ways.
Learn how Sonatus’s in-vehicle and cloud software products and solutions are enabling automotive OEMs and suppliers to harness the power of the cloud to add dynamic configurability and continuous improvements to vehicles throughout their life.