It’s a modern problem for the auto industry. “One of the beautiful things about automotive is that it moves much slower than consumer electronics,” says Phil Amsrud, deputy director of automotive at research firm S&P Global Mobility. That gives automakers and suppliers plenty of time to figure out how to support their products and ensure that software stays up to date and works for at least 15 years. But “now that we’re trying to compress the time frame of automotive to make it look more like consumer, is that 15 years going to be compressed into 10 years, five years?” Amsrud says.
Automakers love the idea of a “software-defined vehicle” because it can be an entry point into the low-margin, high-revenue software business. A customer whose car can be updated anytime, anywhere may also be a customer who wants to pay so you can update your car whenever and wherever you want.
As a result, automakers can continue to sell modern services and subscriptions — hands-free driving systems, benefits like remote start and improved maps — to people who already own their cars, as long as the car is on the road. Some customers currently pay additional monthly fees for these service packages, including General Motors’ OnStar roadside assistance, Tesla’s full self-driving (supervised) and Mercedes’ Me Connect package. But public opinion has been against other subscriptions, including BMW’s 2022 offering that would charge South Korean drivers a monthly fee to turn on heated seats. (The automaker eventually dropped diagram.)
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The concept of “software-defined vehicles” requires automakers to build a “headroom,” or ensure that today’s in-car equipment can handle tomorrow’s modern capabilities. The phasing out of connectivity standards—choices ultimately made by telecom companies, not automakers—shows that this is a tough challenge for the future.
In a written statement, Volkswagen spokesman Mark Gillies said that “despite our best efforts, we have not yet found a solution that meets our reliability and security standards for 3G vehicles.” He declined to comment further on the solutions, citing the ongoing lawsuits, but said the company believes 4G will not disappear before 2035, “which means the majority of our 4G vehicles will have connectivity capabilities for at least 10 years.”
Auto experts say the industry hasn’t made any significant commitments about how long it plans to keep its newer, software-equipped vehicles up to date. And if vehicles lose the ability to be updated long before they hit the scrapyard, “whoever’s holding the bag is going to take a big hit to their resale value,” says Philip Koopman, who studies transportation software and safety as an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Ray Cornyn is senior vice president and general manager of automotive processors at NXP, a Dutch company that is one of the most popular suppliers in the automotive industry. He predicts that the future of automotive software will look a bit like the present. “Vehicles will be defined and designed for a 10- to 15-year period,” he says, and support from suppliers like NXP extends beyond that 15-year period. But most updates will happen in years five to 10.
EV company Rivian bills itself as a software-first company. Software chief Wassym Bensaid says its solution to the obsolescence problem is, in theory, uncomplicated enough: The automaker talks to its suppliers about when its hardware will no longer be upgradable. “Right now, we estimate that the headroom we have planned into our hardware, based on what we consider to be best practices in the software world, is seven years,” Bensaid says. So while that’s about the lifespan of a smartphone, in practice it could mean that Rivian trucks and SUVs sold today would continue to receive software updates only until 2031.
However, despite the fact that this is probably the most emphatic statement from any automaker on the subject of updates, experts still remain skeptical and would like to see automakers clearly state when and how they plan to update their vehicles.
“Whatever anyone says now will have to be proven in due course,” says Stacey Higginbotham, a policy expert at Consumer Reports.