Research on the development trend of automotive operating systems in 2019-2020

The development of smart cockpits and smart driving , and Tesla's rapid progress, have made OEMs pay more and more attention to car operating systems .   

The development of the underlying software for smart cars is by no means an easy task. Both emerging car manufacturers and traditional OEMs need to overcome countless pitfalls and experience repeated release delays. In the "2019-2020 Global and China Automotive Operating System Research Report", Zos Automotive Research compares and analyzes the development status and trends of domestic and foreign automotive operating system-related manufacturers.

The report divides the broad definition of "automotive operating systems" into four categories:

 1) Basic automotive operating system: refers to the underlying automotive operating system, such as AliOS, QNX, Linux, etc., including all underlying components, such as the system kernel, underlying drivers, etc., and some also include virtual machines. 

2) Customized automotive operating system: refers to deeply customized development (including system kernel modification) on top of the basic operating system, and ultimately (Tier 1 and OEMs together) realize the cockpit system platform or autonomous driving system platform. Baidu's in-car OS and Volkswagen's VW.OS belong to this category. 

3) ROM-type automotive operating system: customized development based on Android (or Linux), without changing the system kernel. The most typical example in the mobile phone field is Xiaomi's MIUI. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Weilai, Xiaopeng, CHJ, etc. generally choose to develop ROM-type operating systems. 

4) Super car APP (also called mobile mapping system) refers to a large APP that integrates map, music, social, voice and other functions to meet the needs of car owners, such as Carlife, CarPlay, etc. From the development trend of various OEMs, on the one hand, they strive to control the underlying software and hardware of smart cars and prefer neutral operating systems; on the other hand, they carry out various cooperation and use open source software organizations to reduce development cycles and costs.

Prefer neutral and free operating systems

From the table below, we can see that domestic car manufacturers are more likely to choose ANDROID, while foreign car manufacturers are more likely to choose AGL. ANDROID and AGL are both neutral and free operating systems.

AGL has received support from 11 OEMs, including Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, Hyundai, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, SAIC, etc. The benefit of joining AGL is that 70% of the operating system development work has been solved by AGL, and the remaining 30% is developed by the OEMs themselves. The OEMs not only gain control of the operating system, but also greatly shorten the development process and reduce development costs. AGL currently has more than 140 members. It is currently mainly used in smart cockpits and plans to expand to ADAS, OTA, gateways, V2X and autonomous driving. Compared with the rising AGL, ANDROID's ecology is much more mature and is widely adopted by domestic OEMs. However, after Huawei's mobile phones were banned from GMS by Google in 2019, domestic OEMs also felt that there were certain risks in using ANDROID, which brought expansion opportunities to other operating systems. For example, AliOS has been applied to at least nine car brands.      

Leverage open source software organizations to reduce development cycles and costs

In 2009, BMW, General Motors, Intel and other leading companies jointly established the GENIVI Alliance, which aims to provide applicable standards and open source code for in-vehicle infotainment platforms. The alliance connects adopters of Android, AUTOSAR, Linux and other in-vehicle software with solution providers to form an efficient collaborative community of more than 100 members worldwide. Covering major automakers, Tier 1 suppliers, semiconductor suppliers, software developers and service providers, the GENIVI Alliance has always been a leader in the development of open source cockpit software. The GENIVI Alliance has been very successful, indicating that the industry urgently needs to reduce development costs and avoid duplication of development through open source software organizations. The non-profit organization AutowareFoundation, which was established in December 2018, aims to develop open source software for self-driving cars. Currently, the organization has nearly 40 members, and more than 200 organizations around the world have adopted Autoware.

IT companies try to connect cars and various smart hardware through OS

LG acquired webOS, developed by Palm, from HP in 2013, and then expanded webOS from a mobile phone operating system to an operating system that is now available on TVs, smart refrigerators, smart watches, and smart cars. Millions of smart TVs installed with webOS have been sold. In early 2020, LG's webOS was frequently deployed in the automotive field.

Samsung has similar ambitions for its open source Tizen OS. Currently, Samsung's wearable devices and smart refrigerators all use Tizen OS. Samsung has said that it will bring Tizen to sweeping robots, washing machines, air conditioners, and even cars. Huawei's Hongmeng OS is also positioned in a strikingly similar way: Hongmeng OS is a microkernel-based distributed operating system for all scenarios, which brings consumers a seamless cross-terminal collaborative experience and can meet the needs of a cross-platform, multi-terminal system-level OS including smart hardware such as mobile phones, TVs, tablets, and car machines.

 Source: iCar

IT companies are trying to make all scenarios of travel, home and office intelligent with the operating system as the core. It remains to be seen whether OEMs agree with this and when it can be implemented.