What is a "software-defined car"? Software-defined car strategies of major car companies

Toyota's Arene OS, like Volkswagen's VW.OS, decouples ECU hardware and software and adds new applications to provide new functions and services.

Toyota said Arene OS consists of three elements: (1) a set of tools for efficient development/evaluation of automotive software; (2) a software development kit (SDK) for easy integration of state-of-the-art software into vehicles; and (3) an interaction mechanism (UI) between people and vehicles, and between vehicles and society.

In Toyota Arene's software structure, vehicle software (SDK) accounts for about 10%, and the remaining 90% is the development environment and test environment. Arene OS is also unique in that the system also includes a platform for running online services.

Toyota Arene OS is characterized by the fact that in addition to the in-vehicle software and a series of tools for developing such software, there is also a platform for providing services.

In an interview with the above-mentioned car magazine, Tsuneharu Sato said that with Arene OS, "not only will cars be constantly upgraded, but the potential of cars will be greatly expanded through cooperation with various companies outside the automotive industry, such as the express delivery industry and power companies." In other words, Arene OS not only allows users to freely use various software in the car, including applications provided by third parties, but also enjoy various services from outside the car. Currently, Toyota is the only company that has added platform functions to the concept of automotive operating systems to receive such external company services.

Basically, there are some differences in the concepts of vehicle operating systems of various companies. For example, in the automotive operating system FACE led by Renault of France under the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the FACE concept includes the hardware (chips and networks) that run FACE. In any case, Toyota will undoubtedly take advantage of the opportunity of Arene OS in its next-generation electric vehicles to promote its software-defined car transformation and further accelerate the "transformation to a mobile travel company model" advocated by former president Akio Toyoda.

Sony Honda Mobility's Software Strategy

In 2022, Sony and Honda announced the establishment of a new company to develop electric vehicles, Sony Honda Mobility (SHM). In January 2023, the prototype of the new brand "AFEELA" was unveiled at the 2023 CES in Las Vegas, USA. It is planned to start pre-sales in 2025 and start delivery in the United States in the spring of 2026. What value does AFEELA, which has been positioned as a software-defined vehicle (SDV) from the beginning and promoted research and development, want to achieve?

AFEELA prototype for CES 2023

SHM's corporate mission is "to lead innovation with diverse inspirations and move people". SHM interprets the development concept of AFEELA as the pursuit of 3A values, namely Autonomy (constantly upgraded autonomy), Augmentation (expansion of body and time and space), and Affinity (integration of cars and people, symbiosis of cars and society). The new car will be built based on the prototype car unveiled at the 2023 CES, and is scheduled to start pre-sale in the first half of 2025 and officially go on the market in the same year. SHM announced that the new car will be delivered first in North America in the spring of 2026. However, the real progress is still unknown.

What is clear now is that AFEELA was developed as a software-defined car from the beginning. Yasuhide Mizuno, chairman and CEO of SHM, said at the 2023 CES press conference: "We will continue to implement software updates through 5G networks to promote the continuous upgrading and development of vehicle functions. This is our new service strategy."

The prototype car unveiled this time is equipped with a total of 45 cameras and sensors inside and outside the car, and is equipped with an SoC (system-on-chip) with a computing power of up to 800TOPS (trillion operations per second). Currently, the "L2+" ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) function that provides partial autonomous driving on highways under certain conditions requires a system-level chip of about 10TOPS to support it. Considering this, 800TOPS computing power is amazing.

We have introduced the software-defined car layout of Volkswagen and Toyota in Germany. The common point of these two companies is that they have independently developed their own car operating systems. The car operating system is not only the basis for realizing software-defined cars, but also the cornerstone for building a new business model in the era of software-defined cars, such as creating a software development environment and providing cloud services. SHM has not yet disclosed the details of the vehicle operating system, but some hints can still be found from the information previously released.

In April 2023, Honda introduced its corporate transformation measures, including electrification. Honda is upgrading its electronic and electrical architecture while promoting the development of Honda's unique automotive operating system, with the goal of first applying it to medium and large electric vehicles launched in North America in 2025. "Honda will provide the basic system, but how to change it is decided by SHM." It is speculated that the basic driving performance of the vehicle and functions related to ADAS/autonomous driving may adopt Honda's self-developed operating system.

Honda has developed its own automotive operating system and plans to apply it to medium and large electric vehicles launched in North America starting in 2025.

On the other hand, the cockpit-centric user interface (UI) design is expected to show the uniqueness of AFEELA. In February 2023, German software development company Elektrobit announced that the AFEELA prototype adopted its software and services. Elektrobit participated in the development of Volkswagen's "VW.OS" operating system and has extensive experience in in-vehicle software. Before the establishment of SHM, Elektrobit had been involved in the research and development project of Sony's self-developed electric car Sony VISION-S since 2019.

SHM attaches great importance to the user experience (UX) it provides to users, so the design of the user interface that users directly contact is extremely important. In this area, AFEELA's goal is to create a cockpit led by Sony that can provide the latest audio and a wide range of game, movie and music content. In order to create a new era of user experience, SHM also announced a partnership with Epic Games, a well-known American game company. In terms of this type of user experience, based on cooperation with Elektrobit, SHM is developing a cockpit with unique colors.

The cockpit of the AFEELA prototype, equipped with a large display covering the width of the vehicle

AFEELA will be equipped with a chip with 800TOPS super computing power. The chip is planned to use the SoC (system-on-chip) called Snapdragon Digital Chassis from Qualcomm, a well-known American semiconductor manufacturer. The SoC will integrate functions such as connectivity, user experience, unmanned driving systems and autonomous driving into AFEELA's core functions such as autonomous driving/ADAS, HMI/IVI and telematics.

The Snapdragon Digital Chassis does not actually refer to a single SoC, but covers four major platforms: the "Snapdragon Cockpit Platform" for digital cockpits; the "Snapdragon Ride Platform" for autonomous driving/ADAS; the "Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud Service" that provides secure cloud connectivity; and the "Snapdragon Automotive Intelligence Platform" that supports 5G networking services and advanced Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other secure connections.

SHM revealed the general configuration of AFEELA's electronic and electrical (E/E) architecture in a speech at the company's launch press conference in October 2022. The "ADAS/autonomous driving controller" on display is expected to use the Snapdragon ride platform, the telematics controller uses the Snapdragon Automotive Connectivity Platform, the security gateway uses the Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud Service, and the user experience controller and human-machine interface controller use the Snapdragon Cockpit Platform. The vehicle controller does not require strong computing power, so it may use a more general SoC than the Snapdragon digital chassis.

AFEELA's electrical and electronic architecture explained at CES 2023

The powerful computing power of 800TOPS is considered to be the sum of the computing power of the SoC installed in these integrated ECUs, but the autonomous driving/ADAS controller, user experience controller and human-machine interface controller still account for a large proportion of it. The AFEELA prototype is equipped with a total of 45 cameras and sensors inside and outside the car. It is expected to provide L3 autonomous driving under specific conditions or L2+ driving assistance functions for various conditions such as urban areas. The image processing technology required alone requires extremely large-scale computing. In addition, when playing applications such as high-frame rate games, if you want to run high-definition large-screen images on the extra-large display screen in the cockpit and the display screens on the rear seats without pressure, high computing power is also required.

As the next generation technology of SENSING Elite, which has achieved L3 autonomous driving, Honda will put into practical use a function that supports seamless movement from home to destination, not only on conventional highways but also on ordinary roads. AFEELA is expected to utilize Honda's technology in the ADAS/autonomous driving field, while also achieving differentiation by incorporating highly original technologies in the user experience field.

Tesla's software strategy

As the world's largest electric car manufacturer, Tesla also leads the global automotive industry in the field of software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Since 2012, Tesla has taken the lead in launching automotive OTA software wireless updates, becoming a pioneer in the industry. At the same time, Tesla is also in a leading position in collecting data from each vehicle and using it for software development.