The Software Car

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as an Engine for the Electromobility of the Future

Summary

Disruptive technologies have the potential to change markets dramatically. In such a situation, market dominance can be achieved particularly by companies that have newly entered the market or that cut themselves free from traditional structures and implement major innovations without hesitation. Electromobility is such a disruptive change. But electric drives for cars are only the catalyst for the real change: most significantly, the architecture and role of information and communications technology (ICT) will change for the vehicle of the future. ICT is growing increasingly important and will come to drive developments itself.
ICT, in the form of electrics and electronics in cars (automotive E/E), is already essential to the competitiveness of the German automotive industry. Its most notable effects are to improve driving performance and comfort, and to enhance both passive and active safety. But the effects go further in electric vehicles. Here ICT becomes the foundation of the driving functions themselves. For that reason, architectures and technologies for vehicle ICT cannot be viewed merely as a frame for gradual evolutionary innovations, as they were before. Instead, they must be revised so farsightedly that they can perform their indispensable future role in the revolutionary evolution of the automobile.
Electromobility has a double impact. First, it necessitates a new ICT architecture in cars.  But at the same time it opens up the opportunity for such a revolutionary architecture for the first time. It shifts the necessary core competences, lowers barriers to market entry, and thus changes the market’s rules of the game. With a new ICT architecture, a newcomer can rise more easily from the low-cost to the premium segment of electromobility than a business in the premium segment can switch from conventional non-electromobility ICT architecture to the future architecture that includes electromobility. Consequently new competitors have a chance to penetrate into established, saturated markets.
The importance of future ICT architecture goes far beyond the change to electromobility. For historical reasons, the conventional architecture is highly complex. For that reason, it is more and more becoming an impediment to innovation, instead of an innovation driver. By contrast, a new architecture will make new approaches and functions possible – from greater autonomy in driving to a fuller integration of the vehicle into the ICT infrastructure – and thus help significantly to achieve social-policy goals like energy efficiency or lower accident rates.
Electromobility will make information and communications technology in cars much more important. That will have far-reaching effects on Germany as a business location. Skills and competences will shift, and structures for adding value will change. No doubt a certain amount of self-cannibalization cannot be avoided within the automotive industry. For that reason, business, science and education, together with government, must cooperate in a concerted action to safeguard Germany’s competitiveness in one of its core industries.

The research project “eCar ICT System Architecture for Electromobility”  is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of the Economy and Technology. It investigates the role of ICT architecture in a vehicle within the context of electromobility. Based on the main societal and technological driving forces, scenarios for electric vehicles and features of future ICT architectures are derived. In addition, the changes in the value chain in the automotive sector are analysed. Based on all results, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are identified (SWOT analysis), with consequent recommendations for action in government, industry and science.

Project Partners

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Dr. Christian Buckl