Don't call EVs 'smartphones on wheels'

One of the biggest buzzwords when it comes to EVs is “software-defined vehicles”.

People seem to think that where ICE vehicles were all about building hardware: In EVs, the hardware is easy and software is more important, or even that EVs are like smartphones on wheels.

This is a very wrong conception.

Yes, software is extremely important and will be something like 30-50% of the value of a vehicle.

But that doesn’t automatically turn a car into a computing device like a smartphone or a laptop. Those products are genuinely defined by the software and apps that you run on them. More often than not, their output is also experienced on the device itself.

But, with a car or a bike, the point of using software is to affect something in the physical world. Put another way, software in an EV is useless without actionability, which is about making the vehicle actually do something 'in the real world'.

When most people think about software in vehicles, they only go skin deep, looking at the interface on the dashboard or infotainment system. Putting a screen on something becomes the “smart” feature.

But the real opportunity for intelligence in vehicles is different, and it needs three things:

Sense. Insight. Action.

Software can give you insights—the middle step—and help you control the hardware.

But to get sense and action—the first and last steps—you need cutting-edge hardware.

Take sensing. The cost of all kinds of electronic sensors has dropped hugely over the past 10-15 years, to the point that an advanced vehicle can have dozens and dozens of sensors.

Cameras, temperature sensors, current and voltage sensors, pressure sensors, and a lot more. For action, you need great motors, battery management systems, power electronics, active suspension, temperature control modules (cooling/heating systems), and electromechanical actuators like servo motors or solenoids throughout the vehicle for everything from adjusting wing mirrors to steer-by-wire systems.

Moreover, action has to be tangible or have perceived value immediately—be it performance, comfort, convenience, fun, or safety.

Without real world actionability, you’re left with superficial ideas like changeable skins/colours for the infotainment system or small gimmicks.

Since digital displays are now easy to procure, most “smart” ideas revolve around this as the only actionability. It’s overdone and very limiting for a vehicle, especially since you as a driver will spend limited time looking at and interacting with the screen.

Be it autonomous driving, rapid charging, smart suspensions, smart doors, custom seat settings, energy experiences, even financing and vehicle life management—it’s all about actionability.

These are truly intelligent features that a consumer can derive real value from, and they can only be built using 360-degree hardware development.

Where software comes in is to manage and control that hardware on a very fine-grained basis. What that means is that a manufacturer that wants to build an intelligent vehicle needs to marry both hardware and software design at a fundamental level.

In vehicle design then, you need to keep two things in mind.

First, the hardware needs to be chosen and put together in a way that it can be controlled and manipulated freely by the software.

That is, unlike earlier, when you hardcode a piece of hardware or electronics to only do one thing in one way, you make it possible for software to modify how a piece of hardware works or moves.

A simple example is smart/adjustable suspension. Something that can be adjusted to suit different driver preferences or even different road conditions on the fly. You need to build in the right hardware that is capable of adjustment and is designed to be programmed on the go, which means having the right controllers and communication hardware too.

Second, the software to control the vehicle (and not just the infotainment screen) needs to be written by people who deeply understand the hardware in that specific vehicle -- how it functions, the range of its capabilities, how all it can be used to deliver a certain experience to the driver and passengers.

In the suspension example, the software designers can’t deliver an innovative product without knowing exactly how the hardware of the suspension systems works.

Today, the industry has so far only scratched the surface in terms of the hardware innovation that’s possible with EVs. Ultimately, companies that can deeply integrate hardware and software have a disproportionate advantage. It’s super hard to build such teams, and it’s what companies like Tesla do best.

 Arun Vinayak is the Co-founder & CEO of Exponent Energy. The opinions expressed are those of the author alone.