The software-defined vehicle architecture is poised to bring about a transformative shift in the automotive industry by facilitating a flexible and adaptable solution for the assimilation of cutting-edge technologies, features and services such as charging infrastructure, predictive maintenance, autonomous driving, connected vehicles, enhanced safety systems, as well as financial technology and blockchain. This necessitates a comprehensive reimagining of the vehicle's electric/electronic (E/E) a...

Sustainability vs. economics Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in operation will reach 171 million units globally in 2032, according to S&P Global Mobility. What will happen to all those end-of-life batteries? The race is on to recycled electric vehicle (EV) batteries. But at what cost and who stands to gain? EV sales are blossoming but it is still a waiting game for battery recyclers. Where and when is the window of opportunity for high-voltage battery recycling? A new study by S&...

The current electric vehicle charging infrastructure offering is diverse in terms of product quality, user experience and payment systems. Sometimes chargers are out of service. Sometimes the payment system is down. Given that the EV charging network is still in its infancy, there is plenty of room for improvement. To learn more about tomorrow’s charging infrastructure, trends in the public transport charging space and the 30-minute retail economy, we spoke to Bill Loewenthal, chief product of...

Original equipment manufacturers are expected to shift to a centralized architecture in an evolutionary manner and in most cases, follow similar steps with only a few variations. According to recent research by S&P Global Mobility, the proportion of vehicles equipped with zonal architecture is anticipated to increase from 2% in 2022 to 38% in 2034, indicating a significant growth in market share over this period. Continuing our series of interviews with tier 1 suppliers about this hot topic,...

The vehicle architecture is changing from a large distribution of small ECUs with small amounts of processing, memory and control code to a centralized system with fewer, more powerful hardware blocks (domain controllers, center computers) and centralized software code. This supports the software-defined vehicle and manages the increasing traffic caused mainly by sensors for advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS). To learn more and continue our series of interviews with tier-1 suppliers on t...

The software-defined vehicle architecture is poised to bring about a transformative shift in the automotive industry by facilitating a flexible and adaptable solution for the assimilation of cutting-edge technologies, features and services like charging infrastructure, predictive maintenance, autonomous driving, connected vehicle, enhanced safety systems, as well as financial technology and blockchain. This necessitates a comprehensive reimagining of the vehicle E/E architecture, especially the ...

UK-based McLaren Applied is a specialist in vehicle electrification, particularly inverters. It recently struck a deal with STMicroelectronics for the supply of silicon carbide power modules for its 800V inverter. Inverter technology is rapidly adopting silicon carbide semiconductors, and McLaren has turned to the Geneva-based company in the absence of a local supply chain. To learn more about the inverters market and the migration from distributed ECU E/E architecture to a centralized zona...

Once the domain of jet fighter aircraft, heads-up displays (HUDs) are becoming popular in cars. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is under consideration to prioritize situational and contextual content in augmented reality (AR) HUDs. Regulations could control display content thereby limiting the use cases for AR HUDs. Although HUDs first went into production back in 1988 with GM, the technology had been very slow in gaining traction in the last couple of decades. However, in the l...

It has been almost a month since the Democrats in the US Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA 2022), which became legislation on 16 August 2022 after the US President Joe Biden signed the act. While carmakers and their suppliers across the electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain have been scrambling to decode the new mandates, auto industry lobbies from Europe, South Korea, and Japan have already expressed deep concerns about the ability of global carmakers to meet the requi...

With demand falling for most part of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, carmakers and tier-1 suppliers have reduced their inventory. Automotive semiconductor vendors have canceled orders to external foundries, while internal capacity was halted or slowed either intentionally or as a result of reduced labor availability due to the pandemic. However, with industries opening up in the last couple of months and automotive demand increasing, there are signs of disruption in the supply chain. Last ...