ID.3 is saved this time, third-party OTA providers may be the best solution

More and more automakers are treating software as the most important part of vehicle development. But compared to the new car-making forces, traditional car companies are really a bit overwhelmed by the software "debugging" aspect.

A few days ago, the third-party automotive OTA solution provider "Airabi" announced that it had obtained $10 million in Series A financing, which was led by Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and followed by Zhangjiang Science and Technology Investment and Kaihui Fund, which has just invested in Zhiji Automobile in conjunction with SAIC Group and Ali.

Airabi was founded in October 2017, mainly for automotive customers to provide OTA upgrades and related data services, to put it simply, is to be the software supplier of the host factory. In the automotive field, Airabi has now served more than 25 mainstream models from more than 15 OEMs, SAIC-GM, Great Wall, JAC, SAIC-Datsun, BYD.

Traditional automakers' software is "weak," and third-party OTA providers are rising fast

Volkswagen ID.3, which carries the Volkswagen Group's great goal of realizing "software-defined automobiles," made its official debut as early as September of last year. At the same time, it is also the first pure electric model born from Volkswagen's new pure electric MEB platform, shouldering the heavy responsibility of Volkswagen's electrification.

However, the car was built long ago, but last year it was revealed that due to serious software problems, it was delayed and had to wait in the parking lot for a wired "upgrade," which is why there was a fantastic scene in the tent factory, where the cars were wired and brushed one by one. Wired, OTA? Indeed, that's what VW is doing at the moment.

In fact, compared to the OTA of the new car-making forces, the traditional car companies are obviously not so smooth in this regard. According to relevant data, by 2025, it is expected that the automobile product will be a consumer electronic product with 700 million lines of software code, and realize the change from hardware function carrier to software service carrier. And in this process, OTA will be the key supporting technology.

In fact more and more car companies are beginning to take OTA as the most important selling point of the model, and no effort has been spared in publicizing it. According to relevant statistics, in 2018, the automotive OTA assembly volume was only 2.39 million units, and the assembly rate was only 11.8%, which increased to 3.838 million units in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 60.6%, while the assembly rate increased to 19%. By 2025, China's automotive OTA assembly may reach 18 million units, and the world is more likely to exceed 50 million units.

However, because OTA has high costs in terms of software and trial-and-error, it requires a very deep accumulation of technology, which is what traditional automakers lack, as well as a lack of large-scale reliability verification and testing methods. At this stage, many traditional car companies prefer to use third-party suppliers to establish the corresponding OTA system. This accelerates the realization of the ultimate goal of vehicle OTA.

In the traditional automobile cost composition, hardware accounts for about 80%, software and services account for about 20%. It can be said that in the future, the proportion of software in smart cars will be higher and higher. In L4 level self-driving cars, hardware cost may only account for 40%, software may account for 40%, and content accounts for 20%. In addition, in terms of software code, traditional cars only have ten million lines of code, on the contrary, smart cars will have 300-500 million lines of code. That's why VW, as a traditional car company, can't solve a single software bug.

OTA brings more business models

OTA can be said to connect the relationship between OEMs and consumers, car owners no longer need to go to the 4S store as usual to carry out the relevant software upgrades, is a new experience, and this experience is convenient and efficient for consumers.

At the same time, traditional car companies used to sell the whole vehicle hardware, but in the future will be selling software, through OTA upgrades to provide owners with new features or optimize existing features, such as self-driving features, voice interaction, and even performance enhancements.

For example, Azera's "NIO?Pilot?Select Package," which contains eight features for assisted driving, is a good idea if owners need to pay only 15,000 yuan for a subsequent online OTA upgrade directly to open the car.

The company's "NIO?Pilot?Select Package" contains eight features for assisted driving.

During the new crown pneumonia epidemic, BYD also launched a "high-temperature disinfection and sterilization function", in the APP can be remotely to the car air conditioning wind temperature to 60 ℃, in order to kill the new crown virus. Geely Starlet recently announced a new upgrade program at the Guangzhou Auto Show, which involves automatic parking, panoramic image, car phone, air conditioning, engine NVH and many other hard and software items, priced at 5,777 yuan. Then there is like Tesla's $2,499 heated rear seats, also through the OTA directly open, which in the past is unimaginable, today's OTA can really achieve a lot of unexpected things.

So why do traditional car companies need a third-party provider to offer OTA solutions? First of all, the traditional car companies in the past in the OTA practice on the lack of corresponding experience, and at the same time can not influence the various parts suppliers, research and development will be subject to certain restrictions. Secondly, to a certain extent, car companies are very concerned about reliability, are very afraid of trial and error, the lack of relevant testing methods. Then there is the traditional car companies focus on efficiency, more in favor of the integration of complete suppliers, in order to speed up the process of vehicle R & D landing. The most important point is that traditional car companies focus on cost, if you use a third-party OTA provider, you can greatly save the cost of self-research.

In the future, as the selling point of automobile slowly shifts from hardware configuration to software configuration, the importance of OTA will be greatly increased. Third-party OTA providers will certainly become a "good medicine" for traditional car companies.

This article was written by the author of Automotive Home, and does not represent the views of Automotive Home.