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Driving ExportsFueling Innovation

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FF li IIDDrrivi ing ExExppoortss

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Cars don’t just move your familyCars move America

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connected car

he automobile is being reimagined as the center ofan intermodal transportation solution as well as the cen-ter of our connected lives. The car has become depend-ent on connectivity and literally driven by electronics.The software-based car is the future and will transform

how cars are built, sold, serviced and used. Corporate roles are fuzzier than ever. Consumer electronic

giants are targeting the road while automakers target the livingroom. And the great equalizing power of the Internet and thenew sharing economy is affecting the car like never beforethrough innovative startups. From ride/car sharing and cybersecurity to electric vehicles and automated driving, the transfor-mation resulting from the auto/tech convergence is creatingopportunities never before imagined.

This continually escalating conflu-ence of technology, business models,innovation and big thinkers is precise-ly why the organizers of the LosAngeles Auto Show created theConnected Car Expo (CCE). CCE, nowin its third year, brings together theentire new auto industry ecosystem.Its goal is to provide a platform for thecompanies, industries and leaders inthis evolving marketplace to showcasetheir new developments, collaborateand spotlight the major trends that are shaping tomorrow’stransportation.

The thought leaders gathering at CCE were curated by ourpowerhouse advisory board, who are also some of the topthinkers in the space. The CCE Advisory Board comprises execu-tives from Aeris, AT&T, CX3 Marketing, Elektrobit, Ellis andAssociates, Google, MERA , Microsoft, Nvidia, Pandora, StrategyAnalytics and the city of Los Angeles.

This special Automotive News supplement on the connectedcar touches upon some of the most disruptive issues as well astremendous opportunities facing our future. Navigating thistransformative time for the benefit of all involved will take truecollaboration and careful thought. The Connected Car Expo hasbecome a crucible where tomorrow’s travel is being forged.Whichever way the road leads, it will be a history-making journey.

Sincerely, Lisa Kaz

By Lisa Kaz: President, ANSA ProductionsLos Angeles Auto Show, Connected Car Expo

T

PAGE 3

Auto/tech convergenceis creating opportunitiesnever before imaginedcontents

4 Miles to goThe challenges of achieving self-drivingvehicles; semiautonomous cars to lead the way.

8 Fast startConnected Car Expo recognizes potential;innovation of startups to move the industry.

11 Going mobile?Major automakers are experimenting to see if mobilityservices can complement theirexisting businesses.

13 CybersecurityAfter the JeepCherokee hackingdebacle, automakersare taking on a dualrole as software companies, as theindustry scrambles tochange its approachand practices.

14 Over-the-air careOnce used for crash response and security,high-tech connections will offer relevant services on a daily basis.

Produced by

STORIES WRITTEN BYJULIE LIESSE

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PAGE 4

n the connected-car landscape,nothing is more intriguing — orchallenging — than the idea of theautonomous vehicle.

“We are on the beginning of along path,” said Thomas Form, headof electronics and vehicle researchfor Volkswagen Group. “The idea of

the autonomous car driving you frompoint A to point B, in normal traffic, willtake some time. We have a lot to learn.We know now what we do not know.”

Although automakers, Tier 1 suppliersand technology companies are working

hard on self-drivingsystems, and automak-ers are adding semiau-tonomous features tonew models — to helpdrivers park, stay intheir lanes and drive intraffic jams — the fullyautonomous or self-driving car remains a

long-term target.“The big challenge is that the car has

to judge situations while driving,” Formsaid. “That is what the human driver isdoing every second of driving. There aresituations you can easily handle, whenit’s quite clear what to do. But when youadd in pedestrians and bicycles andintersections, judgments become morecomplicated.”

Handling this challenge is what

Danny Shapiro, senior director of auto-motive for Nvidia Corp., calls “buildingthe brain of the autonomous car.” Thatis, teaching it to distinguish between theflashing light of an ambulance and that

of a delivery truck, for instance, or torecognize that if the door of a parked carbegins to open, the occupant is likely topush that door wide open and get out ofthe car.

“The systems we are building noware not fixed, but a brain — somethingthat will learn and can be taught,”Shapiro said.

Form said one of the top challengesfor that brain will be learning to adjust tounexpected conditions such as changesin the weather — when ice develops onthe road or when the car is drivingdownhill and suddenly fog appears.

“That’s a small example,” he said.“There are a lot of situations we cannotyet handle today.”

Brian Droessler, vice president of soft-ware and connected solutions inContinental’s Infotainment and Connect-ivity business unit, said: “Thereally difficult part is asyou move off the high-ways onto city streetsbecause those conditionsare much more complex

An illustration of how the new platform for autonomous driving that EB developed with Infineon Technologies and NVIDIA. The platform will enable vehicles to not just sense, but interpret what’s happening around them. Below, the brain of the Nvidia system.

The challenges of achieving self-drivingvehicles; semiautonomous cars to lead the way

MILES TO GO

I

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AUTONOMOUS PARK ASSIST

40%30%

FULLY AUTONOMOUS DRIVING

37%27%

AUTONOMOUS DRIVING HDT*

33%26%

AUTONOMOUS HIGHWAY DRIVING

34%25%

SOURCE: STRATEGY ANALYTICS

*HDT: High-Density TrafficNOTE: The other two options not shown in thechart were “nice-to-have” and “not interested.”

Percentage of U.S. consumers who con-sider autonomous or semi-autonomousfeatures either as something they wouldpay more for when purchasing a vehicleor as something that would be a tie-breaker during vehicle consideration.

2014 2015

> Driving decisions

SHAPIRO

Hoffmeister: Integrating driver assistance with the human-machine interface is a key concern.

Detroit | Frankfurt | London | San Francisco | Shanghai | 800.229.4125 | covisint.com

• Securely connecting vehicles in the cloud.

• Enhancing the connected driving experience.

• Supporting usage-based insurance connectivity.

• Leveraging dealer networks to create loyalty.

Creating a unique and secure connected vehicle experience

connected car

PAGE 6

—more pedestrians, more infrastructureto interact with.”

Early autonomous cars also will haveto deal with the older vehicles on theroad, those lacking high-tech featuresand still being driven by humans.

A key concern is integrating driverassistance and the human-machineinterface, so that the autonomous driv-ing system knows when to give controlback to the human occupant of the carand how to “announce it” so the personjumps back to attention, said KarstenHoffmeister, senior manager of the auto-motive software consulting business ofElektrobit.

Droessler agrees: “One of the bigissues and roadblocks is how we engageand disengage using the human-

machine interface.From my perspective,it really is a long andwinding road.”

Part of Continen-tal’s work, for in-stance, is developinga driver analyzer cam-era that monitorswhat the human driv-

er is doing in the car, by analyzing wherethe driver’s eyes are, how open they areand where the gaze is fixed.

If things go wrongAnd the final, big task is figuring out

what the car should do if somethinggoes wrong.

“It’s our biggest challenge at themoment,” Hoffmeister said. “In manycontrol units, if something goes wrong,you simply switch off functionality, but acar in traffic can’t make a full stop as afail-safe solution.”

It’s also clear that autonomous driv-ing systems will depend on the founda-tion laid by several related technologies.

Human-machine communicationusing voice recognition is the way theindustry is heading.

Voice command is generally per-ceived as the safest option because itdoesn’t require a driver looking at orswiping on a screen, but the technologystill needs work because its spotty per-formance has been a sore point withconsumers.

In addition, said Hoffmeister, “securi-ty is one of the biggest issues in buildingtrust in these vehicles.”

Automakers and Tier 1 suppliers needto secure the engineering and manufac-

turing process from end to end so thatconsumers feel confident turning thewheel over to an autonomous system.

Continuous updates neededAlso critical is the ability to update

the vehicles and their information con-tinuously, through over-the-air connec-tions between the automaker and thevehicle. An autonomous system’s abilityto navigate will rely on up-to-the-moment mapping information, forinstance.

“Like Tesla, we all need to think ofthe car as a device that needs to beupdatable,” said Manuela Papado-pol, director of global marketingfor Elektrobit.

But only a small percentage oftoday’s cars are equipped for over-the-air updates.

Beyond all that, Droessler said,“the bigger roadblock is putting allthis together in a cost-effective way that does-n’t scare consumers.”

In addition to thedaunting technicalchallenges, autono-mous driving willtrigger changes inthe auto industry

ecosystem and the transportation infra-structure. Local and national govern-ments can do much to support theexpansion of semiautonomous andautonomous driving, but also canpotentially slow things down.

Governments can prioritize theirinvestment in certain road constructionand lane-marking techniques, as well asstandardized signage for the best recog-nition by autonomous systems — espe-cially in the U.S., Droessler said.Governments could potentially offer

autonomous driving lanes simi-lar to high-occupancy vehiclelanes to create a feeling ofsafety for the driver in theearly stages of autonomousdriving.

But not wanting to dependon governments moving for-

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DROESSLER

Continental expectspartially autonomoustechnology in cars next year.

Elektrobit’sPapadopol:Cars should

be thought ofas a devicethat needs

to beupdatable.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

connected car

PAGE 8

HopSkipDrive offers analternative view of mobility.

or the first time, the Connect-ed Car Expo has named its Top10 Automotive Startups -

companies being recognized for theirinnovation and potential to move the

industry forward. Hand-picked andclosely vetted by the Connected CarExpo’s advisory board, the 10 companieswill offer a glimpse of their businesses atthe expo.

“Automotive is complex: It is not aphone; it is 4,000 pounds of complexengineering. Advances in connectivityand autonomous driving will be difficultand different in many regards,” saidMichelle Avary, vice president of auto-motive product and strategy at Aeris anda member of the advisory board.

“But many of these startups have

really, really great ideas. They can helpthe industry get to the place where theownership experience is better, drivingis safer and we can offer customers dif-ferent forms of mobility.”

The startups fall into a set of verticalcategories: alternative components,autonomous technology, connectedvehicles, mobility and safety. Some areclosely coupled with the existing autoinfrastructure, some completely sepa-rate from it.

Two of the startups, Getaround andHopSkipDrive, offer an alternative viewof mobility. Two others, Quanergy andTriLumina, are working on LiDAR, lasertechnology that promises break-throughs for the mapping and sensingapplications that are so critical for

autonomous driving.Sober Steering will exhibit technolo-

gy designed to detect drunken drivers. Driversiti is offering software that can

replace a car’s safety systems and moni-tor a driver’s performance on the road.Capio is working to improve voice-recognition systems, and NebulaSystems provides a cloud-based way toaggregate a vehicle’s data and to diag-nose and fix faults in the electronic con-trol unit remotely.

“We hope this will help people look atstartups in a different light,” Avary said.“There is a lot of depth and breadth tostartups affecting our industry. It’s notjust Uber.”

Innovation for the whole carOne of the Top 10 Automotive

Startups will showcase an all-new vehi-cle: Elio Motors will give attendees alook at its three-wheeled, 84-mpg $6,800two-seat car.

Automotive engineer and companyfounder Paul Elio said he dreamed

F

Connected Car Expo recognizes potentialand innovation of startups to move the industry

FAST START

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Top 10 automotive startups■ Capio: Next-generation voice-recognition technology■ Driversiti: Cloud-based situational awareness technology for

driver assistance systems■ Elio Motors: U.S.-based startup automaker building affordable cars ■ Getaround: Car-sharing technology■ High Mobility: Beacon technology connecting cars and users ■ HopSkipDrive: Ride-sharing service for kids■ Nebula Systems: Cloud-based vehicle data analytics■ Quanergy: LiDAR sensors for autonomous driving and 3-D mapping■ Sober Steering: Sensors that detect drunken drivers ■ TriLumina: LiDAR technology for autonomous driving and gesture

recognitionSOURCE: CONNECTED CAR EXPO

connected car

PAGE 9

about a company called Elio Motorswhen he was 8 years old. Now he’s work-ing on finalizing the $200 million infinancing he needs to go into produc-tion, targeting first deliveries at the endof 2016.

“The new automotive landscape inAmerica makes a project like Elio possi-ble,” Paul Elio said. “Fifteen years ago,Americans knew what transportationlooked like — and it was called an SUV.”

Several societal trends, includingcost-consciousness, environmentalawareness and urban congestion, areboosting interest in Elio’s car, whichalready has more than 45,000 reserva-tions from prospective buyers.

“We can be disruptive without hurtingthe big guys,” said Elio, who added thatmany of his cars will be bought as “and”vehicles, providing buyers with personaltransportation as an alternative to thenecessary larger cars they own.

“In America at least, as a society weeither have to urbanize more broadly or

we have to find effective ways for peopleto have personal transportation,” Eliosaid. He points to research that indicatespeople’s ability to rise out of poverty, forexample, depends in part on access totransportation. “There are parts of theanswer we haven’t seen yet.”

From the startups’ perspective, theybring not just new ideas but a newapproach to the industry’s work on con-nected and autonomous cars.

Risto Vahra, CEO of High Mobility,said: “Carmakers have been trying to doit by themselves but often apply oldmethodologies to a complex new para-digm. That is where startups like ourshave a chance to make a differ-ence. We have been working tounderstand the culture of theauto industry.”

Vahra’s background is indesign at Volvo. His goal, hesaid, is to bring a SiliconValley-style attitude to “makethe technology friendly forpeople and to enable natural

interactions with the car.”His six-person company, based in

Germany, is working on “beacons” thatwould be installed in cars. These trans-mitters would allow the car to

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Paul Elio: “We can bedisruptive without hurtingthe bigguys.”

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PAGE 10

ward on infrastructure improvements,Form said VW’s commitment is for theautonomous car to drive safely “withoutany additional infrastructure.”

“In the last few years, autonomousdriving is looking more at how we canembed the technology in the vehiclerather than relying on the external net-work,” he said.

Freed up for other tasksDespite the work that remains,

industry insiders are confident there’sno turning back. “Nothing happens asquickly as we think it will,” Droesslersaid, “but it looks like this will become adifferentiator for the manufacturers —they want to compete on this.”

He said Continental expects:■ Partially autonomous technology incars next year.■ Highly autonomous cars starting to

roll out in 2020.■ Fully autonomous cars available by2025, though he cautions that fullyautonomous technology might notreach even 30 percent market penetra-tion until 2050.

With such a timetable, he said, “Idon’t think we’ll see as much change inthe short term. In this time period, we’llstill need standard gauges, steeringwheels, pedals and forward-facing seats.But down the road, that time when youare not engaged in the driving taskbecomes the time when a lot of otherthings can happen in the car.”

Shapiro sees the addition of autono-mous and even semiautonomous fea-tures changing the relationship betweenthe human occupants and the car, andhow the ride looks and feels.

“What we’ll see are more and morescreens, touch interfaces, dashboards inthe windows with information,” he said.

“More autonomous driving means thatyou can be working or doing things likewatching movies while you’re riding.Commerce will take place in the car,whether that’s making reservations atrestaurants or booking hotels — andthat commercial opportunity makesmany businesses interested in beingpart of the connected car.”

Down the road, as autonomous sys-tems gain traction and increased num-bers reduce costs — and lead to stillmore cars purchased with autonomousfeatures — the industry will be able tobroadly reimagine how cars are built.

“Once you employ autonomous driv-ing and start eliminating accidents, youcan start eliminating things likeairbags,” Shapiro said.

“The car can start to look and feelmore like a train car, with no steeringwheel. And then our whole notion oftransportation will change.”

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communicate directly with nearby elec-tronic devices such as smartphones.

“As a person approaches the car, thecar is already doing background checksto decide if it should open the doors, forinstance, or blink the lights,” Vahra said.

High Mobility’s platform would allowautomakers to decide what specific fea-tures or apps to offer through the bea-cons — possibly including, down theroad, vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication optionsas well.

“The whole auto industry is funda-mentally changing,” Avary said. “Millen-nials who have less disposable income areless inclined to spend that income to pur-chase a vehicle until they have a family.That extreme delay in purchasing speaksto a fundamental shift in our view ofmobility. If you look at the way society ismoving, away from the suburbs and backinto the city, a future based on pullingyour electric vehicle into your Wi-Fi-equipped garage — it’s silly to limit your-self to that vision.

“We are at a huge intersection of bigdemographic, psychographic, environ-mental and economic changes hittingthe auto industry at a time of great tech-nological changes in things like coreconnectivity and electrical systems.These startup companies are coming atthe industry from such unique perspec-tives — they have rejuvenated us, andfilled us with excitement and hope.”

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Germany-based High Mobility is working on“beacons” that would be installed in vehiclesand would allow the car to communicatedirectly with nearby electronic devices such assmartphones.

“ ““As a personapproaches thecar, the car isalready doingbackgroundchecks to decideif it should openthe doors, forinstance, or blinkthe lights.”Risto Vahra, CEO of High Mobility

connected car

ueled by new technology andmotivated by demographic andeconomic trends, transporta-

tion experts are taking a fresh look athow to help people get where they

want to go.In the wake of services such as Lyft and

Uber, startups are employing connected-car technologies to ease car and ride shar-ing.

Municipalities are looking at new tran-sit, parking and mobility technologies.And automakers including Ford MotorCo., Daimler AG, Honda Motor Co. andGeneral Motors are experimenting to seeif mobility services can complement theirexisting businesses.

To some degree, the automakers mayhave little choice.

Ford’s GoDrive experiment“Times are changing,” said Alicia

Agius, project lead for GoDrive, Ford’scar-sharing experiment in London.

“Urbanization affects mobility. Peopleare settling down later, moving to the sub-urbs later. The younger generations aremuch more used to a sharing economy ingeneral. Services like Airbnb have madethem comfortable with the concept of notowning, but using products. And with on-demand, app-based services, anything isavailable with the push of a button.”

In addition, she said, in the world’s

densely populatedcities such as Lon-don, environmentalconcerns and con-strained parking situ-ations make it moredifficult to own a car.

“On the surface, itseems there is a con-flict for an [automak-er] to talk about car sharing, but really itmakes absolute sense,” Agius said.“When you look at the world’s highlyurbanized areas that are going to contin-ue growing in the decades to come, it isnot going to be practical for everyone to

Major automakers are experimenting to see if mobilityservices can complement their existing businesses

AGIUS

FGOING MOBILE?

MOBILE CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

PAGE 11

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PAGE 12

own their own cars, let alone two orthree per household. We need othersolutions in place that allow peopleaccess to a vehicle if they can’t own one.It’s a way of keeping vehicles relevant inthose areas.”

GoDrive is one of two dozen mobilityexperiments Ford is conducting withinits Smart Mobility initiative. It offersLondoners the opportunity to rent a carby the minute, on demand, with nomembership and no reservationrequired for pickup or drop-off. Userscan pick up a Focus EV or a Fiesta with a1.0-liter EcoBoost engine from one loca-tion and drop it off at another, in a Ford-guaranteed parking spot.

“Car sharing has been around for along time. It’s just that in the old days, weused a clipboard and handed you thekeys,” Agius said. “These technologyenablers — the app-based system tofind and reserve the car, to unlock it withthe smartphone, to find the parkingspace — make sharing more main-stream.”

She said Ford is using experimentssuch as GoDrive to gather as much infor-mation as possible about people’s atti-tudes toward cars, driving and sharing. Sofar, she said, “People say what they like isthe flexibility of cars. Cars allow them tohave adventures and discover new thingsin the city; they associate cars with inde-pendence. But there are stresses to carownership in cities like ours, and tradi-tional car-sharing models don’t supportthat flexibility and freedom.”

Startup standoutsWhile automakers consider alterna-

tives to the traditional ownership model,startup companies are offering cus-tomers new transportation options.

San Francisco-based Getaroundoffers peer-to-peer car sharing: Carowners can sign up to share their cars(and make money) with others whoneed a ride for an hour, a day or a week-end. Getaround’s connected-car tech-nology allows renters to use a smart-phone to browse available cars, makereservations and access the car.

Getaround’s mission, said MegMurray, the company’s head of communi-ty, is to reduce the number of cars on theroad by getting more use out of vehiclesthat sit unused for large chunks of time.

“We think that globally, the currenttransportation model is unsustainablebecause of factors like traffic problems

and air pollution,” she said. “We hope tohelp solve the problem of car overpopu-lation.”

The service is available in six cities —the latest being Chicago, whereGetaround is partnering with the city ina federally funded study to explore carsharing. In one of Ford’s mobility exper-iments, Ford Motor Credit Co. hasencouraged 14,000 Ford owners to sharetheir leased cars on Getaround.

HopSkipDrive is another California-based transportation option created toaddress a specific need: parents whohave to get their kids from one place toanother.

“Solutions like Uber and Lyft aren’tfor kids,” said Joanna McFarland, one ofthree Los Angeles-area moms who cre-ated HopSkipDrive.

The company hires caregivers whohave available time and wheels to drivechildren from school to soccer practice,for instance. Drivers are screened andthe service uses a series of securitychecks — including orange T-shirts forthe drivers, orange flags on the cars andconstant wireless communication withthe parents — to ensure a safe ride.

“It’s a service for all kinds of families— when both parents work, for single-parent families, for those who don’t owna car or for divorced parents who maynot want to see each other when theydrop off their kids,” McFarland said.

Families pay by the ride, pay a premi-um for rush-hour service and can saveby buying multiple-ride packages. Shesaid a surprising number of HopSkip-Drive rides are provided to children ages14-17.

“There’s been a clear shift in terms ofkids not getting their driver’s licensesright away, for many reasons,”McFarland said.

“For me and my generation, thelicense was freedom, a connection to theoutside world. Now, kids are connectedto the outside world in their bedroom,with a computer or phone. And theyhave grown up with carpools and areused to being driven around by some-one else.”

McFarland said HopSkipDrive canprovide a model for transporting not justchildren, but perhaps older people orthose with specialneeds — anyone whoneeds a little morethan just a ride.

“The attitudesaround car sharingand ride sharing arechanging,” she said.“But people also aremore interested andwill demand betterpublic transportation options, too.”

Getaround’s Murray said: “Uber andLyft are becoming household names,with those ‘last-mile’ solutions theyoffer. Getaround is a longer version ofthat, for weekend trips or that longerroad trip to Ikea. All of these options arepretty amazing, and then you throw inautonomous and connected cars — afuture when you can summon a car toyou to drive you wherever you want togo.

“Cars will become moving pieces thatare shared resources to take you any-where you need to go in the city.”

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McFARLAND

GoDrive is one of two dozen mobility experiments Ford is conducting.

connected car

hen hackers ChrisValasek and Charlie

Miller proved this yearthat they could wireless-

ly take control of a JeepCherokee, it set off alarms throughoutthe auto industry.

Hackers already had shown theycould tinker with vehicle operating andcommunication systems. But whenValasek and Miller used a vulnerabilityin the Internet-connected infotainmentsystem to shut off the Jeep’s transmis-sion in St. Louis traffic — prompting arecall of 1.4 million vehicles by FiatChrysler Automobiles — it very publiclyraised the stakes for the auto industry. Italso kicked off another round of discus-sions and debate about the security ofthe connected car.

Valasek, hired with Miller in Augustto work on security at ride-hailing serv-ice Uber, said his goal was to raiseawareness and push the auto industryto change its approach and practices.

“Security can’t be an afterthought tothis process, and trying to make some-thing secure after you make it is harderthan trying to secure it during manufac-ture,” he said. “The auto companiesneed to acknowledge that whether theylike it or not, they are software compa-nies now. They are going to have tolearn about software security.”

He said the auto companies are inthe same sort of position that Microsoftfound itself in back in 2002. Faced withMicrosoft’s reputation as a “leaky” com-pany attacked by viruses, worms andother security breaches, then-ChairmanBill Gates wrote his famous “trustwor-thy computing” memo that promised tochange the company’s culture and tochoose security first in product devel-opment.

Said David Strickland, formeradministrator of the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration: “We knewwe would come to a point where theconnected vehicle and the importanceof cybersecurity were going to intersect.No one thought we’d be seeing a needfor enforcement actions so soon.”

Strickland and Valasek are headlin-

ers in the discussion about cybersecuri-ty at the 2015 Connected Car Expo thismonth in Los Angeles.

They’ll discuss the newsmaking safe-ty issues and security of the car’s oper-ating and infotainment systems. Butalso on the radar are privacy and datasecurity, as connected cars developincreased ability — and valid reasons —to collect information from and abouttheir owners.

The industry’s Information SharingAdvisory Center initiative already islooking at security issues. And immedi-ately after the FCA hack, U.S. Sens.Edward Markey, D-Mass., and RichardBlumenthal, D-Conn., introduced legis-lation, the Security and Privacy in YourCar Act of 2015 (SPY Car Act), thatwould direct NHSTA and the FederalTrade Commission to develop stan-dards for securing the operating sys-tems and the privacy of connected cars.

Experts stress that, practically speak-ing, no connected car will be 100 percentsafe from attack, whether the hacker isseeking to take control of the vehicle orto steal personal or financial information.

“Today’s car is a network on wheels-and some of the network componentsare small and not very bright,” saidConnected Car Expo panelist KarlHeimer, special adviser for cybersecuri-ty to the state of Michigan.

With its hundreds of millions of linesof code, the connected car is statistical-ly unlikely to be perfectly secure, hesaid.

And then there’s the cost.

“You can partition, encrypt — youcan do things to make a vehicle moreand more safe,” said Strickland, now apartner at Venable law firm inWashington, “but there is a tipping pointwhere the cost will make the vehiclebeyond the reach of regular buyers.”Another cybersecurity panelist, AndreWeimerskirch, associate research scien-tist at the University of MichiganTransportation Research Institute, said:“You can break into any house you wantto; the question is, how much effort doesit take to do it? The task of everyone whois working on this is to understand thepotential profit ahacker can get out ofa car, and then makeit unattractive tothem.”

Meanwhile, therealready are concernsabout who owns orshould have access tothe car’s information.Strickland said car buyers also likely willneed to provide “affirmative consent” toautomakers about what information iscollected and how it is going to beshared and used.

It’s a tough proposition, Weimer-skirch said, pointing out that once pri-vacy and security technology are put inplace, some features and popular appsthat consumers want might not workanymore. Having watched the securitydiscussion for years, Valasek said he hasbeen frustrated by the automakers’ per-ceived unwillingness to share what theyare doing in connected car security.

Strickland said he understands theneed for the automakers and Tier 1 sup-pliers to protect their productionprocesses. He also said: “The answer toquestions of security can’t just be, ‘Trustus.’ For the success of connected andautonomous vehicles, the industry isgoing to have to have a more thoughtfuland transparent answer to this.”

Heimer said with the fast-movingdevelopments on so many fronts, hefavors a broad-based national discus-sion about connectivity, safety and dataprivacy in the auto industry.

PAGE 13

W

After Cherokee hacking debacle, automakersare taking on dual role as software companies

CYBERSECURITY

STRICKLAND

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PAGE 14

hether it’s providingsecurity patches or

downloading the key to ashared vehicle, over-the-

air technology increas-ingly is the foundation of the new worldof connected cars and mobility.

“It used to be that, in a car, over-the-air connections were used for things likecrash response and stolen car securitysystems,” said Brian Greaves, director ofproduct development for AT&T’sInternet of Things Solutions and a for-mer OnStar executive. “But now we’reentering an era where these connectionswill provide services that are relevant ona daily basis.”

Right now there is a huge focus oninfotainment and being able to updateapps over the air, Greaves said. But thereal value will come when automakershave two-way communication witheach vehicle, remotely updating soft-ware and firmware (the built-in softwarethat runs a hardware device) throughoutthe vehicle — and gathering data.

“As an [automaker], if I can pull datafrom the vehicle constantly — calibratethe performance, fuel economy, han-dling — I can continue to adjust andimprove the driving experiencethroughout that vehicle’s life cycle,”Greaves said.

He compares it to smartphone tech-nology.

“That phone is great when you firstopen it up, but that does not mean it isexactly what you will have for the rest ofits life,” he said. “And there’s no reasonyour connected car shouldn’t continueto improve through its life cycle, too.”

Perfect storm of interestYoram Berholtz, director of market

adoption for Redbend by Harman, saidthe interest in over-the-air updating isbeing fueled by a perfect storm:■ Consumer interest in infotainment inthe car and the need to keep that soft-ware updated and problem-free.■ Automakers’ interest in being directlyconnected with their vehicles.■ Everyone’s interest in security, espe-

cially the ability to immediately providesoftware patches and updates that pro-tect drivers.

Mahbubul Alam, chief technologyofficer for Movimento Group, said over-the-air updates will help deliver whatconsumers want in vehicles today.

“We are not necessarily changingcars for the horsepower anymore, butchanging to keep up with the technolo-gy,” Alam said.

He said he believes that is a factor inthe 60 to 70 percent lease rates for high-end vehicles. Those drivers don’t wanttroubles after the warranty ends. Theywant access to the newest technology,which they can get only by moving to anew model.

“We want the latest, greatest technol-ogy, but there’s no way to easily updateit,” Alam said. “By the time you drive offthe lot, the software in your car is alreadytwo or three years old. But in the appand software world, we are now dou-bling features and functionality in lessthan a year. Unless the car becomes aplatform for delivering those new soft-ware and features, the industry will beleft behind.”

From an automaker’s perspective,over-the-air updates will enable them tokeep vehicles current. For owners,updates not only will keep the vehiclescurrent, but help keep resale valueshigher.

Dealers could keep it goingWhere do dealers fit in all this? Alam said after a manufacturer’s

commitment to service and update avehicle expires, perhaps the dealershipcan pick up that contract to provide

over-the-air updates. Or perhaps dealerscan help owners customize their vehi-cles’ software to local needs.

“It allows dealers to bring new servic-es to the community of car owners,”Alam said. “The business is moving.Dealers need to start moving also andchange from only servicing mechanicalsto becoming mechanical and softwareexperts.”

Some of the impetus for over-the-airupdating will come from the growth ofcar sharing, which Alam believes willbecome a more dominant and main-stream transportation choice by 2020-22. Ride-sharing services such as Uberand Lyft rely on over-the-air communi-cations for an easy and seamless con-sumer experience, and car-sharing com-panies such as Getaround are introduc-ing customers to the idea of smartphone“keys” and personal driving preferencesthat can be downloaded from the cloud.

Limitless possibilities“We are at the infancy stage with all

this,” Alam said. He and Berholtz estimate that only a

small number of vehicles in the U.S.,perhaps 2 to 7 percent, have somecapacity for over-the-air updates. ButAlam said some 2018 production carswill have over-the-air capabilities for thehead unit, or control box, and its info-tainment apps and features, and that theinstrument cluster and new connectivityfor safety features soon will follow.

Greaves said he thinks it will be atleast five to 10 years before the majorityof new vehicles will be equipped withover-the-air updating capabilities.Berholtz predicts that by 2020, mostvehicles will have the capability toupdate all the issues that arise with theirsystems.

Then the possibilities are limitless.For instance, Greaves said AT&T alreadyis getting requests to do over-the-airupdates at factories and port locations,so that a vehicle’s information and sys-tems can be instantly synchronized withlocal laws, mapping information and thelike.

Once used for crash response and security, high-techconnections will offer relevant services on a daily basis

WGREAVES ALAM

OVER-THE-AIR CARE

As consumers’ lives become increasingly integrated to a network of devices, data and applications, Faurecia’s experts have made comfort, customization and connectivity a priority within the vehicle. With the advent of the autonomous vehicle, our vision has evolved to ensure Faurecia’s interiors enhance the life on-board experience and drive well-being, so that drivers become passengers and driving becomes the distraction.

VISIT US AT THE CONNECTED CAR EXPO (NOVEMBER 16-17) TO SEE HOW WE’RE VISUALIZING THE FUTURE.

LET US MAKE DRIVING THE DISTRACTION.