"From Tesla To Toyota: How Software Is Hitting Reset On Cars" - article

[Tooney]

The real war for the future of the car isn't even about batteries—it's about code. That is, if car companies can actually pull it off.

“You need to be able to write from layer one of the silicon all the way up to the application layer of the car in order to control it properly," now-former Volvo CEO Jim Rowan told the UK's Autocar in a recent interview. "There are three companies in the world that have managed to do that: Tesla, Rivian and Volvo. There’s a lot of good car companies but none of them have figured it out. It’s a big deal—and freaking hard to get this done. But we’ve stuck at it.”

As Rivian increasingly becomes another leader in the software space,, it has embraced the concept of zonal architecture. “We looked at a clean sheet approach, which would be, let's place ECUs geographically, and then just have it connect to the thing that's most local,” Lobo said. “We have an East, we have a West, and we have a South {zone controller}. The West Zone controller, for example, connects everything on the driver's side of the car, so the accelerator pedals and the front suspension system.”

In total, Rivian uses just seven ECUs for the 2025 R1S SUV and R1T pickup. This number is down from 17 in the original R1S and R1T. Some modern luxury vehicles competing with Rivian’s offerings can contain as many as 150 ECUs. Even chopping out 10 ECUs made notable improvements inon weight and wiring requirements. “We've reduced the harness lengths by 1.6 miles in the car with the same feature set,” Lobo said. Rivian said that this, paired with the fewer ECUs, shaved 44 pounds off the weight of the vehicle. That means the cars cost less to make and operate more efficiently overall.

These improvements piqued the interest of Volkswagen Group, a company notorious for its issues with software. In 2020, Volkswagen launched a new software division called CARIAD. But it has since struggled, leading to the delays of several key vehicles including the Porsche Macan EV and Audi Q6 e-tron. This was even part of what cost Volkswagen’s previous CEO, Herbert Diess, his position at the company. The stakes could not be higher.

In November 2024, the two announced a joint venture called Rivian and VW Group Technology. Within this JV, Rivian will supply its software platform for future Volkswagen vehicles, like the upcoming ID.1. “We will be providing architectures to the Volkswagen Group vehicles,” Lobo told InsideEVs. “We’re really excited as it's like a really fun moment for us to spread the technology to other companies and have them benefit from it as well.”
From Tesla To Toyota: How Software Is Hitting Reset On Cars

 

[tophamn]

Link to the Volvo CEO interview referred to here: How Jim Rowan made Volvo a software company that builds cars | Autocar

 

[Tooney]

Link to the Volvo CEO interview referred to here: How Jim Rowan made Volvo a software company that builds cars | Autocar

That is an excellent article. Thanks for posting. A couple of quotes from it:

“With internal combustion engines, ‘premium’ is derived by [the likes of] ride quality,” he says. “If that was your brand attribute, you spent a ton of money because you put a big, heavy engine in the front of the car. You want to throw that car through the corners at 120kph [75mph]. You’d spend a lot of money on making a really smooth engine, on a really nice chassis, on suspension.

“Then, bang, all of a sudden there’s a new technology. You take a flat skateboard design and you get a nice low centre of gravity. Now you don’t have to offset this big, heavy engine in the front of the car, so suspension and, to some extent, chassis design becomes far less important. With battery technology, it’s not about the explosiveness and the smoothness of your engine, because you get torque for free. So now, what’s your brand attribute?

“What we’re seeing in China is people are saying: ‘Why would I buy this car when I can get the same acceleration, the same ride and handling for half the price?’”
. . .
A question about the future of estates (according to Rowan, SUVs have taken their place essentially and Volvo cannot and will not enter every market niche as a relatively small company. A range of around eight cars will be enough) prompts a wider response from Rowan about how the industry is in a “Darwinian event” around survival, and who can successfully transition into software-defined vehicles.

“The guys figure this out quicker are going to come out strong, the guys who stick to the knitting,” he says. “There will be people who don’t come out of this and there will be fatalities. The guys with 10-15 brands, that’s going to be super-tough. They’re going to need to pare that back quickly.”

Rowan expects a significant change in around 18 months as brands start to disappear, from legacy car makers and from Chinese upstarts.

“They’re just not all gonna survive,” he says. “There’s not enough business for everybody. A lot of them are not making money already. They’re selling cars at a loss just to keep cash coming in. Eventually, that plays itself out and you’re going to see a thinning out of the multi-brand car companies that are going to need to say: ‘I can’t keep all these brands alive, so I’m going to need to shrink.’

 

[daveo4EV]

That is an excellent article. Thanks for posting. A couple of quotes from it:

“With internal combustion engines, ‘premium’ is derived by [the likes of] ride quality,” he says. “If that was your brand attribute, you spent a ton of money because you put a big, heavy engine in the front of the car. You want to throw that car through the corners at 120kph [75mph]. You’d spend a lot of money on making a really smooth engine, on a really nice chassis, on suspension.

“Then, bang, all of a sudden there’s a new technology. You take a flat skateboard design and you get a nice low centre of gravity. Now you don’t have to offset this big, heavy engine in the front of the car, so suspension and, to some extent, chassis design becomes far less important. With battery technology, it’s not about the explosiveness and the smoothness of your engine, because you get torque for free. So now, what’s your brand attribute?

“What we’re seeing in China is people are saying: ‘Why would I buy this car when I can get the same acceleration, the same ride and handling for half the price?’”
. . .
A question about the future of estates (according to Rowan, SUVs have taken their place essentially and Volvo cannot and will not enter every market niche as a relatively small company. A range of around eight cars will be enough) prompts a wider response from Rowan about how the industry is in a “Darwinian event” around survival, and who can successfully transition into software-defined vehicles.

“The guys figure this out quicker are going to come out strong, the guys who stick to the knitting,” he says. “There will be people who don’t come out of this and there will be fatalities. The guys with 10-15 brands, that’s going to be super-tough. They’re going to need to pare that back quickly.”

Rowan expects a significant change in around 18 months as brands start to disappear, from legacy car makers and from Chinese upstarts.

“They’re just not all gonna survive,” he says. “There’s not enough business for everybody. A lot of them are not making money already. They’re selling cars at a loss just to keep cash coming in. Eventually, that plays itself out and you’re going to see a thinning out of the multi-brand car companies that are going to need to say: ‘I can’t keep all these brands alive, so I’m going to need to shrink.’

and hence…

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/opinion-hmmm…vw-audi-porsche-may-be-in-trouble….22898/

 

[Tooney]

and hence…

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/opinion-hmmm…vw-audi-porsche-may-be-in-trouble….22898/

Apparently you have forgotten about e-fuels.....

 

[Wivenhoe]

Clearly the Board and shareholders didn’t rate the guy. The articles I have read said he was ousted, hence the immediate step down and the fact they reappointed his predecessor. His Chinese masters seem to be having a rethink - they divested their ownership of Polestar with little or no warning and are seemingly unhappy with Volvo. I suspect him expressing an opinion that Chinese upstarts will be disappearing didn’t go down too well in Beijing