On this special episode of The InEVitable, I ventured out to Ottawa, the capital of Canada and home of the engineering side of QNX, the automotive software supplier and longtime sponsor of MotorTrend’s Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.
Recorded inside “The Garage” at QNX, where the company’s engineers build and test all sorts of robotic and automotive software and hardware, I met with QNX President, John Wall, and Vector President, Dr. Matthias Traub, for a conversation about the current state and future of SDVs, including what these two companies are doing to make the transition from traditional electromechanical automobiles to the electrified, connected, and possibly autonomous vehicles of the future.
As we covered in this previous episode of The InEVitable, recorded live at CES, QNX and Vector recently launched a new foundational software platform called Alloy Kore™, with the intent of simplifying some of the most complicated aspects of building next-generation vehicles.
Although this is a QNX and Vector co-sponsored episode, the conversation covers a broad range of topics beyond the launch and reception of Alloy Kore. Traub and Wall provide insights on the evolution of SDVs, current pitfalls and missteps within the industry, and what we can expect in the future.
In talking about Alloy Kore and its safety-certified and cybersecurity advantages, we also confront a much larger philosophical question many car makers are asking themselves—whether to vertically integrate and build everything on their own (hardware, including microchips, software, motors, batteries, etc.) or iterate on the traditional supplier model. Naturally, QNX and Vector believe their “off-the-shelf” solution is the better approach, especially when factoring in all the costs, resources, safety standards, and regulations required to build an automotive-grade software platform from scratch, but we also discuss the appeal of “going vertical.”
To this end, we touch on the approach of Tesla and Rivian, as well as Chinese auto startups, and the challenge vertical integration poses for the large legacy car makers we all know. If you’re a car nerd interested in how the SDV sausage is made, it’s a compelling discussion from two very informed automotive executives with very different backgrounds, as Wall is a software supplier veteran with over 30 years at QNX, and Traub has held leadership positions in embedded automotive electrical systems at BMW, VW Group, and Cariad, VW’s software startup.
It’s a technical yet accessible conversation about the current state and future of SDVs. Listen to the full conversation here or wherever you get your podcasts.
For those interested in the engineering talent and developer ecosystem helping make software-defined vehicles possible, The InEVitable also recently spoke with Vector’s Karen Xiong and QNX’s Andy Gryc from inside the QNX Garage in Ottawa. That conversation explored everything from career paths into automotive software and the realities of safety-critical development to the tools, workflows, and systems-thinking skills increasingly shaping the next generation of vehicle engineering. You can watch that conversation below.
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