2021 is the year when Volkswagen, the world's leading automotive company, is fully moving towards software-defined vehicles. Volkswagen's prediction for 2020: At that time, a car will integrate up to about 100 million lines of code, and by 2025, up to 1 billion lines of code will be integrated on a car (Note 1). And how much does it cost to develop 1 line of code? It's about $10. 1 billion lines of code means $10 billion in development costs! Zhou Haitao, a senior technical expert at PTC, believes that in the future, the automobile industry will be a full-fledged software industry, and the automobile research and development innovation system will undergo great changes!
The so-called "software-defined car" refers to the fact that when the hardware of the car is gradually standardized and modularized, the software gradually becomes the core of the car, the value and role of the software in the car are gradually increased, the software dominates most of the functions such as driving, entertainment, etc., and the software will determine the difference in car configuration and car experience, which is the form of the future car. At the "two sessions" in 2022, new energy vehicles, automatic driving, intelligent networking, etc. have once again become hot spots, while Zhou Haitao called on China's auto industry to focus on software as a carrier and push backwards from "software-defined cars" to the profound changes in the future of automobile research and development innovation.
1 billion lines of code to refactor cars
What is the concept of 1 billion lines of code? Google has about 2 billion lines of code, Facebook has about 60 million lines of code, MS Office 2013 has about 40 million lines of code, and Android has about 20 million lines of code (Note 2). 1 billion lines of code is the magnitude of software and Internet companies between Google and Facebook. When the car's software code reaches the order of 1 billion lines, the car company becomes a full-fledged software company.
In the future, a running car will carry 1 billion lines of code, and the focus of the car's research and development will be on software engineering, which is the direction in which Volkswagen will reconstruct itself through huge investments. In July 2021, Volkswagen unveiled Strategy 2030 (Note 3), which summarizes business transformation initiatives in recent years and envisions a "new car" strategy to 2030 – an electrical architecture E3 2.0, full electrification, a super modular production platform SSP, and a software-driven mobility service provider.
In Volkswagen's next-generation R&D system, E3 2.0 and SSP are the "terminators" of hardware standardization and modularization. From 2025, E3 2.0 will be the unified electrical and electronic architecture for all Volkswagens, based on the VW.OS Volkswagen operating system, VW. AC Volkswagen Cloud can support autonomous driving L3, L4, and a wealth of functions and applications. E3 2.0 also realizes the full concentration of the automotive electronic control system, the current car nearly 100 ECU electronic controllers are concentrated into three intelligent control domains, can be understood as the central control unit of the PC computer, automobile production can also be assembled like a computer, which is behind the SSP super modular platform. The SSP is the integration and unification of Volkswagen's modular platforms of different models, such as MEB and PPE, which can reduce the project cycle of new cars from 54 months to 40 months and the production time of automobiles to 10 hours.
Zhou Haitao stressed that Volkswagen's new platform strategy indicates its future business focus: the mechatronic product platform SSP reflects that Volkswagen will further promote the reuse of R&D and manufacturing, and promotes platform-based efficient technological innovation; the software platform reflects Volkswagen's determination to transform the software-centered organization of the vehicle development model, from the development model, operation system to digital support will bring new changes. On March 15, 2022, Volkswagen released its 2021 annual report (Note 4), and the "new car" strategy has made progress in stages: the first new model based on the SSP, Trinity, will be produced in a new plant costing 2 billion euros, which will not only adopt the latest production methods, but also achieve a net neutral carbon footprint; the software division CARIAD has pushed 56 software updates through OTA in the past year. In 2025, a unified software platform 2.0 for all brands of the Group will be released.
Around the "1 billion lines of code", Volkswagen is completely reshaping the R&D innovation system.
What to learn from leading companies
Volkswagen's reconstruction of R&D innovation system with "Software First" as the core concept will also drive the global automotive industry to further actively embrace "software-defined vehicles". Zhou Haitao stressed that the trend of "software-defined automobiles" will bring three major changes to the global automotive industry: hardware platformization and generalization; software and hardware decoupling; and software services becoming the future profit point of automobiles.
Specifically, there are three major changes brought to the automotive industry.
Hardware platforming and generalization. The distributed electrical and electronic architecture and complex model configuration are not conducive to the promotion of OTA models, which greatly increases the difficulty of software adaptation. With the development and maturity of technology and the trend of electrification, the technical barriers of hardware will be gradually flattened, the differentiation of models of the same level through hardware will be less and less, and many new models of car companies have almost achieved the top of the same level, through EE architecture reform, hardware embedding, module integration and other ways to streamline the model configuration and improve the level of hardware standardization.
Software and hardware decoupling. Today, there are nearly 100 ECUs in the car, each ECU is designed and developed by independent suppliers, software and hardware are hard-bound, and the collaboration between different ECUs is difficult, the efficiency is low and the software update cycle is slow. In the future, the car will further compress nearly 100 ECUs to several intelligent control domains, coupled with the improvement of hardware standardization, the software will be decoupled from the hardware, different hardware resources can be combined on demand, and the software can also be rapidly iterated and updated quickly, providing users with new experiences, new functions, and new performance. For example, Tesla Model 3 does not have any hardware upgrades, only through the software OTA can improve the vehicle's 100-kilometer acceleration performance from 4.6 seconds to 4.1 seconds, which is behind the software decoupling, the "Acceleration Boost" package through the algorithm optimization call hardware resources to bring about the experience upgrade.
Software services have become the future profit point of the automobile. The smile curve of the manufacturing industry is already developing towards the 2.0 era, that is, with the introduction of more digital technologies, the smile curve will be exacerbated, and the added value of the research and development end, especially the back-end that is, the aftermarket, will be greatly improved. Software OTA enables automotive products to remain alive after delivery to users, and through software OTA push, car companies can upgrade functions, expand new applications, customize personalized services, and broaden their own profit model.
In the face of the three major trends of change, how to increase reuse and reduce costs, how to cope with the surge in product complexity brought about by software, and how to capture demand to promote model transformation have become the three major challenges faced by car companies.
The automotive industry is reshaping the digital R&D system
In response to the challenges brought about by the century-long changes in the automotive industry, car companies and ecological enterprises have actively embraced digital transformation in order to apply new digital methods to take advantage of opportunities in the new era. The construction of digital system is not only an innovation from 0 to 1, but also a long journey from 1 to 100.
Drawing on the CMM maturity model, enterprise digital maturity is divided into the following five levels: Level 1 - Initial Level (Ad Hoc), that is, digital initiatives only respond to single-point business challenges, have low matching with enterprise strategies, and do not pay attention to user experience; Level 2 - Opportunistic, that is, digital strategies should be integrated into business strategies, but still lack integrated digital system planning, data and processes still have breakpoints; Level 3 - Repeatable, that is, the enterprise has formulated a digital blueprint and promotion route, and introduced methodologies to build a digital system for internal operations in an orderly manner, but has not realized the innovation of products and services; Level 4 - Management level ( Managed ) , that is , the digital blueprint is closely related to business strategy , digital technology enables enterprises to change product and service experience; Level 5 - Optimization level ( Optimized ) , that is, enterprises have disruptive characteristics, Digital technology continues to drive business model innovation, and can influence the market and drive the reshaping of the ecological environment.
Looking at the domestic automotive vehicle and parts supplier industry, most companies are still in Level 2, and a few head companies have reached Level 3, but Volkswagen has reached Level 4 and is moving towards Level 5. Many brands under the Volkswagen Group have introduced PTC digital mainline, augmented reality (AR) and other technologies to support the implementation of their digital strategies. In addition, BMW, Volvo Group and some domestic leading passenger car and commercial vehicle companies have also focused on building innovative digital capabilities on the basis of traditional IT construction, reaching the level of Level 3 and Level 4.
Focusing on the field of R&D, as a top technology supplier in the field of global industrial R&D, PTC's R&D platform serves a wide range of leading enterprises in the global industry. At present, China is experiencing a new stage of redefinition of automotive products. Based on the PTC core PLM/ALM platform, integrating the digital main line and digital twin technology, Zhou Haitao recommended three PTC solutions to Chinese car companies to help Chinese auto companies redefine their products, profoundly transform the R&D system, and accelerate their move towards Level 4 and Level 5.
Modular platform solution for the whole product life cycle. Taking volkswagen SSPs as a reference, the automotive platform should be flexible and scalable, and the reuse of parts should be increased through standardization and generalization, thereby reducing R&D and manufacturing costs. In the planning stage, in addition to considering the traditional hardware modules, the platform should also consider the electronic and electrical parts related to the software, and it should be able to adapt to the future electrical and electronic architecture, that is, when defining the platform, it is necessary to consider the decoupling of supporting software and hardware, so as to support the rapid iteration of software. PTC solutions apply system engineering methods to support the planning and definition of the platform, support the construction and management of modular model platforms, realize the integrated management of platform architecture, modules, configuration rules, BOM, 3D models and DMU, provide matrix product family atlas, facilitate a clear understanding of the application status of the platform, and the platform not only serves the R&D process, through BOM multi-view, configuration rule transmission and other ways to serve the end-to-end value chain of enterprises, pulling through all aspects of R&D, manufacturing, service, marketing and so on.
OTA end-to-end software management solution. The increasingly rich and diverse functions of automobiles have brought about exponential growth in software volume, and with the popularity of OTA, it has brought severe challenges to software iteration efficiency, software version management, and software quality assurance. The PTC solution can support two major software development management scenarios for future automobiles: a waterfall development process that supports embedded software to meet functional safety requirements, and an agile development process in OTA scenarios to support demand-driven functional agile development. In terms of supporting ECU software development, PTC solution covers the whole life cycle of software from requirements definition, architecture design, code management, testing, to release, making the entire development process manageable, traceable and traceable, ensuring the rigor of software development. In the agile development of OTA, PTC can pull through business objects such as functional requirements, software code, test scripts, test resources, and defect libraries through digital mainline technology, and support car companies to achieve continuous integration and continuous release.
Requirements management solutions. The rapid changes in automotive software stem from the diversification and diversification of demand, and car companies need to first aggregate multiple needs including 400 hotlines, Car Networking data, and after-sales platform feedback, analyze and integrate them into the function development process. PTC solutions enable automakers to achieve demand-driven product development. From combining the "digital main line" technology to achieve multi-source demand aggregation, development requirements definition and decomposition, establishing digital traceability of requirements and design, simulation and testing, and then establishing a requirements library, promoting demand reuse, and even realizing the analysis and evaluation of requirements, PTC product requirements management solution covers all aspects of demand engineering such as requirements collection, requirements analysis and review, requirements distribution, requirements realization and requirements verification, and promotes the accurate development and realization of requirements in the context of "software-defined vehicles".
Overall: To some extent, the future car will be a mobile large smartphone, software will become the main body of the future car and differentiated competitiveness, and auto companies will become the next generation of software companies. Today's car companies must reverse the reform of the R& D system from the future automobile form, and establish a strong software engineering capability in the R& D system as soon as possible, which will be the premise and necessary condition for the survival and development of China's automobile industry in the future world stage. "Running 1 billion lines of code" will reshape today's R&D innovation system of China's automotive industry!
Note 1: https://www.volkswagenag.com/presence/investorrelation/publications/presentations/2020/03-m rz/2020.02.27_VWAG_Exane_Webcast%202020.pdf
Note 2: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/millions-lines-of-code/
Note 3: https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/group/strategy .html
Note 4: https://annualreport2021.volkswagenag .com