Over-the-air updates on varied paths

LAS VEGAS -- Over-the-air updates aren't just for Tesla anymore.

Once deemed an unacceptable risk and a daunting technical challenge, remote software fixes have quickly become a top priority for the world's largest car companies.

Interest spiked after Tesla Motors launched the Model S sedan with onboard Wi-Fi and an electronic architecture allowing every line of code to be changed over time -- right down to those dictating the behavior of the brakes, steering and suspension.

But other manufacturers lack such easy remote access to their vehicles in service. So they're choosing from several ways to get software updates into cars, including options that loop in the owner's smartphone.

The lack of an industrywide standard adds complexity for automakers, but for now it's creating a competitive battleground, with automakers vying to do the best job of satisfying regulators on security and delighting customers with new experiences.

"Two years ago, 'over-the-air update' was like a bad word," Ned Curic, chief technology officer at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., said in November at the Connected Car Expo in Los Angeles. Now, he said, the response from executives is: "Yes, we've got to do that."

No matter how the updates get done, the upside is huge. IHS Automotive projects that automakers will save $35 billion from over-the-air updates in 2022, up from $2.7 billion in 2015. Those savings would come from 10.9 million map updates, plus 42.5 million telematics updates, 34.4 million infotainment updates and 13.2 million updates to safety-critical control units.

Until now, automakers mostly have used over-the-air updates to handle software improvements for telematics controllers, such as those that run General Motors' OnStar service. Those updates have been done over cellular networks.

But cellular data can be expensive. This may be why Tesla turned to Israeli software specialist Redbend, purchased last year by Harman International, to process the over-the-air rollout of its Autopilot driver-assist system in 2015. With a technology called Smart Delta, Redbend can replace only the code that needs to be changed, rather than the entire file.

"If you're paying a cent per megabyte, and you need to send 500 megabytes to thousands or millions of cars, that's a lot of money," Oren Betzaleli, head of product, strategy and marketing at Redbend, said in an interview. "If you can save 90 percent of that, or even 50 percent, that's a huge improvement."

Some automakers are solving this problem by skipping cellular networks altogether. Ford Motor Co.'s new Sync 3 infotainment system, built on the QNX operating system from BlackBerry, will process updates over Wi-Fi. This system, called the Ford Service Delivery Network, will be managed by Microsoft Corp.'s cloud service, Azure.

Others are exploring a third, more radical option: sending an update to driver's smartphone first, and then having it transmitted to the car over Bluetooth. It's a two-step process, but it allows even older vehicles with neither a cellular connection nor a Wi-Fi receiver to be patched remotely.

Movimento, a suburban Detroit supplier that specializes in delivering software updates to cars as they roll down the assembly line, is working on such a solution. Mahbubul Alam, chief technical officer at Movimento, said automakers with security lapses in their cars have worked with Movimento on fixes they could send to owners' smartphones, rather than forcing them to visit a dealership.

"If it's possible to hack a car to do something bad," Alam said in an interview, "then it's possible to do something good as well. But it's still a hack solution, and that's not something that you necessarily want to promote."

Though the industry hasn't yet settled on many standards, the Genivi Alliance, an industry consortium that includes BMW and Nissan, is working on shared, open-source software for over-the-air updates.

Gravitating to common back-end software for over-the-air updates would free engineers to work on things that differentiate cars in the eyes of customers, said Matt Jones, head of future infotainment at Jaguar Land Rover. This month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, his team found 42 companies offering over-the-air updates for cars. All, Jones said, were "essentially doing the exact same thing."

He added: "I want those 42 teams of engineers all working to generate cool new features and add value for customers."