A luxury SUV sits in a dealership service bay for the fifth time this year. Nothing’s mechanically wrong with the vehicle. It’s there for a software update that should have happened wirelessly but couldn’t because of incompatible systems. Meanwhile, across town, a fleet manager stares at a dashboard showing that a third of the fleet’s vehicles are still waiting for critical safety updates, due to the differing technical capability across five manufacturer platforms.
This isn’t a dystopian future, it’s happening now. Behind the glamorous headlines of vehicles downloading new features while owners sleep lurks a dangerous reality: the automotive industry has created dozens of incompatible systems for updating modern vehicles, threatening to derail the entire software-defined vehicle revolution before it truly begins.
The technical debt accumulating from this fragmentation functions as a hidden tax on innovation, consuming R&D resource, turning features consumers would value into redundant infrastructure no customer will ever notice—until it fails.
The digital fragmentation crisis
A modern luxury vehicle can contain upwards of 100 million lines of code distributed across 30-50 electronic control units (ECUs). Without standardisation, each OEM develops proprietary update mechanisms for these components.
This fragmentation has created what can be described as ‘innovation paralysis’ across the industry. Engineers spend enormous resources reinventing fundamental update infrastructure rather than developing differentiating features. It’s as if every model required a different type of fuel nozzle, so filling stations have to channel their time and energy on developing new nozzles for every new vehicle that launches—enormously inefficient, expensive and inconvenient for motorists and car buyers. As outrageous as this may sound, it almost happened with EV charging ports. The industry, however, recognised the risk and actively co-operated on identifying a standardised charging process.
The consequences can extend far beyond inefficiency. Security vulnerabilities multiply when multiple update pathways exist within a single vehicle architecture. Each proprietary system creates potential attack vectors, requiring separate security protocols and monitoring. For an industry where safety is non-negotiable, this scattered approach introduces substantial risk.
Integration challenges between components from different suppliers further complicate matters. A single vehicle may incorporate ECUs from dozens of vendors, each with varying operating systems, speaking to different networks and with differing software installation procedures. This complexity creates update scenarios that delay critical software deployments by months.
Consumer experience suffers accordingly. Vehicle owners face inconsistent update processes across vehicle systems, often requiring multiple dealer visits for software that should be remotely deployable. Fleet operators managing vehicles from multiple manufacturers must navigate a maze of incompatible update systems. The economic impact is equally concerning. OEMs likely spend a not insignificant amount of their software development resources on basic update infrastructure—resources that could otherwise go towards innovation. This redundant development across manufacturers represents wasted R&D annually.
The standardisation movement
Recognising this unsustainable trajectory, a standardisation movement has emerged across the automotive industry to create unified approaches to software-defined vehicle challenges. Multiple industry consortiums are now working to develop specifications that address automotive OTA. However many of these consortiums have limited span, for example working within a single OS environment. While at a higher level than the individual company, this remains a source of fragmentation. Without a full, holistic approach to OTA, the sector will continue to run into the same problems.
In the case of OTA, it’s about defining how a secure, bidirectional data pipeline can be implemented to reach from a server in the cloud to every programmable device in a vehicle, accommodating the great diversity of those devices. To do this productively, the pipeline would need a multi-tiered approach with agents distributed throughout the vehicle to bring the different requirements and characteristics of the edge into a common communication protocol. This structure creates a standardised pathway while remaining agnostic to operating systems—supporting everything from Android, Linux and other POSIX operating systems, to AUTOSAR and various other real-time operating systems.
The core insight driving these efforts is that standardisation doesn’t have to mean inflexibility. A well-designed standard creates consistent interfaces between components while allowing for customisation where it matters most—standardisation without straitjacketing innovation.
Perhaps the most telling indicator of this movement’s momentum is the growing alignment across the automotive ecosystem. Leading semiconductor manufacturers have joined various standardisation efforts, recognising that even the most powerful chips require efficient update mechanisms to deliver their full potential.
Equally significant is the convergence with complementary initiatives like SOAFEE (Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge), which focuses on standardising software-defined vehicle architectures. These parallel standardisation efforts are increasingly aligned, creating a comprehensive approach to the software-defined vehicle.
There’s a growing recognition across the industry that competitive differentiation should happen at the application level, not the infrastructure level. After all, no OEM sells vehicles based on having better cables and hoses—they compete on vehicle performance and features. The movement extends to development tools as well. The integration of standardised OTA capabilities into major CI/CD platforms demonstrates how standardisation facilitates the entire software lifecycle, from development through to deployment and maintenance.
The security imperative
Perhaps nowhere is standardisation more critical than in security. A fragmented approach creates an expanded attack surface that complicates defence. By contrast, a standardised approach enables collective security intelligence from across the ecosystem.
When an ecosystem exists around a common pipeline, security improvements benefit the entire ecosystem. A full community has vested interest in maintaining the security of the platform, and any vulnerabilities discovered, and solutions created, can alert all who use the standard. This is far superior to a fractured environment where each of a dozen OEMs monitor for the vulnerabilities and patches to their own proprietary systems.
This collective security approach becomes especially crucial as vehicles take on increasingly autonomous functions. The ability to rapidly patch security vulnerabilities across millions of vehicles could prevent potential catastrophes.
The standardisation movement is reshaping competitive dynamics throughout the automotive industry. Forward-thinking OEMs recognise that participating in standardisation actually accelerates innovation by freeing resources from basic infrastructure development. The data is compelling. Companies can either spend 40% of their software resources developing proprietary update systems with no competitive advantage, or they can adopt standards and redirect those resources towards features customers notice and value.
The path forward
The trajectory appears increasingly clear. As vehicles continue their transformation into software platforms, standardised update infrastructure becomes essential. The question for manufacturers is not whether standardisation will happen, but whether they will help lead the change or struggle to catch up.
Those embracing standardised approaches gain substantial advantages in development efficiency, operational costs, and consumer experience. The resource saved in redundant infrastructure development can fund true innovation.
The standards ecosystem continues to expand. Leading industry consortiums now include dozens of members representing the full automotive supply chain, from semiconductor manufacturers to Tier 1 suppliers and software specialists. This broad representation ensures standards evolve to meet industry needs rather than serving narrow interests.
Automakers will quickly lose their edge if they cannot update and add eye-catching features throughout the lifetime of the vehicle. Standardisation of OTA allows for the focus to be placed on innovation and advancements of these all-important features. Those doing so today are building competitive advantages.
The most important change to automotive infrastructure of this decade won’t be what the customer can see—it will be the invisible infrastructure that makes everything else possible. And on that foundation, the entire future of automotive software will be built.
About the author: Mike Gardner is Executive Director of the eSync Alliance
