A few years ago, the then CEO of Volkswagen revealed that their biggest challenge was software. Despite just launching the ID3, a car with a significant amount of new Volkswagen software for the user, only 10 percent of the total software was coded and controlled by Volkswagen themselves.
In a lengthy podcast with Fully Charged, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley discusses this very issue and why it poses such a massive problem for them. He explains that Ford, like other traditional car companies, has a tradition where the suppliers of car parts are also the ones responsible for the software. In a typical car, there are 150 different components like lights or the control unit for an electric seat. Instead of Ford delivering the software, it is the respective supplier who develops it, resulting in 150 suppliers using different programming languages and approaches.
Two significant problems arise: The first problem is that these 150 suppliers don’t communicate with each other. Sometimes, the suppliers belong to the same brand, such as Bosch, but they are different divisions within Bosch, which is a massive company. Getting these suppliers to work together is not just challenging but almost impossible.
The second problem is that even if Ford had the knowledge to modify the software in, for example, a driver’s seat, they are not allowed to do so because the rights to the software belong to the supplier. Previously, this was not an issue and was actually beneficial since the supplier could sell the same solution to multiple car manufacturers, resulting in better pricing for the manufacturer. Ford is now heavily investing in taking charge of all the software in their cars. However, the problem is that they have not dealt with such matters before, so they are doing everything for the very first time.
Ford has divided the company into two parts to resolve this more quickly, ensuring that the team working on fossil fuel cars does not slow down the team working on electric vehicles. Check out the episode in the interview below; they start discussing this topic around the 25-minute mark in the video. They also delve into other interesting industry-related matters, so if you’re interested in the current developments, it’s an enjoyable listen.
