So now, on top of all the other components a car needs to function, software is also now in the mix, creating a complex ecosystem that cannot fail at any point.

In the most recent episode of our podcast What the Dev, we were joined by Cameron van Orman, chief strategy & marketing officer and GM of Automotive Solutions at Planview, to talk about how these automakers are managing their software development life cycles.

Here is an edited and abridged version of that conversation: 

Let’s talk a little bit about the complexity in making these cars happen, the software. What goes into making these autonomous vehicles?

As you said, David, it’s very complex. You’re taking an industry that drove the Industrial Revolution and became experts over 100 years of mechanical, physical engineering, bending metal, combustion as part of vehicle propulsion. And now this same group that has this 100 years of physical supply chains is now coming a little bit late (but fast) to the party on software. Depending on which auto manufacturer you talk to, you have somewhere between 100 and 500 million lines of code in a current automobile — and I’m not just talking EVs. Even in a traditional internal combustion engine propelled car there’s a lot of complexity in all that software built and designed from not just the OEM, but a multi-tiered supply chain. How do you get all that integrated, working, and effective and delivering transformative experiences for us as drivers and passengers?

Building cars had always been a very mechanical kind of a process. Now it’s much more of a digital process in many ways. I mean, it’s the merger of both, actually. How are automakers adapting? 

It’s a complete change, arguably. I heard one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure providers accuse the automobile industries of being the last stalwarts in adopting cloud, and many of them are still on-prem, yet they’re really adopting all this modern software so quickly. In the last 10 years, there’s just been this explosion of code and software in a car, but there’s still a challenge in this Agile transformation, digital transformation, that’s going on in an industry that has this deep heritage in physical manufacturing and bending metal. 

Launches of a new car platform or a new car model are often now dependent on software. Mark Fields — he’s the former CEO and chairman of Ford — is chairman of Planview, and so I’ve had the opportunity to talk at length with him on this topic. And over 100 years, auto manufacturers have really perfected and have this great visibility into everything physical that goes into the launch of a new vehicle, all the design and aero and compulsion and combustion and all the tooling of factories, but now it’s software that’s causing models to be delayed. In some cases, it’s causing executives — and we saw it over in Europe — to lose their jobs.

And unlike physical manufacturing with this long history and understanding of the burn down — you start with a gazillion items to do, and every week you have your meeting, and items just get reduced until it’s ready to launch — that’s not the way software development works. And auto companies are grappling with predictability and efficiency of their software supply chain, not just their physical supply chain. If software is late or is going to delay a launch of a platform, that can cost ten of millions of dollars, as you have physical plants that have been tooled up and sitting idle.

What about the testing of that software? Obviously, this has to be mission critical stuff. You can’t have a software defined vehicle have a failure, that would be catastrophic. So how does that work in terms of when you talk about portfolio planning, how much of the pre-planning has to go into it to ensure things like that aren’t happening? 

A lot. How do you have that visibility into the full life cycle effectiveness, flow, predictability and throughput of your software tool chain and software development processes. And what’s really unique about the auto industry is when we talk about technology buzzwords like DevOps or value stream management, most often we think about it in the confines of a single organization. But in automotive you’ve got to think about it across their distributed set of suppliers and companies, from the OEMs the tier ones to the tier twos. 

As a driver or passenger in an automobile you don’t know  — whether it’s the braking system or the infotainment center — was the software that manages it and runs it, was that built and coded by the OEM, by the tier one, by a sub component supplier? And you don’t care. It’s all got to work together. 

And so the complexity of your software development life cycle and the need for visibility is far greater. Single companies struggle with visibility across their DevOps or software life cycles across all the steps and tools. Magnify that by OEMs, who have their own divisions and regions and silos, and then they have their own complex configuration of suppliers that can number in the hundreds. You need that visibility. And you talked about quality. You need that traceability. 

As we were sort of preparing for the call you talked about your wife having issues with the infotainment system. So, you go to the local dealer or mechanic shop, and they’ve got to flag that IT software issue up to the OEM. The OEM has to figure out who really created that code, tier one, tier two, and it’s got to trace it all the way through to that development team. They’ve got to see it. They’ve got to then fix it, and it’s got to push it all the way back up and ultimately, into the car, right? And that traceability is so important.

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John Chen, executive chairman and CEO at BlackBerry, said, “The future of the automobile is all about embedded intelligence. I believe our expertise in secure embedded software makes us the preferred technology provider to put the smart in the car. Ford is an industry leader and the opportunity to contribute our world-class technology to their products is a privilege. Ford’s expanded application of our software and services illustrates the diverse and broad value we can bring to market.”

(Related: What the Internet of Things holds in store)

The agreement will lead to the creation of a team inside BlackBerry that will focus on Ford’s needs for the QNX Neutrino Operating System. Ford will also be using the QNX Hypervisor and audio processing software, as well as BlackBerry’s Certicom security technologies.

Raj Nair, executive vice president of product development and CTO at Ford Motor Company, said, “With the success of our SYNC 3 system globally, which is based on the BlackBerry QNX operating system, we understand the importance of the connected car experience to our customers. Growing our expertise, experience and use of the BlackBerry QNX embedded software platforms will help ensure we deliver the high-quality, highly secure experience that our customers expect.”

This move comes just two weeks after rumors surfaced that Apple had shuttered its internal efforts to build a car or some car-related technologies. While none of the Apple rumors have been substantiated, the company was said to be working on Project Titan, an all-electric car with features such as iOS compatibility and self-driving.

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MotorMood, a Kickstarter project from a Los Angeles startup team, wants to replace all that hand waving with a light-up emoji to “make the road a happier place.”

The happy face emojis, which currently come in blue, green or pink, are placed on the car’s back windshield and activated for six seconds with the push of a button mounted on the dashboard. The campaign has currently raised more than US$42,000 of its $130,500 goal with a month remaining, and if successful, the company plans to release the $19 product by this year’s holiday season.

Emojis have become one of the most ubiquitous forms of communication. MotorMood’s cofounder Alex Sewell said he believes humans are inherently drawn to images over text, and he pointed to a study in the journal Social Neuroscience showing the relationship between emoticons and emotional response. “There’s an indescribable emotional response you get when you see a versus the word ‘smiley,’ ” said Sewell.

The startup plans to add additional happy faces with varying degrees of expressiveness and other positive emotions, such as gratitude and contrition. Sewell said it’s also working on licensing characters from brands (such as Disney), and is developing a 2.0 version that will let people download and customize their own displays as well as receive input on how they’re driving. Stretch fundraising goals beyond $130,500 include a black-and-white emoji, as well as a winky face to send a flirty to the driver behind you.

What consumers won’t see are angry faces or more aggressive or hostile emojis. Sewell said the team initially planned to introduce a red angry-face emoji, but ultimately decided against it to keep the MotorMood brand positive. No road rage emojis in the offering.

Would you use a MotorMood? Take a look at the company’s idealistic vision for how emojis would make the road a friendlier, less stressful place in the video below:

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