Looking Out - The Podcast
Looking Out - The Podcast
EP20 - Making Sense of The Software-defined Vehicle
In this episode, we dive in to software-defined vehicles (SDVs) and what they mean for the customer experience.
We cover why car makers are developing them, including their need to diversify revenue streams in saturated markets, and the ability to deliver over-the-air updates.
We also talk about some of the pitfalls, like accelerated obsolescence and good ol' enshitification.
And we talk about the character we loose when everything becomes software-defined.
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Sam Saha's superb deep-dive on the software defined vehicle: https://sambuddha.com/share/vehiclesoftware/Saha_DefiningVehicleSoftware_002_SDV.pdf
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⏰ Time stamps
00:00 Pre-roll
03:42 The impending obsolescence of the software-defined vehicle
05:31 Background for the show
11:54 The car as part of a much larger ecosystem
17:18 The questionable wisdom of trying to do it all
19:33 Data as the new oil and the enshitification of the car
23:00 The pros of Ford Pro
46:11 Post-roll
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Without going down a, isn't late stage capitalism terrible? But let's go down that road now. Um, that if you think about it in one sense, I imagine that every car brand on the planet is currently saying, we are going to grow either volume or profit or, you know, Sales size, number of cars, and yet you're butting up against market saturation in mature markets, uh, new entrants and. The fact that maybe we are reaching the limits of what the planet will sustain. I mean in terms of extraction as much as climate change. So, extracting over two tons of shit for every, like, car is not necessarily sustainable for a few million cars a year.
Drew Smith:Um, we're gonna
Joe Simpson:run out of shit, yes. Yes, Um, so, If your, if your goal is to go, yeah, but we're going to be better. And we're going to grow our market share. We're going to make more money for you, dear shareholders, then you have to try to fill in the gap. And what we are seeing is like opportunity space around the car, which is, you know, Accessories, ecosystems, things that come from our car brand, our energy solution, our like bank, our credit card. Um, or if you plug your car into your house, then we can kind of control your energy. And actually that's potentially a really good one, but it's, if the car company owns it, it's a way for them to make more money per the point about the, you know, software enabled features with. Mercedes, and that's how you kind of start to fill in the gap. I think my pro point is some of these things were thought of as things that will actually make stuff better, or that we know we would like to do for the user or for the planet. Um, But many of them are just like a, how do we make incremental money? How do we do this? Enable by software. So on one hand, you have a kind of situation where to connect the vehicle to the grid to potentially balance the load for the vehicle to know, can I give that energy out of the battery to the grid, which I can then make money for you on and, you know, if we make this work properly across the country, we can actually mean we don't have to build five new nuclear power stations. That's fucking great, but you need software to kind of be able to control that. Um, whereas we've fitted the elements for the heated seats and now I want to charge you 10 a month to, you know, to activate those. Less great. Um, or at least less great from the sort of, from the consumer's side. Hello, I'm Joe Simpson, design strategist at an auto OEM in Europe, whose views I do not and have never represented on this show.
Drew Smith:And my name is Drew Smith. Uh, working as an independent design strategist at StudioPhro.
Joe Simpson:And welcome to looking out the podcast in which we connect the dots across mobility, design, and culture.
Drew Smith:And coming up in this episode, episode number 20, uh, we're going to have a chat about software defined vehicles. Now, this episode got off to a rolling start. But Joe just got into such an amazing flow that I didn't want to stop him. So, uh, with that out of the way, let's get on with the show
Joe Simpson:I think the other thing that I then hit into with this was the question of sort of long term durability and support and how what, what I see SDVs framed as, by people who talk about it is this idea that the car can improve day by day. So I think the counterpoint is what you said, where it's like, it's never done. But the other end of that is. Yeah, but we can make it fixed. We can sort it out. We can improve it. We can add new things. And when you think about any car from the last 10 years, the thing that dates is the tech and the stuff on the screens and the kind of the systems. So being able to update that in theory is great because it makes the car have potentially longer term viability. It, it, it reduces its obsolescence. However, are car companies actually going to support. Cars for 10, 15, 20 years. Are you still really going to be managing software across X number of platforms, 10, 15 years after you stopped making that car? I don't think they can. I don't think can. And then that flips the, the, the, it flips the equation on its head, where then you, rather than if you look after a mechanical object, it will last 20 years if you buy it from a quality brand. You potentially have a situation where it is obsolete or written off after 10, because, oh, whoops, we decided to, uh, you know, not support that software update anymore. Or to the point of, on a small scale, Spotify bricking its Car Thing for everybody this week. And you've held up examples, you know, the Nissan one. Um, I think that's the kind of balance and the conversation that we need to be having. And that generally, when we get excited about SDVs, we get excited about, you know, generally the Ken kind of connected vehicle. It's stuff that's quietly not talked about, but it will be an issue down the line.
Drew Smith:My contention and for a bit of background for the listeners, the reason this has come up as a topic for discussion this week is I was recently invited by a chap called Costas Stilidis to present to the Design Society Conference, which is happening in Croatia. Unfortunately, I did not go to Croatia. I presented late at night from this very studio in Sydney. Um,
Joe Simpson:Croatia's lovely at this time of year.
Drew Smith:I know, I know, uh, and I had all of about two and a half, three days to pull together a lecture for this group of learned academics and industry professionals. And the contention that I put to this crowd was that by calling these things software defined vehicles. We end up focusing on the wrong thing. I have a very strong belief that, um, language shapes our world. It shapes how we understand our world just as much as we shape technology. And then technology begins to shape us. Right? So if we, if we start defining products by A technology as we do when we call something a software defined vehicle software is a kind of technology, then it's the software that ends up shaping us
Joe Simpson:Mm,
Drew Smith:you follow my sort of slightly twisted logic and the point that I wanted to make is that in focusing all of our creativity and, you know, Intellectual heft on the creation of the concept of the software defined vehicle. We're kind of forgetting who that vehicle ultimately needs to be in service of, which is. The human,
Joe Simpson:Oz, yeah, yeah.
Drew Smith:So I'm not saying that at a practical level, the software defined vehicle is a net negative. I think, as you've articulated, there are positive things to come out of Having vehicle architectures, which, um, yeah, can be effectively kind of reconfigured or re upped or re imagined over the life of, of, of a vehicle by, by pushing some code around. I think there's some great stuff that can come from that, but I think in so many of the use cases that we've seen so far, particularly where this software is surfaced and, um, And creates the, the, or a large part of the human experience with the vehicle. The balance has been far too much in favor of the software and what the software can do versus what we as humans want and need from, from these products.
Joe Simpson:yeah. And I, I think there's, uh, One, an irony in that, because if you think about the hundred year, over a hundred year history of the motor car, we have spent the best part of a hundred years as, as I think designers and engineers, and then, you know, sort of brands, leaders in industry actually, um, slowly corralling and, and shaping the car from being something that was very much, I think, as, and I've seen the lecture you've written, a machine that was set up as a machine and we had to adapt to it. And gradually it being corralled such that it served us. And the way that it was set up and the hardware was, wasn't simply in service of what the machine needed, but was more in service of what the humans needed. So it's ironic if you're saying that now in the era of the software defined vehicle, that's flipping back. But I think the second and probably more important point here is that, I think that the term is being used and banded around a lot and is the subject of a lot of discussion at the moment, because I think for the legacy OEMs, the challenge has been, they are fundamentally hardware integrators. And when you talk about the software defined vehicle, the defined part is important there because What I think a lot of people have been trying to school the legacy OEMs in is that it's not just make a car, it's a hardware box, now add a layer of software on top. It's that if you think about software from the start and you think about the experience you want to create, if you think about the sensor sets you've got and how you can integrate those, if you think about the, um, What the car needs to do to connect and talk to the world around it. And you think about the experience that humans inside can have through the apps, the kind of experiences, the sort of information that you provide. Then if you think about that from the start and you think about what the software can do and how it might evolve or what you might want to do in the future, then you can sort of do that in symbiosis with the hardware and think about what you need rather than we're making a car like we've always made. We do it in this way and then slap software on top, which then gets you or tends to end up with a slightly disjointed sort
Drew Smith:A shitty clutch. Yeah, it's a shitty clutch. Um, and, and yet. Okay, look, I used to work for Accenture, right? And Accenture has been pushing the idea of the software defined vehicle for far out. I don't know, like, 5 years. And I was, I was, I was a part of that. Um, again, I think by elevating, you know, Software in that conversation, one, um, it's clearly induced a sense of panic, right? In the industry, because it's like, shit, we, we don't understand how to do this. And when we do try and do it by ourselves, we tend to royally screw it up. Um, it diminishes the significance of still getting the hardware right. Right. And, and I think there's, there's an interesting kind of case in point with, you know, Tesla's focus on software, perhaps, you know, At the expense of well engineered, well manufactured hardware. But, but also what you've talked about there is the idea that it's really about how the car fits into a much broader ecosystem than it has traditionally now that ecosystem is Facilitated by software.
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:I'm not sure it should be defined by the software. So again, we come back to this idea that I think we're focusing on or prioritizing kind of the wrong thing. It's like, what do we want this to be?
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:do we want it to sit within an ecosystem? What does that ecosystem look like? Who are the partners that we're going to be working with in order to deliver A valuable experience that consumers are going to want to pay us for. Let's kind of get that right and then have a conversation about how the software is going to make that a reality.
Joe Simpson:And this is a rhetorical question, Drew, but do you think that's happening by and large? Do you think there are cross functional teams in car companies that are trying to set out to define what the experience is? Because as you just mentioned, Tesla, and I'm not going to say Tesla started this ball rolling because we had to some degree. you know, a level of software and connectedness, if not software defined vehicles before Tesla. But one of the things that I think Tesla, I feel that they did do well, at least at first, was particularly around charging experience, supercharger, battery range, navigation, when and where you need to charge, how you charge. It felt like a team in Tesla that was kind of cross functional had understood and set out the experience they wanted the user to have. And then had defined how they'd set things up with the right technologies, with the right hardware around that. And that's actually, when you think about it, and we talked about this in the last show, um, in some ways that drove a lot of Tesla success because that was so good. It was so much better than what any other car or car company could offer. It was like a gateway drug for electric vehicles.
Drew Smith:Yep.
Joe Simpson:And, and so do we think that is happening now? Like, you know, do you think,
Drew Smith:what's, what's the evidence Joe? What's, what's the evidence for this? In, in Western markets and when, with, with, with, uh, Western car makers. Went all New Zealand, uh, with, uh, Western car makers. Uh, because I think we do see evidence of this kind of thinking emerging in China,
Joe Simpson:Yeah. Oh, okay.
Drew Smith:about everybody's favorite, you know, Taycan clone of the moment. Which does the car an enormous disservice then I thought it was the su7. I saw wheels boy China called it call it the Xiaomi su7 the other day. So You know the the su7 or the su7 however you prefer to call it Is, is, is to my mind, this kind of thinking manifest, but I think it's also interesting when you start looking at how Neo is building out, um, business alliances around battery swap. For example, and look, you know, I, I kind of, I went from automotive design into ethnographic research and, and design strategy and then wound up in the service design world. And at each point in that journey, the reason I sort of moved on was because I felt like I ran up against the limits of each of the particular, um, practices if, if you like to encompass things at a sufficiently large scale, service design was, was kind of radical for me because it incorporated a lot of different aspects of what I've come up with before. But it wasn't until we started talking about systems design and thinking about how services and physical products sat within a broader ecosystem that I was like, Oh, Oh, this is the level at which we need to be thinking if we truly want to re imagine the role of the car
Joe Simpson:Right. But here, yes. And yeah, here I think is the, uh, the, the tear, I suppose. The, the, the, for, for OEMs. Well, so, sorry. They,
Drew Smith:Stings like a fissure in my ass.
Joe Simpson:Weird vibe tonight. They, there is, I'm sorry. I think an understanding and a knowledge in many OEMs. I mean, we've heard them say it. It's like, oh, and, you know, and, and, and your Mercedes world. And then you're going to be like, you know, Mercedes, your car and your Mercedes house and, you know, your Mercedes phone. And, and you're just like, oh, fuck off. It's like,
Drew Smith:be like living your life in Second Life a la Mercedes.
Joe Simpson:hopefully not with the kind of, you know, Gordon Wagner sort of 3d
Drew Smith:Red Pants!
Joe Simpson:Um, um, but my, my point is, I think there's an understanding. It's like, oh yes. You know, when you talk about sort of, um, uh, energy and when you talk about, uh, mobile apps and an OS, um, and when you talk about, um, you know, sort charging and, and, and when you talk about like payments to like, you know, at a gas station or to a job, you could have it all sort of integrated and it could all be like in your car and it could all come from us, the OEM and we provide your sort of life
Drew Smith:There's the problem, Joe.
Joe Simpson:uh, but this is, and then it comes back to the
Drew Smith:It all comes from us. No, it doesn't, because you are not experts.
Joe Simpson:in that
Drew Smith:at that. Like, go and
Joe Simpson:it's like,
Drew Smith:to work with. CES.
Joe Simpson:all their brilliance, like that PRV thing they did at whatever it's called at, um, at CES being, thinking they could reinvent, sorry, CES, reinvent the entire, like, world container and palette system to fit their image. It's like, no, no, no, that's not how it works. Um, and it's like, so, I, I feel that this is about, to some extent, rethinking how we do things. How do we work in collaboration to glue these things together and provide a seamless, great experience, but where it's not all within the OEMs world garden. And to kind of second point on that, there's a great podcast around SDVs this week, Driving with Dunne by Michael Dunne. Um, he has a guy and I forget his name, but he's from, uh, QNX and, um, There's a lot of talk on that podcast. It's really worth a listen about how right now the auto industry has tried to move from doing none of this itself to in housing it all, and what they talk about is why you want to bother with the underwear of software. It's like, why need to own it all? Why need to do all the plumbing? Why need to do everything in house when that doesn't necessarily deliver value to the user? And it's hard. So the question is, where are you going to actually make a real difference to your user that you can really add value and excel?
Drew Smith:The reason why they want to own it all is the same reason Mary Barra said that GM was going to derive something like 30 billion dollars in extra revenue from effectively software defined vehicles, because data has been sold as the new oil.
Joe Simpson:Mm hmm.
Drew Smith:Um, there's, there's a cute irony to that, because oil is pretty freaking toxic, because I think a lot of car companies are starting to find out. Um, but you know, data being the new oil, i. e. it was something that was just going to gush forth from the software defined vehicles and therefore was, was, was right to be monetized and I know from, uh, experience having been in the room with sort of the CTOs of, of, of car makers that they have been absolutely terrified Of tie ups with the fangs, you know, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, of, of unwittingly, uh, handing over the keys to the oil well. And watching the sort of the mental contortions of these people as they try to work out how they can get the stuff that they can't do from these organizations whilst holding onto their data was both painful and amusing. Um, but, but I think that's, you know, that's always been the promise is that as you said in the introduction, idea is that that the software defined vehicle fundamentally is going to enable car companies to find new sources of revenue and new sources of margin opportunity on on on each vehicle they sell. I think where that is leading us to at this point is what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification. Right. And, and the car is becoming well and truly enshitified,
Joe Simpson:And
Drew Smith:through, through, through the application of, of, of, or through the mediation of, of the user experience through like, you know, paper per use type stuff. And I think just definite, definitionally, um, I'm not going to get the definition 100 percent right, but it's this idea that. You know, a a a a, an organization, a an an online organization will make something available to a consumer, basically to rope them in and entrap them in effectively like an abusive and extractive relationship. Right. And that's, we've, you know, we've seen that happen all across the internet. Um. And we're now starting to see that come to cars as well.
Joe Simpson:haven't we already done that with like leasing and finance payments
Drew Smith:Sorry, with what?
Joe Simpson:haven't, haven't, hasn't the industry already done that with like finance payments and 72 month finance, you know, deals and basically having people on,
Drew Smith:but now we're going to charge you 3, 000 to unlock an extra second of performance from your Mercedes EQS. The performance that's already in there.
Joe Simpson:there's a pithy response to
Drew Smith:You've already bought the performance, we're gonna charge you another 3, 000 to unlock it!
Joe Simpson:Um, I think there's two reflections and sort of responses on that. One is. I believe, to kind of put a slight counterpoint, there is, there is something here and Ford are the ones who I would point people towards. If you're looking at average value, Ford have a really, really impressive business with Ford pro. And they're making a lot of money on that. Why, in a very simplistic way, do I believe they're making a lot of money on that? Because the F 150 and the pickup truck market, they know inside out. They know the people who buy and own those vehicles. They know what they need to do and how they use them inside out. And they have found a service which is of value to a lot of those people. So that's kind of, That's the kind of first point. So where the auto industry knows its users and knows the roles, the role it plays in someone's life very well. And there's something that you can do with your vehicle or your software to make that better, quicker, you know, more productive, enable new things. I think there's, there is value. The second thing to say to the in chittification point, and this was almost like a provocation I wanted to make coming into this podcast is. Do you think, Drew, given that in your lecture you presented yourself as the SDV, uh, skeptic, I think, not cynic, is there an argument to say if you believe that this is a bit of an arms race and a lot of it's about how do we show that we're going to have a business model in the future and we can continue to kind of hook and extract money out of people? Um, What car brand might dare to step away from that and say, Nope, most people are wanting to get from A to B, listen to music, occasionally call someone and know where they're going and if they crashed, like, you know, have the car protect them and not die. I can do that without software definition. I can do that in a relatively rudimentary hardware box. Um, Do you think that's a viable potential direction right now? And do you see any brand maybe daring to step in that direction?
Drew Smith:Oh, that's a spiky question, Joe. Um, I think for an industry that is hamstrung as it is by benchmarking what competitors do. It would be a very brave organization that would, that would break with that idea. And, and remember, I'm not saying that the idea of a vehicle, which has Functionality that otherwise would not be available in a purely hardware based vehicle enabled by virtue of software is a bad thing.
Joe Simpson:No.
Drew Smith:What I am saying is that the ways in which software is currently being deployed is in often kind of indiscriminate and inconsiderate. So my, my, my response would be like, be like Ford, do your fucking homework. Like understand at a very deep level what the real value drivers are for consumers. And. Yeah, do the work of working out what makes sense to pay for, right? And what makes, what's just dignified to offer up as the manufacturer of a consumer product?
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:And, and, and this is, and I think this is, I was just going to say, I think I know from my experience of working in the industry that very often the level of understanding That deep understanding of consumers is very often absent.
Joe Simpson:right,
Drew Smith:And that's why you see clangers like, We're going to make you pay for your heated seats. Or, we're going to make you pay for cruise control that's already fitted to the car. Or, we're going to make you pay for, I don't know. I mean, any number of these things that immediately, as soon as they hit the press, as soon as they hit the forums, like there goes your brand equity. Like,
Joe Simpson:So I kind of related question to that. I feel like you've just given people a Sort of, you know, so like, please do this, please think in this way. Is there more that you want to sort of say, we know that a lot of our audience are designers, uh, UX strategists working in and around the industry. If I'm a designer working in the industry, what, what, what does this actually mean for me? What would you advocate? Well, there's a two questions. What does it really mean? But also what do you advocate people do? Cause I think I would go out there on not much of a limb and say that most people listening to this are going, yes, right. We do need to really understand that. And we really need to push that in our organization. Like I get that. Um, two questions of how, but then also, you know, anything else?
Drew Smith:uh, there's, there's, there's, there's an image that, um, I keep coming back to, uh, that was published on LinkedIn by Erica Hall, and I'm going to cut it in to the video version of this podcast, but you know, there are those like, um, Those monstrous fish that like live in the deep dark and they've got like massive jaws, right? And you're just like holy shit. What's that and then sprouting from their forehead? They have like a little
Joe Simpson:I lied.
Drew Smith:right?
Joe Simpson:I got
Drew Smith:kind of labeled the massive body of the fish the business model and the little shining light ux Right. And she, she just kind of posts this occasionally and she's like for every UX designer who comes to me sort of wanting to improve the situation in the organization, she said, she, she's like, she taps on the business model part, you know, like, I am not here to suggest that people run themselves into the ground trying to run against. The, the, the underlying incentives of the business that they work for. I've done that. It was disastrous. You know,
Joe Simpson:it didn't do you well, really, did it?
Drew Smith:I, I, I, I burnt out catastrophically. Um, so first of all, I would say develop some situational awareness about the type of organization that you're working for and whether what sits at the heart of what drives it is genuinely wanting to. You know, make a positive difference in terms of, you know, the consumers experience of driving and, and, and, you know, kind of communities more broadly. Right?
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:And if it's not, then, well, it's kind of a busted flush. Sorry, because you're never going to fight against the inertia of the organization. But if it, if, if there is kind of some genuine intent there, then it's. It's just as much about kind of sponsorship and advocacy at the most senior levels within the organization that are going to create the conditions for you to go out and do the stuff that you, you know, you need to do, you want to do, you're wired to do it,
Joe Simpson:Yeah,
Drew Smith:but it's the conditions that need to be created in order for you to be able to do that.
Joe Simpson:yeah. And I think to your point about Ford, it's about maybe not framing this in the way that's like, it's bad. We're shouting at the moon. We're Luddites. It's about, yeah, actually, this presents an opportunity, but how do we do things in a way which are genuinely valuable to people and that They can, I think, understand, adopt, find use, and, you know, even delight in. Um, because there are cases within this stuff that are fantastic, actually, you know, some of the things that it can allow are genuinely really delightful and actually kind of game changing. You know, you lose your key and you've got an app and you can still open and potentially drive your car. That's, you know, that's transformative. Oh,
Drew Smith:know, when I talk about like, go out and do your frickin homework, um, I think that there's a responsibility that sits on the level of the, at the level of the organization, right? It has to want to become a learning organization. It has to want to become a porous organization. You know, to, to kind of let the outside in. And I've written about this fairly extensively over the years. I think there's also a responsibility on, at the level of the designer to really become that sensing probe out in the world. You know, looking for these opportunities themselves through their own lived experience and through the lived experience of people around them that they can kind of bring into the organization and advocate for. And, you know, we've talked before about the fact that there are, you know, UX designers working in car companies that don't drive cars that don't have driver's licenses. Um, that seems to be a bit of a dereliction of your duty as a UX designer working on interfaces that are meant to be used while a vehicle is in motion. You know, like, really sure you should be designing an ADAS interface if you don't know what cruise control is. I mean, I did
Joe Simpson:never
Drew Smith:conversation once upon a time. So, so yeah, like if you want to create products that are more humane, first of all, Are you working in an organization that also wants to create humane products? Uh, great. Go for it. Uh, then, you know, actually do the work of, of being humane, of looking to your fellow humans, and, and identifying where you might be able to give them a hand.
Joe Simpson:Awesome. Um, I want to, I want to like, I want to have a bit of a positive note now and not to put you on the spot, but, uh, You are someone like me who spends a lot of time reading about, experiencing, watching videos. I mean, we're, we're nerds as well. And, and who do you think is getting this stuff right? If anybody, a, a brand that you would pluck out and say, I think they might have The right balance in this, they seem to be approaching it in the right way. I can point to a couple of products or services or that ecosystem, which feels like it's, if not perfect, actually adding value and kind of shows it there. I think going about things in the way that you've just described. I'm
Drew Smith:isn't a loaded question at all, is it, Joe?
Joe Simpson:I'm quite enjoying myself tonight. I feel like we've role reversaled.
Drew Smith:Putting me on the spot. Um,
Joe Simpson:No, I, and I should be fair. If you asked me that question in all wholeheart truth, I don't know who I'd say. I'm not sure. Ford pro is the one that I can think of that I've already mentioned where I think there's something where they've, they've got a business that as far as I know, is actually making money, they're providing something that's delivering value, but I can't think off the top of my head of another that I would hold up as thinking. I think that's a really good. example, but maybe you
Drew Smith:from a, from a, from an ecosystem perspective, no, I think Ford is kind of, well, sorry, apart from the Chinese manufacturers that we mentioned earlier in the podcast, so there is kind of the, the, the, the Xiaomi. Now, admittedly, that, that's kind of like within one brand, although it's super interesting that you can use Apple devices as the rear screens. Like you can use iPads as the rear screens in the SU 7 and it operate, they operate as if they were a phone. Kind of a Xiaomi device like that's super interesting that they've kind of gone. Actually. No, we're going to let people truly bring their own device It doesn't have to be ours and we're going to offer them absolute parity in experience I think the the the battery swap is Alliance that we're starting to see form in China is another example. I think when you come down to the level of product, um, because I think one of the, the, the, the consequences of people going, Oh, well, we can just do it in software is we're going to do the whole kind of human machine interface in software. Um, and it's a pretty disastrous effect in, in, in some cases, like both from a, in, from a safety point of view, but also in terms of like a, a, a brand equity point of view, I think, you know, there are brands out there that have been known for ergonomics that just decide to whack everything in a screen. And everybody's like, what, why? Um, so at the level of products, you've got like Hyundai motor group who are saying actually, no, there's stuff that should stay in hardware.
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:The stuff that, you know, people are going to be fiddling with, adjusting fairly consistently while they drive. Why don't we just give people knobs and rockers and You know, something that they can feel for it, you can't feel for software. Software doesn't have any kind of tangibility to it. You can develop muscle memory around a button in a way that you can't around a slick glassy screen. Um,
Joe Simpson:And just to jump on that, I think, sorry, I think one thing that Hyundai are doing there, and I think here as well, is that And the motive for this might be different, but they are developing a consistency of, at least when we go back to the idea of the dashboard that you talk about in your lecture. Display, screen setup, information, buttons, key controls, overall ergonomics, where it's consistent across Broadly from their small cars right up to the big cars, you know, the, the, if you go to Kia, the EV nine is basically the same as the forthcoming EV three. And I think that's really interesting as well. Because one of the things I think that. The software defined vehicle sort of encourages perhaps is novelty and change for the sake of it. And one of the things that then drives is that as a brand, and you think of many brands, but particularly the German brands who they have a kind of architecture interface, ergonomic buttons, layout, display setup, which has been consistent over time. So if you drove a BMW and got into a different BMW, you would feel at home and you'd know how to work it. And I think the erosion of that is a bit of a, of an issue. Um, and I think to develop this and to think about it as a kind of brand consistency question is a key one. And I, I saw you earlier on threads, you were talking about something. I think that, um. Ryan from
Drew Smith:Oh, Ryan McManus
Joe Simpson:held up. Yeah. But I didn't realize in the new 9, new 11, Porsche got rid of it. I mean, for, so for generations, the 911 key is in sort of like the opposite side of the dashboard. You shove it in sort of perpendicular to the thing. And there's a twist and it was, it's a 911. Signifier. It's a 911 interface point that reminds you every time you start the car that you've bought a Porsche and that you bought an 11 and now they've just done away with that and there's just a start button.
Drew Smith:but, but, but the history of that goes back even further than the nine 11, I think, because my understanding is that it was. Put in that place so that when drivers jumped over the door of their, you know, this is when you had running starts at places like Le Mans, like you'd, you'd jump over the door of the car, get into your seat. And it was like the first place your hand was going to reach in order to start your car and get off the line. So it's not even a 911 thing. It is like, it is a car racing thing. It is like, we're going to win. And, and that is carried all the way through the 9 11 line. They got to the point where they're like, Oh, well, we'll just replace it with a thing that you twist. You don't have to stick a key in anymore. And you're like, okay. And now it's like the stop start button that you'd find in a golf,
Joe Simpson:Yeah. I'm not.
Drew Smith:what?
Joe Simpson:And I think this is a key balancing factor in this whole debate. We're now like a bit away from the concept of the STV, but what the STV is driving is brands. I think to throw out some of that history to throw out some of the, and it's like, But I think as Ryan highlighted, it's like, but if you want a Porsche, you want a Porsche, it's for certain reasons, you're buying into this history, this legacy, you're buying into that racing heritage, that history, that win, that, and it's, it's elements like that, that provide the emotive and the emotional link. And I think to, to paraphrase Ryan, it's like, Uh, if you slowly get rid of and take away those things at some point, the customer, the link is broken for them. And maybe it doesn't so much feel like a nine 11, but just another VW group product. And I think one of the things that. To the people I've met and talked to, maybe not including yourself, but who pushed the software defined vehicle, this sort of thing is a little bit alien to them, and I think automotive brands need to be very conscious of that because It's very tempting right now in the world to look at like what's happening in China, to think about the STV, to still be dreaming about autonomy and think our legacy and our history is a bit of a saddle or a kind of a weight around our neck. And yet most of you, most of us have these people who buy into the brands for certain reasons, who can still be attracted to brands for certain reasons. And quite a lot of that can still be to do with the legacy, good things you've done in the past, things that are still there for a reason, have a history that often makes sense or make things safer or ergonomically good, but also give that sort of strong, emotional, characterful bond. And for the legacy OEMs, I think it's really important that they don't just throw that away in the name of software definition.
Drew Smith:And I think this is, uh, this is such a good place to land. Um, because we've talked about, we've started off with. Effectively talking about, like, how the car is being insidified by a focus on what software can do, rather than what humans need and really want from products. Um, and we're landing in a place where actually one of the things that has defined our relationships with cars, and, and not just with expensive cars, like, not just with 911s. But with cars, all throughout the price, price range is character,
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:right? And character is, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that character, kind of an authentic sense of character, is something that is very difficult to deliver. In software, because in many ways, character emerges through how all of our senses get activated.
Joe Simpson:Yeah.
Drew Smith:Um, character emerges from quirks that are charming. Um, software has quirks sometimes, but they're typically not very charming. It just doesn't work. Right? Um, and, and, you know, there's, it's kind of like when you, when you see copy that's been written by chat GPT, it's sort of kind of glassy and dead behind the eyes. And it's the same with, you know, cars that are just. all sort of 100 percent screen based. Like I've got nothing else really to go on in terms of the touch points that I have.
Joe Simpson:Yeah. I, I Nothing more to add, your honour.
Drew Smith:Well, there we go. Um, uh, we hope you've enjoyed this wild little ramble through the world. Of
Joe Simpson:20th episode!
Drew Smith:software to find vehicles. I am going to put into the show notes, um, an absolutely awesome piece of writing by a friend of looking out chat by the name of Sam Saha, uh, former colleague of Joe's, um, a, a, a, a fellow thinker. Um, on, on, on these sorts of topics. And he recently published a really great report on software defined vehicles that, that goes into the topic in great depth. Um, so thank you, Sam, for, for sharing that with us all. It's really well worth a read. Um, if you liked this show, uh, go on forward it to somebody who also might like it. Um, if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe, hit the bell. Do all of those good social things. Um, we will be back. I think Joe, we're going to be back in a couple of weeks.
Joe Simpson:In a couple of weeks, yes. Thanks.
Drew Smith:Yeah, we'll be back in a couple of
Joe Simpson:All being
Drew Smith:Um, all being well. Um, but between now and then, thank you so much for listening. My name is Drew Smith
Joe Simpson:And my name is Joe Simpson.
Drew Smith:and you've been listening to Looking Out The Podcast.
Joe Simpson:Bye bye. I I've wabbed these notes down as a kind of a, a,
Drew Smith:and you've wabbed.
Joe Simpson:wabbed. I mean, come on, it's late Wednesday, early Thursday.
Drew Smith:I had a good
Joe Simpson:I'm not sure I'm, I'm not sure I'm going to get a good wab. I was wabbing away to myself.
Drew Smith:Right, sorry, you were talking about your notes
