According to the company’s industry analyst Krishna Jayaraman, nearly 60% to 70% of the recalls in major automotive markets such as North America and Europe are due to software glitches. Volume cars have at least 20 million to 30 million lines of software code, while in premium cars, that number could be as high as 100 million lines.

Manufacturers are increasingly turning to wireless technologies such as over-the-air (OTA) updates. Audi recently started providing new features such as parking and gas prices using OTA updates on its Audi connect solution, while GM has been offering OTA updates to its Bluetooth platform using the OnStar embedded connectivity platform.

Frost & Sullivan says OTA is a potential game changer with its ability to fix bugs and enhance features without requiring a physical connection to the vehicle and is set to dramatically improve vehicle performance and customer satisfaction for OEMs whilst sharply lowering costs.

Redbend and Vector recently announced an OTA solution that can be used to update the software on the engine control unit’s flash drive. This will enable OEMs to directly interface with the vehicle and send out updates in cases of software hitches. Another popular solution is Symphony Teleca's Insight Connect Vehicle Relationship Management, which is an end-to-end supervising solution that serves as a cost-effective, one-stop shop for all vehicle-related services ranging from diagnostics and infotainment platform, to software maintenance.

However, there are issues: software developers need to ensure that the remote interaction is encrypted to eliminate unauthorised access to any vehicle system. They also need to set up an effective distribution channel for the vehicle parc, which does not currently have connectivity modules, as well as for the cars with tethered connectivity from smartphones.

‘It will be interesting to notice the methods that OEMs will adopt to interact directly with the vehicles,’ observed Jayaraman. ‘There has to be a safe delivery approach, wherein the update file size is considerably small, and the business models are tailor-made to dealerships so that the entire warranty and repair revenue streams of dealerships do not get affected.’