It is wrong that cars will be smartphones with wheels. Software defined vehicles turn the cars we know today into companions for life. Standardized HMI solutions are not the future in automotive...  Dr. Peter Rossger of Beyond HMI///// sent his thoughts on the Bosch Connected World 2022 held in November. He said he did not expect critical discussions on the role of technology for humans, society and humankind at such events, but was surprised that at least user-focus was at the heart of many statements and debates.

Written by Dr. Peter Rossger of Beyond HMI/////    한글버전
related article: THREE TRENDS in Automotive HMI (autoelectronics.co.kr)








Bosch re-vitalized it’s Connected World event after two years Pandemic break. Initially it was an onsite event only, then online in the past years, and in 2022 for the first time a combined remote and onsite meeting. 10,000 participants joined on the Internet. 1,500 professionals attended the Station Berlin. The venue is a former industrial building that contained a train station for postal services between 1913 and 1997. It is in a red-brick architecture, which give the location a historical, industrial appearance.
The Station Berlin offered 6,000m² exhibition space which gave room for over 80 companies to present services and products. This included Bosch and its related companies, but also partners, suppliers, and clients.

To mention a few: City Transformer showcased a two-seated electric vehicle. The gauge can be switched from narrow for any speed lower than 45km/h to wide for higher speed. Qt presented their latest developments, cross platform frameworks and tools for a wide variety of industries. Amazon Web services where present, showing their infrastructure solutions for artificial intelligence and automated driving. Siemens circled around the Internet of Things, digital twins, and cloud services. Zuora showed their attest development on subscription services, Red Hat Open Source Software solutions for the Internet 4.0, and 'digital.auto' presented automotive cloud services, and mobility solutions.
On three stages 140 speakers gave keynotes and presentations. The keynote sessions where packed with high-level professionals from different industries, including the CEOs of Bosch, BMW, Landing AI, and SUSE.









Keynotes and presentations represented the latest status of thinking and acting in digital business, connectivity, and automotive developments. Core was the user orientation of solutions. We as humans re-define ourselves by coming from a physical world and now acting with a digital culture. We add digital experience into the analog world. Megatrends are circular economy, digitalization, and mobility. They also contain subscription-based business models, automated and autonomous driving, data science, artificial intelligence, and virtualization.

Although it looks different today: Metaverse, Blockchain, and Krypto assets are part of our digital future. Digital twins of factories are reality, you can analyze and correct problems in the twin and then bring it to reality. There is no business today not using a digital device or service. So, we can drop “digital” in “digital business”. Digital business is around humans, their needs, abilities, and wishes. The combination of physical products and digital services creates new user experiences, business opportunities, and applications of technology. At the end: the device in your hand is just reflecting a functionality, it allows access and manipulation. The functionality itself can be anywhere.

Digital platforms are not scientifically defined. They can be technical platforms, but also business platforms, transaction platforms, innovation platforms, product platforms, or integration platforms like a logistics operation system. A lot is about the re-use of technology, as realized in the automotive industry. But it is also about openness and connectivity. An example are smart home platforms: we all have different devices from different companies. If we want to get maximum benefit and positive user experiences from our digital gadgets and their connectivity, we need an open standard to connect all of them smoothly.

User experience is core in any technological development. New products and services are not about technology, but about creating value for humans. Technology is a tool that shall make our lives faster, easier, safer, and funnier. A technological device or service is not having a value by itself, but it needs to make changes in human lives. Users shall have the experience, that the product perfectly fits them, that it comes with excellent value, and that it evolves with and around the user. Technology, services, and products shall be companions for life, they adapt to users and their specific and constantly changing use cases, environments, and contexts. This requires constant connectivity and software updates.

For many years one of the core statements in technology was, that cars will become smartphones on wheels. This was stated as wrong in a few presentations and discussions. Cars have a completely different use case, they require different HMI solutions, and they provide a far higher level of safety. ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) need to have high reliability and a constant availability. They shall never disappoint the driver. To bring it down to a point: smartphones move digits, cars move humans and lives.

Software defined vehicles turn the cars we know today into companions for life. This, again, requires constant updates to fit the car to people, use cases, needs, wishes, and dreams. Today and even more in the future mobility is more than horsepower and nice trim colors. Vehicles are about user experiences, digital features, merging digital applications into the analog world, and the creation of socially accepted mobility. Car sharing is one future core function of software defined vehicles, which offers opportunities for personalized passenger welcome sequences, that can be transported from one car to another.

Standardized HMI (human machine interface) solutions are not the future in automotive. HMIs help to differentiate brands and vehicle lines in a time of more and more standardized drive trains. Artificial intelligence will play a strong role in the future of automotive HMIs. It will re-define the interaction between drivers and cars and turn cars into team members. Autonomous driving it not only affect the core driving procedure, but the entire relationship between the human brain and the rolling robot.
Long term, cars will transform into social connectors, in the inside and on the outside. They move people from one location to another, they provide connectivity, allow communication, provide safety, and unique user experiences. Most of our learning procedures is informal anyway, so future vehicles will part of this informal learning processes.

Of course: on an event like the Bosch Connected World you will not expect a critical discussion on the role technology plays for humans, societies, and humankind. I was surprised, that at least the user focus was core in many statements and discussions. This shows, that even in this highly technical environment it is understood, that we need to have benefits from all the invests in time, focus, and money we make. At the end one of the core statements was made by a Bosch representative: “Human intelligence makes the difference. It remains the most valuable source in a fully digitalized world.” I love that!