(MBN will be on hand Wednesday and recorded nine interviews while at CAR MBS #59, watch for those to publish in upcoming days)

TRAVERSE CITY, MI - The Center for Automotive Research's annual Management Briefing Seminars here is stacked with presentations from the auto industry about the future of software-defined vehicles (SDVs). And with that technological transformation away from internal-combustion vehicles comes concerns and speedbumps regarding cybersecurity.

 

Biden Admin. official Harry Kresja, Office of the National Cyber Director, The White House, Assistant National Cyber Director for Strategy and Research, tells MBS attendees that current efforts to regulate and partner with the auto industry, as well as others, are driven by both concern about threats to cybersecurity and ambition about what these technological advancements can bring to improve the lives and mobility of citizens.

 

Kresja speaks to the investments in EVs, software and cybersecurity that have come out of the Administration and Congress including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips and Science Act of 2022 and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. But his presence at MBS, says Kresja, is to listen and network about what has been harder than expected, and what has been easy (about this transformation) and when government has been a supportive partner and when we have been less than that.

 

In expressing concern about relatively small security breaches that have led to massive impacts on industries and consumers, like the recent ransomware cyberattack on dealership software supplier CDK that stopped sales operations at dealerships across the country, Kresja says. Our digital ecosystem is more brittle than it needs to be.

TRAVERSE CITY, MI - John Bozzella, CEO and president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which has recently become a partner to the Center for Automotive Research, tells attendees on the opening day of CAR's Management Briefing Seminars that he has no idea what will happen in the presidential election this November, but one thing is for sure: Politics has changed everything.

 

Bozzella says the industry, faced with mandates for electrification, can look at political affiliation for perhaps the greatest determinant of consumers willingness to buy an electric vehicle. The CEO and chief lobbyist for the auto industry displayed headlines from news organizations covering former President Donald Trump's vow to reverse President Biden's EV policies if he is elected this November and returns to the White House.

 

It used to be that regulation was decided (using a football analogy) between the 40-yard lines. Today, each party seems to be at opposite goal lines. But I think the consumer is somewhere closer to the 50-yard line, says Bozzella.

 

Bozzella, who was a key player in slowing down the EV mandates that came out of the Biden Admin. earlier this year, says it is very difficult to plan capital investments when two separate agencies of the executive branch the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the states, are all regulating the same car at once but aren't coordinated.

TRAVERSE CITY, MI - Lisa Krusemark, industry analyst with the Center for Automotive Research, gives attendees at this year's CAR Management Briefing Seminars some initial results from the group's new Battery Industry Education and Training Needs Assessment, emphasizing the need for industry and higher education institutions to develop more professionals in the fields of Electrochemistry/Battery Chemistry, battery manufacturing and battery management systems.

 

According to CAR's research, which is in part based on surveys of companies, 60% of respondents report that at least one-quarter of employees have outdated skills for the jobs they are doing.

 

The need for more and better trained workers is not only in the upstream parts of the EV supply chain, but for downstream jobs as well, all the way to recycling and second-use applications for batteries.

 

While the demand for the right engineers and technicians is acute now, there is little chance, says Krusemark, that the demand will crest or recede, saying the companies surveyed believe the demand is here to stay and that investments in workforce development for EVs and software-defined vehicles will pay big dividends in competitiveness.

 

The entire report is available on CAR's website.

Amidst widespread recognition of over-the-air updates, upgrades and introduction of new features as crucial components of software-defined vehicles (SDVs), automakers are confronted with a pressing dilemma: How much processing headroom should they integrate into their future platforms?

 

A survey conducted by chipmaker NXP Semiconductors and Wards Intelligence with global automotive executives from OEMs, Tier 1 & 2 suppliers and other automotive ecosystem players reveals that approximately 73% of the industry anticipate auto OEMs will cap hardware provisioning at a maximum of 50% headroom in entry-level vehicles by 2030, with 48% of these respondents anticipating a maximum of 30% cap...