BRANDED CONTENT: ‘Acceptance of connected vehicle services will grow exponentially in the coming future' says Shivalik Prasad

What are some of the salient features of the Sibros connected vehicle platform? The Deep Connected Platform (DCP) delivers on the three core pillars for the softwaredefined vehicle: software updates to all ECUs, data collection from all ECUs, and remote commands to any ECU. To this end, Sibros provides a cloud portal and three main in-vehicle firmware applications: Deep Updater, Deep Logger, and Command Manager.

Sibros delivers a product that provides 95% functionality out of the box, with only 5% integration effort necessary. It is the only solution on the market that works with existing vehicle hardware and is one of the first to be ASIL-D certified according to ISO 26262, the highest functional safety standard for automotive.

As a product-based SaaS company, we derive improvements to our solution from our customers’ experiences and make them available to all customers.

Which vehicle categories are you catering to with the Sibros solution? The DCP was created as a suite of hardware-agnostic products to abstract away the dependency on the inner architecture of current and future hardware options. As a result, we support all vehicle categories and propulsion systems. Regardless if you are a manufacturer of electric tractors, a producer of sporty 2-wheelers, an urban mobility startup, or a legacy internal combustion engine OEM, Sibros solutions integrate seamlessly with little to no modification required. Another differentiator is that Sibros offers vehicle configuration modeling capabilities to help organize fleets and address 100s of use cases.

Is the service suite targeted only at fleet operators or at individual buyers as well?
Our solutions are predominantly targeting OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. However, the DCP is beneficial to all parties involved from manufacturers to end users, fleet managers to insurance companies, and even government entities. Sibros’ connected vehicle products are like the benevolent ghost in the machine that supports vehicle functionality and advanced features while improving overall safety. Is the company partnering directly with OEMs in India to integrate its solution in new models? Which OEMs has Sibros already partnered with in India? Sibros has publicly announced its partnership with Bajaj Auto, world's one of the largest two-wheeler OEMs. We are also working with several other India-based OEMs in various sectors such as agriculture, light vehicles, and two-wheelers.

How does the DCP benefit OEMs once their products reach the market?
The Deep Connected Platform is a full life cycle solution that is designed to enhance the vehicle production, management, and ownership experience from manufacturing to end-of-life. This allows our customers to streamline outdated procedures, reduce product time to market, eliminate aftermarket costs such as recalls and warranty issues, and innovate new features to truly realize the full potential of their connected fleets.

How is the acceptance of connected vehicle services in the Indian market?
What scope of growth do you see in the future? The acceptance of connected vehicle services will Growth in India is expected to be led by the increased demand for new infotainment features and new connected offerings such as pre-booked parking, etc. Drivers and end users will begin to see these products and services in action, which will spark interest and demand to drive an acceleration in production. Along with tremendous growth potential, this feedback loop will result in a need for connected solutions that no OEM will be able to ignore if they wish to maintain a competitive advantage in the market.

What are the evolving use cases of connected vehicle services? What are the emerging trends in the segment?
The use cases everybody has in mind these days are advanced driver assistance systems and the autonomous car. Both are extremely demanding on the data front and require constant development, testing, and revision. However, there are numerous other opportunities to explore as well. Proper data logging and analysis could, for the first time, provide fleet managers with true predictive maintenance and a reduction of costs and downtime.

A class of granular usagebased insurance becomes possible, which will be of interest not only to light vehicle manufacturers but fleet and other sectors as well. Paid feature upgrades could be a step toward a new concept of monetization over the lifetime of the vehicle, instead of a one-off at the time of sale. Drivers in turn will receive advanced options for vehicle personalization.

Recalls, currently a major burden for the automotive industry, will flow seamlessly over the air or not happen at all because software problems can be rectified preemptively. The gist here is, you name the sector, and you will find its use cases supported by Sibros’ solutions.

How will connected car services enable vehicle safety and autonomous driving?
Truly modern safety features and autonomous driving can’t be thought of without the connected car. The data stream from a vehicle may soon reach 25 GB per hour and such volumes WeÕve simpliÞed the software deÞned vehicle for you. require truly leverageable connectivity.

If this data stream is properly logged and filtered, real-world data becomes available as never before and a game changer for mobility as a whole. To this end, Sibros offers conditional and event-based logging that enables automakers to log only necessary data and cut through the noise of superfluous data. Together with a low load on the CPU and data compression of up to 95%, to reduce OPEX, our solution optimizes the data stream and facilitates a new level of safety and autonomous driving features.

Will the rollout of 5G give a push to connected vehicle services?
The short answer here is yes. In addition to improved quality of service and lower latency to improve performance, the millimeter wave band will provide substantially higher data rates that will significantly reduce the time to deliver large payload OTA updates to things like high performance compute and infotainment units. Additionally, V2X (vehicleto-everything) communication using a PC5 interface will usher in new connected vehicle solutions that enable vehicles to communicate with each other and with infrastructure, making our roads safer and easier to navigate and creating a whole new driving experience.

What changes would be required in existing vehicle architectures to make them compatible to take advantage of 5G data connectivity?
With higher data rates and lower latency from the telecom networks, vehicle architectures and processing speeds will need to be updated if the OEM wants to take full advantage of these capabilities from the network. Moving from CAN to Ethernet is the first step, however, it is now possible to share multiple sources of information over PC5 communication and if the vehicle shall be able to process and react to these in a timely fashion, this needs to be handled by high performance computing solutions in the vehicle.

What is the future roadmap for Sibros business in India? Is the company leveraging Indian talent to develop its technologies and solutions?
Sibros has roots in both India and Silicon Valley. From the beginning, the company has prided itself on hiring the best talent from around the world to develop viable, reliable, and practical connected vehicle products. In support of the tremendous growth we are seeing with our India team, we recently opened a new office in Pune. We look forward to continuing to foster partnerships with Indian OEMs to help drive a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable future for everyone.