Filmed at the COVESA All-Member Meeting in Berlin, Germany,  Maitê Bezerra, senior principal analyst, software-defined vehicles for Wards Intelligence (now part of Omdia), shared insights on the automotive industry's shift towards software defined vehicles (SDVs) with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer of Sonatus. The SDV survey, newly expanded to seven countries, highlights the growing role of AI in vehicles, the timeline of rollout of many key technologies, open source operating systems,  applications of vehicle data, vehicle updates, and especially highlights regional differences from around the world.

The State of Software Defined Vehicles | Key findings from the 2025 edition of the Software-Defined Vehicle Survey 

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to The Garage Podcast
0:39 Introducing Maitê Bezerra
1:36 Overview of the Annual SDV Survey
3:44 Artificial Intelligence in Vehicles 
6:52 Customer Loyalty and Revenue Generation
10:03 Highest value applications of Vehicle Data
14:01 Open Source Operating Systems 
18:05 Talent Retention Challenges in the Industry
18:46 Business and Organizational Innovations
19:53 Cybersecurity in vehicles
20:49 Integration with IoT and Smart Cities
21:44 Over-the-Air Updates as a Key Trend
23:16 Potential of Virtual Development
24:02 Centralized Vehicle Data Management Challenges
24:48 Upcoming White paper Publication
25:30 Conclusion

In a live recording from the COVESA meeting in Berlin, Steve Crumb, COVESA's executive director, discusses enhancing connected vehicle value through collaboration and innovation with John Heinlein, Ph.D, Sonatus's CMO. He emphasizes the Vehicle Signal Specification (VSS) for simplifying data communication among OEMs, benefiting data users. Despite challenges for OEMs transitioning from legacy systems, VSS is advantageous. Steve notes growing fleet interest in VSS, and COVESA's efforts to streamline app deployment across OEMs.

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to The Garage Podcast
0:47 Introducing Steve Crumb
2:41 Overview of COVESA and Its Mission
4:06 Vehicle Signal Specification Explained 
8:59 COVESA Initiatives in Commercial Vehicle Management
9:55 AOSP for Android Development
11:33 Future Plans and Global Expansion of COVESA
12:49 Gathering Input for VSS Improvement
13:16 Conclusion and Call to Action

In this episode, recorded live at the Sonatus booth at CES2025, Tomm Clarke, EV Product Manager from Parkopedia talks with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer from Sonatus.  Parkopedia works with over 30 OEMs for in-car payments as well as improving the experience for EV-charging ranging from more authoritative charger information, easier payments and more. 

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:48 Meet Tom Clarke
02:00 About Parkopedia
03:26 EV Pain Points
06:45 Multi-Provider Integration
09:53 Shaping the SDV Experience

In this episode, filmed live at the Sonatus booth at CES2025, Prashant Gulati, CEO of SDVerse, talks with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer from Sonatus about the SDVerse vehicle software marketplace. Prashant explains the goals of SDVerse, its member companies, and explains their business model. He shares some success stories about how this marketplace is gaining traction.

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:46 Meet Prashant Gulati
04:12 About SDVerse
07:10 The SDVerse Model
08:37 Marketplace Saturation
10:00 Software Flexibility in the SDVerse Platform
12:10 SDVerse Success Stories 
13:22 Conclusion

Martin Krantz, CEO and Co-founder of Smart Eye talks with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer of Sonatus about their incredible occupant monitoring system. Martin explains how their technology has evolved with new computational capabilities and the growth of AI to discern distraction, fatigue, intoxication, but in the future mood, stress and intent. Recorded live at CES 2025 in the Sonatus booth.

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:33 Meet Martin Krantz
01:13 About Smart Eye
05:08 Smart Eye Facial Analysis
08:08 Sonatus and Smart Eye Collaboration
11:11 Smart Eye AI Technology
14:49 European Safety Regulation
18:39 The Possibilities of Automation
21:37 Detecting Driving Patterns
22:15 Differences in China

Francis Chow, VP & GM, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge, Red Hat speaks with host John Heinlein Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer, Sonatus about the many changes in software-defined vehicles, with a particular focus on vehicle operating systems. The conversation explains Red Hat’s journey towards a safety-certified Linux, and shares many of the opportunities SDV can bring to the entire vehicle value chain and consumers. Recorded live in Las Vegas at CES 2025 in the Sonatus booth.

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:49 Meet Francis Chow
01:13 About Red Hat
02:35 Fun Fact 
04:26 Why is SDV Important?
07:18 How to Make SDV Profitable
09:25 Red Hat In-Vehicle OS
12:21 Safety Certification
16:18 Red Hat and Sonatus Collaborations
17:42 The Industry Big Picture

James Roberts, President of IOT and Analytics and Ronaldo Castillo, Software Engineering Manager, both of LHP, talk with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer of Sonatus. A special focus of this episode is functional safety and safety certification. Sonatus recently achieved ISO26262 ASIL-D functional safety rating for our Automator Safety Interlock module, which was developed in collaboration with LHP. Recorded live at the Sonatus booth at CES 2025.

Links referenced in this episode:
Sonatus Automator AI Safety Module Completes Functional Safety Certification Journey
https://www.sonatus.com/blog/sonatus-automator-ai-safety-module-completes-functional-safety-certification-journey/

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:26 Meet James Roberts and Ronaldo Castillo
02:38 About LHP
04:48 Functional safety 101
05:54 Sonatus and LHP: Building Functional Safety
07:48 Automator Safety Interlock
10:40 ISO26262 ASIL-D
12:24 Shifting to SDV
14:18 What’s next?

Dr. Moritz Neukirchner, Sr. Director Strategic Product Management, SDV, Elektrobit, joins host Dr. John Heinlein, Chief Marketing Officer from Sonatus, to discuss his valuable perspective on the shift to software-defined vehicles. Moritz is well-known in the automotive industry and explains critical technical infrastructure, including how Elektrobit is advancing Linux for vehicles, how SDV suits commercial vehicles, prototyping, CI/CD, and more. Moritz also explains his SDV maturity framework and how it introduces a common nomenclature for the shift to SDV. Filmed live at the Sonatus booth at CES 2025.

Links referenced in this episode:
Moritz’s SDV maturity level framework https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sdv-yet-dr-moritz-neukirchner-uuyxf/

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:38 Meet Moritz Neukirchner
02:26 About Elektrobit
03:55 Software-defined vehicles 
06:47 V2X
08:45 Automotive Development Ecosystems
09:47 Linux in Vehicles
13:43 Elektrobit Exhibition at CES
15:24 Android Based Cloud Instance
17:55 Transitioning to SDV: OEM Challenges
23:10 Commercial Impediments
26:08 Commercial SDV Vehicles

Recorded live at the Sonatus booth at CES 2025, Collin Shaw, President, MEMA Original Equipment Suppliers spoke with host John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer from Sonatus about the important opportunities and challenges that software offers to vehicle manufacturers spanning passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and more.  MEMA represents about 500 original equipment manufacturers, so Collin brings incredible perspective from across the industry, don’t miss it! 

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:30 Meet Collin Shaw
03:37 The opportunity in SDV
05:21 The myth of SDV
07:42 Aftermarket upgrades from software 
09:39 Protecting safety
10:10 Software in commercial vehicles
13:12 Diagnosing problems with AI 
14:07 Protecting algorithms
16:12 Benefits for low-cost vehicles
18:20 Software and Taco Bell, the great equalizers
20:21 Conclusion

In this episode of The Garage we talk with Rich Nass, famed journalist who is Executive Vice President with Open Systems Media following his long career at storied electronics periodicals. Rich talks with John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer at Sonatus and shares his perspective from talking with leaders across the industry about vehicle innovation ranging from architecture, software, safety, regulations, AI and much more.

Chapters:
00:00 Overview
01:18 Meet Rich Nass
04:04 Vehicle Architecture 
07:33 Vehicle Software and Safety
12:14 Upgrades and Monetization
15:30 Data Privacy
18:40 Regulations
22:25 Evolution in vehicle design
25:10 Artificial Intelligence
29:17 Conclusion