SAE – Traditional vs Startups: Mobility Engineering Approaches

A few years ago, traditional automotive companies displayed indifference towards Electric Vehicle (EV) new entrants. However, traditionalist perspectives are changing and they have begun to learn from each other. Sven Beiker, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Mobility, had shared with SAE media about mobility engineering prior to his Knowledge Bar session at the 2024 WCX World Congress Experience event.

Established automakers are exceptionally experienced in R&D, design, engineering, manufacturing and distribution. Yet this process was often overlooked, disregarded or neglected. Beiker also mentioned that producing automobiles is a major task and it’s not easy to introduce new vehicles to the market and remain profitable.

When start-up automotive companies made their debut in the early 2000s, they instantly encountered supply chain obstructions, with concerns about their long-term business viability and cash flow for purchases. To a certain extent, the traditional automotive industry pushed new entrants to think divergently because they lacked access to the same technologies. Many startup mobility companies’ logical approach was executing tasks in-house as they are generally more closely integrated than established vehicle manufacturers.

Although established automakers have ultilised software for decades, new entrants jumped headfirst into the digital world. Software facilitates much faster and frequent iterations, enabling automakers to be more adventurous with designs since coding something fresh is considerably quicker than creating new hardware.

Highlighting the designing in virtual spaces, new entrants acquired software and technology experts from the computer, consumer electronics, artificial intelligence, cloud services and other digital domains. As new entrants do not possess historic baggage, they are in an excellent spot to come up with new ideas. As a result, traditional automotive companies are becoming more agile thinkers, thanks to the pressure from new entrants. In any case, it would be a challenge to alter something that automakers have been doing for years or decades.

By the end of this decade, startups and traditional automotive companies will have substantial intersection in how they approach mobility engineering. The distinctions between them will become increasingly blurred, but the automotive industry needs both the traditional and startup players.

Moving forward, Beiker believes the mobility market will transition from “old vs. new” to “region vs. region” competition. This sparked discussions about how Chinese companies are dominating the EV market. Beiker noted Ford CEO Jim Farley’s admission that traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) struggle with software. During the “Fully Charged podcast in June 2023, Farley stated that it is tricky for car companies to get software accurately. He added that they have approximately 150 modules across the car, established by 150 different companies, produced in 100 different languages, that do not communicate with each other.

Two personal observations Beiker noticed:

• Traditional automakers “tend to see the glass as half-empty” while startup automakers are more optimistic.
• Despite the fierce competition in the industry, each side complemented the other’s strengths.