Go ahead. Trust carmakers who promise lifetime software updates. But verify that car companies can cope with the potential need for the hardware upgrades that often accompany updated software.
What’s at stake?
Running updated software properly in an existing vehicle sometimes demands a hardware upgrade — replacing, for example, a 3G modem with a 4G cellular modem. Are carmakers ready for this sort of mass retrofit?
Robert Hollingsworth is not happy with BMW. The German automaker declined to upgrade a 3G cellular modem in Hollingsworth’s BMW X5 after all major US cellular operators shut down the legacy network support in 2022.
Yet, the software-defined vehicles is the thing today, among many car OEMs.