黑莓 QNX 公司汽車業務主管John Wall 解釋道：“隨著車輛開始通過軟件實現越來越多的功能，汽車行業的收益流和商業模型都在發生變化。”
如今，汽車行業的產品差異化開始逐步向服務和軟件方面靠攏。隨著網聯車開始增加，越來越多的網絡安全功能，汽車領域的各個領域都發生了重大變革，比如出現了一些新的商業關系結構。
軟件系統現已成為車輛推進控制、信息娛樂、安全和自主功能的基礎，也得到了OEM的擁護。對于黑莓 QNX 公司總經理兼汽車技術業務主管John Wall 來說，如今的情況已經與 10 多年前哈曼（Harman）收購 QNX 時發生了天翻地覆的變化。
那時，一些汽車行業的高管并不完全理解 QNX 實時操作系統到底有何作用。
Wall 表示，“當時，哈曼的那些經理曾經開玩笑說，底盤和動力系統的工程師才是最厲害的，我們只是‘退而次之’！”Wall 畢業于卡爾頓大學工程專業，在 1993 年加入QNX 公司，而后晉升至副總裁，目前擔任總經理職務。
如今，全球超過 6000 萬輛汽車都搭載了QNX 操作系統。公司有很多“大牌”客戶，最近福特和捷豹路虎都與 QNX 簽署了軟件使用許可協議。福特甚至在自己的研發團隊中增加了 450 名黑莓研發工程師及相關崗位，這樣的變化均凸顯了汽車行業的商業戰略正在發生重大轉變。
“十年前，大家都明確地‘各司其職’，QNX 服務于一級供應商，然后一級供應商服務于OEM。如果我們想直接聯系一家OEM？那肯定只能得到否定答復。”Wall 回憶說，“現在，大家開始建立更多合作伙伴關系。如今的世界越來越復雜，特別是在自動駕駛出現之后，很多原廠和一級供應商開始意識到，很多工作他們根本無法憑一己之力獨自完成。”
網聯功能與軟件戰略
Well 先生表示，曾經的“供應商-客戶”雙邊模式已經變得更像是一種三邊模式。現在，一級供應商、OEM和二級供應商同時出現在同一場會議中的情況非常常見。這種變革的動力很大程度上來自谷歌/Waymo和蘋果等傳統汽車行業之外的玩家。Wall觀察到，“這些新晉參與者的自動駕駛項目，正在迫使傳統汽車廠商加足馬力參與競爭。如果汽車制造商無法自己完成軟件研發，那么一定有人插手這項生意。”
在科技行業的“窮追猛打”之下，傳統汽車廠商開始不得不跟上這些高科技公司的運營和創新模式，其中一個重要體現就是“速度快”。然而，對于傳統汽車行業而言，一味追逐科技行業的產品研發速度，后果可能是致命的，尤其是在即將到來的自動駕駛時代中，因為我們需要依賴這些汽車產品在駕駛途中為我們做出“生死抉擇”。
壞消息是，無論是在單純的公共道路汽車測試中，還是在客戶的實際使用中，車輛系統造成的死亡事故往往要比純人為失誤造成的死亡事故受到遠遠更多的關注，任何細枝末節都將完全暴露在公眾關注的聚光燈之下。如果無人駕駛汽車開發商粗心大意，可能招致政府監管機構的介入，這也是業內人士所擔心的地方之一。
“在自動駕駛汽車的推廣中，汽車制造商肯定會采用循序漸進的做法，這個過程將非常緩慢”。Wall猜測，“政府一旦認定汽車公司的行為是不負責任的，就可能會介入。我認為，行業需要擔心的并不是傳統汽車公司，勤奮和謹慎是這些老牌制造商的一貫作風。真正需要擔心的是優步（Uber）這樣的非傳統汽車公司。”
在自動駕駛汽車真正上路之前，各種互聯功能將成為各類短期汽車軟件戰略中的基本要素。網絡費用、人機接口（HMI）及安全性，將成為互聯功能研發中最需要考慮的設計挑戰和成本因素。戰略規劃者需要思考如何才能利用汽車中產生的各種信息實現創收。
Wall 指出，“來自汽車傳感器中的大量數據可能非常有價值。對于OEM來說，如何利用這些數據創收非常重要，這將成為他們未來的工作重點之一。”
操作系統的未來角色
未來，下一代汽車的許多特性和功能都可能以“附加服務”的形式存在。大大小小的公司都在試圖理清如何推出可以讓車主愿意付錢購買的應用程序和服務。有觀點認為，手機行業可能將推出一種適合汽車行業的模式。
未來，各類廠商可能都將選擇從操作系統入手，開拓新的市場。
“如今，汽車正在被拆分為一系列高級服務，這與手機行業的歷史發展趨勢很相似。”Wall 先生表示，“隨著汽車的聯網功能越來越多，OEM開始迫切希望能將這些服務貨幣化。各家公司將不得不開始開發汽車專用應用程序。此時，對標準化操作系統的需求也應運而生，如同手機中的iOS 和安卓平臺一樣。事實上，自動駕駛也將是這些應用之一。”
然而，這種以應用程序的形式為車輛提供服務和功能的情況，可能不會很快出現，這是因為汽車行業對可靠性有非常高的要求，而軟件故障可能會造成非常嚴重的后果。因此，車輛應用程序的開發也將與車輛自身相對更長的研發周期同步，這有助于提高安全性，確保哪怕有故障發生，任何與安全有關的關鍵車輛功能也不會受到影響。從另一方面，操作系統的出現，則有助于將信息娛樂系統等應用程序與真正關乎車輛安全的關鍵軟件隔離開來。
在此背景下，黑莓 QNX 公司則推出了一款可以支持多種客戶操作系統的Hypervisor 虛擬機管理程序，幫助客戶將信息娛樂系統等應用程序隔離在“沙箱”中。Wall 先生表示，目前，QNX 正在與幾家通過虛擬機管理程序來運行安卓和Linux 操作系統的汽車制造商合作。
在強大多核處理器的支持下，硬件整合的大趨勢也促進了虛擬機管理程序的應用。在許多車輛中，數字儀表盤和信息娛樂系統正在逐步實現集成，而不再分別采用專用的獨立處理器。
“儀表盤和信息娛樂系統將運行在同一個計算機平臺上，但我們的虛擬機管理程序可以將這兩類應用程序運行的環境隔離開來。QNX 用于儀表盤，Linux 和安卓則用于信息娛樂系統。”Wall 先生解釋道，“還有一些公司為車輛安裝了亞馬遜的 FireOS 操作系統。我們可以將這些安全級別較低的系統隔離起來，確保關鍵的儀表盤軟件免受任何問題的影響。”
深層網絡防御
毫無疑問，安全肯定是這些安全相關設計項目的基礎，其中網絡安全的重要性尤為凸顯。鑒于事故可能造成嚴重后果，如何阻止黑客攻擊也是另一個令人擔憂的問題。
Wall 希望幫助汽車行業應對此類問題。黑莓公司從一開始就非常注重安全性，QNX 工程師在這方面有非常豐富的經驗，曾經與多家油氣行業客戶密切合作，為電網等大型基礎設施系統提供網絡安全保障。
Wall 表示，“安全功能不能以附加功能的形式存在，你真正需要的是縱深防御。比如，芯片可以通過一系列認證，因此當你看到一顆經過認證的芯片時，你就知道這顆芯片可以信任。當然了，即使是最好的安全系統也有可能遭到破壞，因此更重要的問題是如何及時發現并識別這些問題。”
Revenue streams and business models are changing as more vehicle functions move to software. Blackberry QNX’s John Wall explains.
The auto industry’s evolution to a product differentiation based on services and software is prompting a transformation in areas as diverse as the structure of business relationships through cybersecurity for connected vehicles.
OEMs are embracing software, which now forms the basis for propulsion-system control, infotainment, safety and autonomy. For John Wall, the General Manager of Blackberry QNX and leader of the company’s automotive technology business, that’s a marked change from a little over a decade ago when Harman acquired QNX.
At that time, some automotive executives were unsure exactly what the QNX real-time operating system did.
“Harman managers joked that we were secondary to the golden engineers in chassis and powertrain!” noted Wall, who joined QNX in 1993 as a Carleton University engineering grad. He rose through the ranks to become VP Engineering before taking his current role.
Now, QNX software serves as the operating system (OS) on more than 60 million vehicles. Ford and Jaguar Land Rover both recently signed licensing agreements. Ford brought 450 Blackberry engineers and other staff into its development team. Changes like these highlight a major shift in business strategies.
“Ten years ago, there were clear lines—QNX supplied Tier 1s, Tier 1s supplied OEMs. If I spoke to an OEM, that was a no-no,” Wall recalled. “Now there’s a lot more talk of partnerships. As the world becomes more complex, for example with autonomous driving, there’s a realization by OEMs and Tier 1s that they can’t do this alone.”
Connectivity and software strategies
He said the old supplier-customer model has become more of a triangle. Now it’s common to have Tier 1s, OEMs and Tier 2s all in one meeting. Much of this impetus for change came from outsiders like Google/ Waymo and Apple. Hype around their autonomous-driving programs “pushed the traditional OEMs into high gear,” Wall observed. “If carmakers don’t do their own software, other people will step in and do it for them.”
The tech industry’s impetus is driving OEMs to operate and innovate more like high-tech companies. But the speed that comes in industries that have fleeting product life cycles can be perilous, especially in the coming era when cars make life and death decisions on the roadways.
Unfortunately, fatalities caused by vehicle systems, both while testing on public roads and in customer use, have received far more attention than those caused by purely human operator error, putting them in the public spotlight. There’s some concern that government regulators may step in if autonomous-vehicle developers seem to be careless.
“Automakers will be very slow and incremental in their autonomous-driving rollouts,” Wall surmises “Governments may step in if they see car companies being irresponsible. What I think the industry has to worry about is not the traditional car companies, who are used to being diligent and focusing on safety. We have to worry about non-traditional companies like Uber,” he said.
Before autonomy hits the roads, connectivity will be an essential element in near-term software strategies. Cellular fees, human-machine interfaces (HMI), safety and security are among the design challenges and cost factors associated with connectivity. Strategic planners need to figure out to use all the information created in cars to bring in revenue.
“Tons of data from all the sensors on a car can be very valuable. It will be a huge play for OEMs to monetize the data that’s on cars,” Wall noted.
Future role of the OS
Many of the features and functions on next-generation vehicles may be provided by add-on services. Companies large and small are trying to figure out how they can create apps and services that vehicle owners will pay for. Many believe that the cellphone industry may provide a model that can be adapted for autos.
Operating systems may become the lingua franca for vendors attempting to carve out a new market.
“The car is being extracted out to a number of high-level services, similar to how the cellphone industry emerged,” Wall said. “As cars become connected, OEMs want to monetize services. People will have to write apps for cars, so they’ll need a few OSes to standardize on, similar to what happened with iOS and Android in cell phones. Autonomous driving will be one of those apps.”
The push to add services and functions via apps will happen slowly because of the high reliability needed for autos, where software glitches can have severe consequences. Apps will follow the lead of vehicles themselves, with longer engineering cycles that help ensure that if failures occur, they won’t impact any safety-critical vehicle functions. The OS can help isolate infotainment apps from safety-critical software.
Blackberry QNX’s product plan includes Hypervisor, which supports guest operating systems, isolating them in a sandbox. The company is working with several automakers that run Android and Linux on top of Hypervisor, Wall said.
The consolidation of hardware, enabled by the emergence of powerful multicore processors, is also spurring the use of Hypervisor. In many vehicles, digital instrument clusters and infotainment systems are moving to a single computing platform instead of dedicated, discrete processors in today’s production vehicles.
“Clusters and infotainment systems are running on the same computer platform, using our Hypervisor to separate the environments. QNX is used for the cluster, Linux and Android are used for infotainment,” he explained. “Some companies are bringing Amazon’s Fire OS into the car for services. Those non-safety systems can be isolated so critical cluster software won’t be impacted by any issues.”
Deep-cyber defenses
Security is an underlying aspect of these safety-related design programs. Cybersecurity is of equal or greater importance. Keeping hackers at bay is another concern given the potential for serious repercussions from incidents.
Wall hopes to help the industry avoid problems. Blackberry focused on security from its inception, and QNX engineers worked closely with oil and gas customers experienced in dealing with threats to large infrastructure systems like the power grid.
“Security is not a bolt-on piece, you need defense in depth, like knowing that chips are authenticated so you can establish a root of trust. Even the best security can be breached, how will breaches be identified when they’re discovered,” Wall said.
Author: Terry Costlow
Source: SAE Automotive Vehicle Engineering Magazine
