Qualcomm’s digital chassis catches the interest of the auto industry
Modular platforms have revolutionized the construction of cars. The car manufacturers develop a platform on which different models are then placed. A very good example of this practice is Volkswagen. The “modular electric construction kit” is the basis for the ID 3, ID 4, Audi Q4 and all e-car variants from Seat and Skoda. The chassis and drive are the same everywhere, the brands only add their design. These platforms are extremely flexible and save a lot of production costs.
Qualcomm has now come up with something similar for the hardware and software in cars. The overarching umbrella for Qualcomm’s automotive offering is the digital chassis. These are a series of cloud-connected “platforms” that automakers can adopt entirely or choose à la carte.
The digital chassis consists of a comprehensive list of automotive components: Snapdragon Ride Platform for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving, the Auto Connectivity Platform for LTE, 5G Connected Services, Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), Wi-Fi , Bluetooth and precise positioning as well as the next generation of the Snapdragon Cockpit, a digital cockpit and infotainment system.
At CES 2022, Qualcomm unveiled its first product aimed at connecting cars to the cloud, the Car-to-Cloud service. This would enable faster over-the-air updates and provide the ability to collect vehicle and usage analytics to create new revenue streams for both the company and its automaker partners. I made a video about the backend in Las Vegas because I hadn’t looked at it in detail before.
This year, Volvo has been one of many automakers to include Snapdragon in its upcoming all-electric SUV, and Volvo EV brand Polestar’s Polestar 3 will also feature Qualcomm’s digital cockpit, powered by Google’s Android OS.
Honda also shared its plans to include Qualcomm’s digital cockpit for the first time in its upcoming models, which are expected to launch in the second half of 2022 in the US and 2023 worldwide.
The Renault Group announced in September its plans to integrate the digital cockpit in its Mégane E-Tech electric vehicle. On Tuesday, the company said it plans to expand this collaboration across its full suite of digital chassis platforms, including the connectivity platform and the Snapdragon Ride platform.
Volvo, Honda and Renault join Qualcomm’s growing list of Snapdragon customers, which has seemed to grow ever since Qualcomm acquired automotive technology company Veoneer in October. Since then, Qualcomm has attracted around 40 OEMs, including BMW, GM, Hyundai, JiDu, Xpeng, NIO, and WM, to integrate various Snapdragon platforms into their vehicles.
