Why Are Car Software Updates Still So Bad?

Despite years of effort and nan outlay of billions of dollars, nary of nan world’s automakers person yet to lucifer Tesla’s prowess successful delivering over-the-air (OTA) package updates. Just for illustration pinch your telephone and laptop, these operating strategy refreshes let owners to upgrade their cars remotely.

Tesla introduced OTAs successful 2012, but now Elon Musk’s institution pumps retired these updates for illustration nary different automaker. “Tesla erstwhile issued 42 updates wrong six months,” Jean-Marie Lapeyre, Capgemini’s CTO for automotive, tells WIRED. But for galore different automakers, says Lapeyre, OTAs vessel “maybe erstwhile a year.”

For accepted car companies, package remains, aliases has been until very recently, simply 1 bolt-on constituent among many. In contrast, for Tesla and different digital-native automakers—among them Rivian, Lucid, Polestar, and Chinese brands specified arsenic BYD, Xpeng, and Xiaomi—it’s almost nan full shebang.

Interestingly, GM was really nan first automaker to present OTA functionality, two years up of Tesla, but it was constricted to nan OnStar telematics system. OTAs from accepted automakers often adhd conscionable infotainment tweaks, while OTAs from nan digital-first brands tin beryllium shape-shifters, expanding scope and boosting speed. They often besides gift features from nan puerile to nan genuinely performative: fart noises connected demand from Tesla, plusher suspension for Rivian owners, and car unlocking by phone from Polestar.

Cars person had onboard microprocessors since nan 1970s, but until comparatively precocious accepted automakers made their cars pinch package designed to stay mostly unchanged passim a vehicle’s 20-year lifespan. Since 2021, nan complexity of nan latest conveyance package platforms has accrued by astir 40 percent per year, estimates McKinsey. There are now 69 cardinal OTA-capable vehicles successful nan US, reckons S&P Global.

Such software-defined vehicles, aliases SDVs, would boost car sales, automakers hoped. According to 2 scorecards measuring SDV progress, Tesla leads nan pack. Gartner’s Digital Automaker Index for 2025 places Chinese EV manufacturers Nio and Xiaomi successful 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. Wards Intelligence agrees these are nan 3 to beat. On nan different extremity of nan scale, and akin to nan Wards analysis, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, and Jaguar Land Rover wallow astatine nan bottom.

Saving and Selling

Done right, OTAs not only freshen a car’s personification experience, they tin besides slash nan costs of recalls for automakers. More than 13 cardinal vehicles were recalled successful 2024 owed to software-related issues, a 35 percent summation complete nan anterior year. Before OTAs, nan average costs of an car recall was astir $500 per vehicle. OTAs whitethorn beryllium delivered wirelessly, but they are not cost-free, either for the environment aliases for automakers—Harman Automotive, a supplier of OTA software, estimates that it costs an automaker $66.50 per conveyance to present a 1 GB update.

But it’s usually only nan integer natives sending retired immense update files, because mostly only they are tin of firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates. These tin update powertrains, artillery management, and braking systems. FOTA capabilities require cars—usually EVs—to person good, persistent connectivity and important computing power, overmuch of it near latent for early updates. Lucid’s Gravity electrical SUV, for instance, is equipped pinch nan latest Nvidia Orin-X processor, pinch 512 GB of onboard storage, yet nan vehicle’s OS fits connected conscionable 100 GB, leaving oodles of room for later OTA refreshes.

As Western car institution revenues fall, automakers are looking to make money from OTA-enabled subscriptions. Give Tesla $2,000 and, pinch nan optional Acceleration Boost, your EV tin beryllium unlocked over-the-air to go a tyre squeal quicker disconnected nan mark. For different $10 a month, Tesla’s “premium connectivity” package adds streaming data, unrecorded sentry cams, and different goodies. Want what critics declare is nan misleadingly named Full Self Driving (FSD) Supervised feature? It’s yours for an further $99 a month.