For over 70 years, HARMAN’s innovations in the automotive space have set the industry standard for customer service and quality, all with the goal of enabling a connected mobility experience for consumers around the globe. As policy and preference trends transition to focus on eco-forward vehicle options, HARMAN’s technology is ready to shift with them. Favorable government regulation and an eco-conscious consumer base have led to unprecedented growth in the EV space, with some studies showing that EVs will make 10% of global passenger vehicle sales by 2025, growing to 28% in 2030 and 58% in 2040. Just how is the HARMAN automotive team working to ensure technology-powered in-cabin experiences remain at the core of it all as EVs take center stage? Learn about HARMAN OTA (Over-the-Air) and the role this crucial solution will play in bringing convenience, connectivity, and eco-friendly solutions to mobility consumers.

Features such as advanced connectivity, smart telematics, cutting-edge digital cockpit, and ADAS capabilities are becoming standard in today’s EVs, which is driving demand for smart software. OEMs around the world are increasingly looking to HARMAN OTA to make these updates. As vehicle hardware becomes more advanced, so do consumers' expectations of the driving experience. OEMs and consumers alike, with millions of vehicles between them, trust HARMAN to make sure their OTA experience is the best the industry has to offer. For years, HARMAN has been the clear OTA market leader with a plethora of solutions that support current EV architecture used in even the most advanced EV platforms of today. Remarkably, the HARMAN OTA solution supports updates of the entire vehicle in over 100 ECUs, stemming from just a single software update.

In terms of EV-specific OTA offerings, HARMAN offers, among other features, a secure OTA update mechanism designed for a new, advanced vehicle architecture, including the support of updates on high-end computational units like Zonal & Central Computing Units/Vehicle Servers, Zonal Gateways and Domain Controllers. It enables OTA updates in a controlled power budget environment and enables on-demand service and feature activation (ADAS, AD, maps, and more). In addition, HARMAN’s bleeding-edge OTA service has been designed to offer advanced software update and device management capabilities to the non-vehicle IoT devices part of the EV ecosystem. For instance, EV charging stations manufactured by several producers need to be centrally managed by EV charging network operators. HARMAN OTA offers EV operators a proven and scalable solution to centrally manage their large fleets of multi-brand charging stations with effortless, convenient OTA update solutions.

Electrification introduces major opportunities for OTA solution providers, as EV makers are going to rely on OTA technologies like a commodity service, advancing the traditional OEM’s embrace of OTA solutions for entire ICE and electrified vehicles. Electric vehicles also bring unprecedented monetization opportunities for the OTA service providers thanks to new EV-specific innovations. For instance, OTA bi-directional data channels could be leveraged by car manufacturers to securely collect vehicle data for various applications, including remote diagnostics for EV integrated platforms, collecting driver behavior patterns and historic battery usage data points to ultimately improve overall battery performance, vehicle map updates and more.

As OEMs and consumers look to the future of electric mobility, we at HARMAN are excited to offer our industry-leading solutions for every driver. With expansions in our OTA offerings at the forefront, HARMAN remains committed to that mission. Our leadership in the OTA market make HARMAN the clear choice for premier EV automakers across the world and OEMs that are transitioning from ICE to electrified offerings, and would be looking to our solutions to support the development of the most advanced EV platforms with seamless performance, superior features and an advanced service infrastructure. To learn more, visit our product page and contact us to schedule an exploration meeting.