GM plans to help create a system of standardized vehicle software and technology that all automakers can use, streamlining and rationalizing a set of universal standards for easier compatibility, while lowering costs and making a wider range of technology available to vehicle buyers.
As part of this initiative, The General is becoming a member of the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance or COVESA, which will help it coordinate standardization with other companies in the industry.
As a COVESA member, GM intends to make its own standardized interface and programming model, uServices, available to vehicular software developers. The company showed uServices to COVESA in July and is in the process of contributing the software to the organization in October.
COVESA expressed its satisfaction with GM’s membership and contribution, with the organization’s executive director Steve Crumb remarking “uServices is a great addition to the growing set of open-source solutions hosted by COVESA and made openly available for enhancement and adoption among a growing number of automotive stakeholders.”
High-level GM software architect Frank Ghenassia said the automaker “hopes to accelerate the development of an ecosystem that we can leverage to integrate third-party software at reduced engineering cost.” He added that uServices should “lower the cost for customers and reduce time to market” among other benefits.
GM previously joined the Eclipse Foundation in another bid to help spread universal, open source, open specification software and software standards. At that point it contributed the uProtocol standard which applies to the software and platforms used to enable communication between devices such as smartphones and the software and programs built into vehicles.
The current uServices standard meshes with the uProtocol standard by creating a standardized communication interface through which vehicle features can “talk” back and forth with uProtocol connections and, in GM’s words, “enabling a unified connected vehicle ecosystem.”
Meanwhile, the company’s advanced Global B electric architecture is experiencing occasional difficulties with its over-the-air (OTA) updates. Some Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon and Cadillac Lyriq vehicles suffered battery drain from the issue, and GM Authority has exclusively learned The General is changing its over-the-air update procedures in response.
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Comments
This all sounds good but what are they going to charge for the proprietary software to diagnose problems.
Just more complicated stuff to go wrong and is unneeded. Please just sell me a basic vehicle that is dependable and can be easily serviced. Save the rest of it, I don’t want it or need it!