Blog from March, 2021

The fundamental shift from a hardware-based to a software-centric IoT device on wheels requires a rethink to address customer needs. Today, customer value is driven by software features such as infotainment as well as driver assistance and intelligent connectivity features rather than by mechanical functions. This presents a towering challenge, as no company is going to be able to transform the automotive industry on its own. Companies have to collaborate within the automotive ecosystem and build synergies with partners. This is why we believe that open standards and open source, as a model for collaborative development, offer a faster path towards new and rapid innovations.

As part of the CVII, Bosch has contributed and is working on the Vehicle Edge and IoT Event Analytics open-source projects.

IoT Event Analytics is an efficient stream processing and complex event processing (CEP) engine based on a publish/subscribe system. It can run inside a vehicle to (pre)process data and in the backend. IoT Event Analytics platform already includes SDKs for Node.js, Python, and CPP to implement “talents” extend and use the platform. A Visual Studio Code plugin helps you to get productive fast.

The Vehicle Edge is a software stack for vehicle computers. It acts as a bridge to signals and services from field buses and other ECUs. The Vehicle Edge stack combines various software components and is built around the IoT Event Analytics platform. Vehicle signals are abstracted using the GENIVI VSS data model. These VSS signals are made available to vehicle-agnostic applications running in the IoT Event Analytics platform via the KUKSA.val server implementing the W3C VISS standard.

Bosch supports the GENIVI and CVII goal of establishing an industry-wide common vehicle data language and invites the open source community to use and further develop the Vehicle Edge and IoT Event Analytics. In the CVII we look forward to sharing best practices across the industry and to further fruitful discussions and software contributions.

Join the CVII by participating in any of the active subprojects.

For further information regarding the IoT Event Analytics or Vehicle Edge you can contact Lars-Erich-Kiefer, Christian Kerstan or Sebastian Schildt

In collaboration with Automotive World (Mobex),  GENIVI along with guest speakers Magnus Feuer (Automotive Software Architect and W3C Contributor) and Gunnar Andersson (Tech Lead at GENIVI Alliance) will discuss a new set of challenges facing the automotive industry as it starts its transition to Service Oriented Architectures.  You are invited to hear more during this free webinar that will be held on 6 April (4PM UK; 5PM CEST; 11AM US EDT).

Requirements will be extended with service specifications where interoperability and integration tests will be key vehicle program success factors.  GENIVI, W3C, and collaborating organizations meet these member challenges by building on the successful Vehicle Signal Specification project and creating the Common Vehicle Interface Initiative (CVII) to standardize both vehicle data and services model.

Using the Vehicle Service Catalog in CVII, vehicle programs can elevate the conversation between stakeholders from requirements to use cases and interaction flows between ECUs, cloud services, and mobile devices.  The risk of uncontrolled proliferation of overlapping service definitions can be turned into the strength of a well defined feature set with clear interface definitions described in an industry-wide, common manner.

Join this webinar where we show how the automotive industry can jointly build a strong set of services, signals, and models that will lay the groundwork for successful adoption of a Service Oriented Architecture.

Registration Link: https://mobex.io/webinars/soa-is-coming-to-your-vehicle-program-we-need-to-talk-about-standard-services/ 

Please place in your calendars 4-7 May 2021 as the dates for the upcoming GENIVI Virtual All Member Meeting.  It is our sincere hope that this will be our final ALL virtual AMM and we hope for some face-to-face opportunities later in the year.  

In May, we will continue to emphasize the Common Vehicle Interface Initiative (CVII) activities and use the first two days to emphasize the potential business value that CVII deliverables offers our members and the industry broadly.  You may have heard much about vehicle data monetization, but vehicle data, when coupled with vehicle service definitions, can produce great business value to OEMs and their suppliers, even before third-party applications are considered.  During our typical "trends and business value" track, occurring on the 4th and 5th, we will explore some "alternative" approaches to gaining value from standard vehicle data and services.

We will also hold working sessions for the four current tracks of activities under the CVII project, including vehicle data models, vehicle service catalogs, technology stack (tooling) and alignment to other organizations.  In addition to the CVII tracks, we will hold another workshop on in-vehicle payments and a track on automotive cybersecurity.  These workshops and the previously mentioned trends and business track will be open to GENIVI members and guests.

Finally, we believe it is time for an open discussion and dialog with our current GENIVI members.  2020 was a difficult year and the technical shift toward CVII and all things related to vehicle and cloud connectivity may have left some of our members questioning their role in the organization.  We want to have an open and honest dialog about this, including a panel of Board members available to share the rationale of the shift, to talk about the future and to answer questions from our members.  This members-only discussion will be identified as a separate session from the main AMM schedule and we will make members aware of when to show up for this important dialog.

If you are interested in sponsoring the all member meeting, please reach out to Karin Hanson (karinha at khansonevents dot com).  While we will not have a virtual showcase this time, we will be exploring ways to support your commerce-related activities so please contact Mike Nunnery (mikenunnery at comcast dot net) for more information on options.

May is not far away so please reserve room in your calendars for this upcoming virtual all member meeting and we will get details about registration and the schedule posted as soon as possible. 

The GENIVI In-Vehicle Payment Special Interest Group (IVP-SIG) recently held a very successful and well attended workshop.  The workshop content directly focused on the intersection of in-vehicle technologies, payment technologies and EV-charging trends.

Thirty-four companies attended and heard content following three main themes: integrating the automotive and payment ecosystems, use cases related to EV-charging and trends in voice biometrics for commerce and authentication.  John Moon, GENIVI IVP-SIG Lead, opened the workshop with the purpose and goals for the GENIVI IVP-SIG as well as an overview of the IVP ecosystem.  Anthony Petit, Director of Internet of Things at Visa, continued the workshop with a presentation about the challenges and opportunities of more seamless integration of payments in the vehicle.  His presentation was followed by a Q&A session with Chris Budzynski, Director of Utility Policy at Exelon, who provided a view of the priorities facing an energy provider in the emerging EV world.  This was followed by a presentation by Boris Polania, Lead System Architect, e-Mobility Services at American Honda Motor Company, who spoke about "Takers and Givers", the use case of EV's not just consuming but providing power to the grid, and how that might affect payments.  Finally, Daniel Thornhill, SVP Global Pre-Sales for ValidSoft, presented the emergence of voice as both a means of executing commerce in the vehicle, as well as authenticating the purchaser by means of voice biometrics.

Slides for most of the presentations are available on the IVP SIG wiki page.  The IVP SIG is proceeding with additional activities including:

• May 4-7th 2021 - IVP & EV Charging panels and workshop discussions during the upcoming GENIVI Virtual AMM (All Member Meeting) 
• June 8-10th 2021 - GENIVI at TU Automotive FOCUS Vehicle Commerce Conference (GENIVI IVP-SIG participants receive a 25% discount for this event - Ask Mike for details).

Additionally, GENIVI IVP-SIG is cooperating with TU-Automotive on a survey on IVP technologies and approaches, in preparation for the June vehicle commerce conference.  You can participate in the survey here. 

If you have any questions or wish to participate in the IVP-SIG, please contact John Moon (jmoon at connectedtravel.com) or Mike Nunnery (MikeNunnery at comcast.net).

On 18 February, over sixty individual participants from nearly 40 unique organizations gathered for a several hour working session discussing the activities of the Common Vehicle Interface Initiative (CVII).  Co-hosted by GENIVI and W3C, the working session offered an informative and (intentionally) diverse set of presentations and dialogs.  The schedule, divided into three major components, can be found on the associated wiki page, on which you can also find slides for most of the presentations.

After brief introductions by Ted Guild, W3C Automotive Lead, and Gunnar Andersson, GENIVI Technical Lead, the first major component of the session included a series of updates from existing and related projects.  These updates represented work already active in GENIVI and W3C and enabled participants see that CVII is already a mature and productive project, one built on a strong foundation of previously delivered work that is further blossoming within the activities of CVII.  

The second major component of the working session was about alignment to existing work in other organizations like Sensoris, eSync Alliance, and the Open Insurance Network.  Because the scope of CVII encompasses the work of many other organizations, an active work thread of alignment to the work of others is essential.

A third and final major component of the working session was focused on the CVII Technology Stack activities.  Informative talks on developing a common Vehicle Service Catalog and Vehicle Signal Specification layering were given by experts.  BMW and Bosch took time to contextualize CVII into their own, data-oriented future.  And finally, discussion was held about CVII-related activities both in-vehicle and in the broader ecosystem of connectivity like Web of Things.

A general purpose and open email list (cvii-general@lists.genivi.org) for keeping people informed on CVII was announced during the workshop and any one interested can subscribe at lists.genivi.org.  For more information on CVII, please review the materials available on the CVII Home Page including a briefing document, an in-depth tutorial slide deck, and general information about upcoming events and meetings.  Contact information for both Ted and Gunnar can be found on the CVII Working Session wiki page. 

In addition to ongoing weekly meetings and webinars planned in coming weeks, CVII will be a major portion of the upcoming, GENIVI Virtual All Member Meeting, scheduled for 4-7 May 2021.  Stay tuned for more details about this important gathering of the GENIVI community and others interested in the work.