The Car That Updates Like a Phone
The transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles is accompanied by a less-discussed but equally significant transition: from mechanical, hardware-defined vehicles to software-defined vehicles where much of the car’s behaviour, features, and performance is determined by software that can be updated remotely. This change has implications for buying, owning, and maintaining vehicles that most car buyers haven’t fully processed.
Tesla pioneered over-the-air (OTA) software updates for vehicles, and the approach has been adopted by every major EV manufacturer: software updates that add features, fix bugs, improve performance, and patch security vulnerabilities are delivered to the car without visiting a dealer. This is genuinely beneficial when it works as intended and creates a new category of automotive ownership concern when it doesn’t.
Features That Can Be Added or Removed After Purchase
Software-defined vehicles can have features enabled or disabled through software, which has created both new value (Tesla adding horsepower through an OTA update to vehicles that had the hardware but not the software capability) and new controversy (BMW’s heated seat subscription that charged for a hardware feature already installed in the car, which generated significant customer backlash and was subsequently modified).
The business model that software-defined vehicles enable — manufacturers maintaining revenue relationships with vehicle owners long after purchase through feature subscriptions, capability unlocks, and data services — is genuinely new to the automotive industry and not yet settled in terms of consumer expectations or regulatory treatment. Understanding which features are included in the purchase price versus which may become subscription-dependent is a legitimate question for EV buyers to investigate before purchase.
Charging Networks and Software Integration
The charging experience for an EV is substantially a software experience: finding available chargers, planning routes that include charging stops, initiating and authenticating charging sessions, and monitoring charging progress are all managed through apps and in-vehicle software. The quality of this software experience varies significantly between manufacturers and charging networks and has direct effects on the practical usability of EV ownership.
Tesla’s Supercharger network has historically provided the most integrated, seamless charging experience because Tesla controls both the vehicle software and the charging infrastructure — the software integration allows automatic authentication, automatic billing, and in-vehicle charging session monitoring without separate app interaction. As Tesla has opened its network to other EVs and as competitors have developed their own software integrations, the gap between the best and worst charging software experiences has narrowed, but it remains a meaningful differentiator in the EV ownership experience.
Cybersecurity for Connected Vehicles
Software-defined vehicles are networked computing systems that communicate with manufacturer servers, interact with mobile devices, and in some cases with other vehicles and infrastructure. The cybersecurity implications of networked vehicles are genuine: documented demonstrations of vehicle remote access exploits, manufacturer servers that may have access to location history and driving behaviour data, and the potential for software vulnerabilities to affect safety-critical vehicle systems (braking, steering) rather than merely inconvenient ones.
The automotive cybersecurity landscape is developing: UNECE WP.29 regulations (adopted in the EU, Japan, South Korea, and others) require manufacturers to implement cybersecurity management systems for vehicles produced after July 2024, bringing a regulatory framework to vehicle cybersecurity that didn’t previously exist. For EV buyers, the manufacturer’s cybersecurity track record, data privacy practices, and update responsiveness for security patches are considerations alongside the more traditional automotive purchase criteria.
What to Check Before Buying
The software-specific questions worth asking before any EV purchase: what is the manufacturer’s OTA update track record? (do updates arrive promptly, and have past updates caused issues that required rollback?), which features require ongoing subscriptions vs. are included in purchase price?, what is the manufacturer’s data collection and sharing policy?, what is the software update policy for older vehicles (will this vehicle continue receiving updates in 5 years?), and what happens to vehicle software features if the manufacturer goes out of business or exits the market (a legitimate concern for some smaller EV brands)?
These questions don’t have obvious right answers that apply to every buyer — they depend on how much the software capabilities matter relative to hardware, range, and charging network considerations. But the buyer who has asked them and received answers before signing is making a more informed purchase than one who discovers the answers post-ownership when a subscription bill arrives for a feature they assumed was included.