Think about the last time your phone updated overnight and woke up with new features. Automotives are heading the same way. The modern vehicle is more a layered stack of software running on powerful electronics. Navigation learns your routines, energy management squeezes more range from the same battery, and driver-assistance features quietly get better with each release. Increasingly, the real magic happens after the vehicle leaves the factory.
What’s changing—and how others are moving
The industry is undergoing major changes that are significantly altering its landscape:
- Centralised Brains: Instead of having many small ECUs, the trend is shifting towards centralising brains and using fewer, more powerful computers for domain and zonal control. This means easier maintenance and better security.
- Software that never “ships and stops”: Over-the-air (OTA) updates, telemetry, and feature flags let automakers fix bugs, add capabilities, and learn from real-world use.
- Build it virtually, prove it early: Digital twins, virtual ECUs, and model-/software-/hardware-in-the-loop testing catch problems before metal is cut.
Markets are moving fast: Europe, Japan, and Korea have tied approvals to cybersecurity and software-update practices. China has made OTA commonplace and iterates quickly through tight hardware-software integration. US and European brands are reorganizing around software-defined vehicle platforms.
Why this matters for India
India is among the world’s largest passenger-vehicle markets and a two-wheeler powerhouse. Customers here expect connected, safe, and reliable mobility at sharp price points. That puts software at center-stage:
- Differentiation that lasts: Post-sale improvements—better range, smoother ADAS, richer infotainment—keep a product competitive for years.
- Speed and cost discipline: Use of Digital Twins helps in early development and validation, reducing prototypes and delays.
- Talent advantage: India’s embedded and cloud engineering depth is real; the opportunity is to channel it into automotive software and create exportable IP, not just capacity.
What India has done so far
The direction is positive. Programs encouraging advanced components and electrification have nudged investments. Test infrastructure has grown with national proving grounds and specialized labs. Several OEMs and Tier-1s now run software centres of excellence, and ship connected services at scale. A healthy start up scene is tackling battery intelligence, vision, fleet analytics, and predictive maintenance. It’s a strong base—but industry alignment and pace need to increase.
What can be done
- Make software a board-level strategy: Treat vehicle programs as software programs with hardware attached.
- Build an OTA pipeline as core infrastructure: Define update policies, delta packaging, staged rollouts, and safe rollback
- Invest in virtual development and test: Scale model-, software- and hardware-in-the-loop with high-fidelity digital twins and early vECU availability so hardware and software teams iterate in parallel
- Institutionalize safety and cybersecurity: Mandate ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, and WP.29-aligned processes across the supply chain, including MSMEs; provide shared services for threat modeling, SBOMs, and incident response. India’s AIS-189 (Cybersecurity) and AIS-190 (Software Update) can anchor audits and conformance.
- Close the skills loop: Create industry–academia labs for embedded Linux/RTOS, AUTOSAR, safety, and automotive cybersecurity; and democratize toolchains for smaller suppliers.
- Back open standards and local IP: Contribute to standards publish reference implementations tuned for Indian conditions (connectivity constraints, mixed traffic) and license them broadly.
- Reform procurement: Shift to outcome-linked models that reward software quality, test coverage, and field reliability.
- Enable regulatory sandboxes: Pilot V2X, OTA policy, and autonomy features on designated corridors with strict guardrails and transparent data-sharing.
The bottom line
India has the opportunity to capitalize on its potential in the automotive industry. The demand is clear: customers are seeking improved, secure, and intelligent vehicles; companies are in need of quicker and more affordable development; and the key to lasting success lies in software. By aligning efforts between industry, academia, and policymakers, India can revolutionize its vehicle production, and establish a reliable reputation. Now is the time to seize the advantage offered by software technology.
Deepak Samaga is Vice President of Business Development at Vayavya Labs Pvt. Ltd. Views expressed are the author’s personal.