Referring to connected vehicles as ‘smartphones on wheels’ has quickly turned from a descriptive analogy to a common cliche. However, the phrase is not entirely without merit. Their use of over-the-air (OTA) updates is a case in point. In a software-dominated automotive industry, the hope is that these updates will allow automakers to remotely fix issues and introduce new functionality to their products on the fly.
However, automotive OTA is still in its infancy, and it is unclear exactly how OEMs will look to deploy their updates and what will be their main purpose.
