Automotive over-the-air (OTA) updates landscape: H1 2025

Most vehicles are static past their first manufacture, aside from occasional map, infotainment or telematics control unit updates. Additionally, most of the available software updates need to be performed by a service center or through a home computer with a USB drive or SD card, reducing the success rate of the update across fleets. This is where OTA updates come into play.
Recall and warranty costs and the rapid development of autonomous cars in recent years has precipitated the mainstream market emergence of OTA updates in cars. With continued growth in the amount of software per car, we expect to see significant growth in the number of software-related recalls over the next decade, and OTA updates will be even more critical.
Moreover, as vehicles become increasingly electric and autonomous, they require universal, incremental, high-definition map updates in real time, as well as ethernet electrical subsystems capable of securely updating all ECUs. OTA updates also have significant economic advantages owing to large cost savings compared with dated manual approaches.