An ecosystem of new players in the automotive industry are putting Over-The-Air (OTA) and Firmware-Over-The-Air (FOTA) updates at the center of their vehicle development and lifecycle strategies. Unlike traditional OTA updates, FOTA updates directly add to, or enhance, the hardware functionalities of the vehicle. Today, OEMs such as Tesla are offering vehicles that provide regular updates which unlock software features and firmware functions initially installed in production.

In response to increasing consumer demand, a growing number of new players and legacy OEMs are adopting or developing similar OTA strategies for their future vehicle line-ups. As more automakers update different ECUs more regularly across the vehicle lifecycle, it can become more difficult for product planning and engineering teams to evaluate the competitiveness of their features and platforms.

The FOTA & Software Updates Guide tracks the latest OEM activity around OTA updates to help product planners and engineers assess their strategies against competitors. It then delves into the updates being delivered by OEMs today – identifying the types of updates delivered, their frequency, and the technologies utilized in the process. The guide works similarly to understand the types of new features enabled through FOTA updates and how quickly OEMs are shifting towards implementing high-frequency updates.