Challenges of Complex Software Development for Emerging Technologies in Automotive Industry: Bridging the Gap of Knowledge Between the Industry Practitioners

Automotive is currently one of the most rapidly evolving industries in the world. Topics such as ride-sharing, connectivity, electrification and automation saw the fastest developments in the industry. These include the more extended influence of software and computer science expertise into the previously a more mechanical-engineering based industry. However, complex software development is a relatively new topic for the automotive industry, which brings a lot of challenges which were unforeseen in the past. For example, changes in development methodology have seen the discussions of agile methodology adoption into the said industry. Moreover, concepts inherent to the field of software engineering, such as 'technical debt' and 'feature prioritization' which arose due to unsystematized software development should also be highlighted. To yield the new innovations into the market safely, the challenges of software development for emerging technologies in the automotive industry should be understood. This paper highlights the challenges related to complex software development in the automotive industry. It highlights the pain points which need to be addressed for further improvements. The paper is aimed specifically at educating the practitioners, researchers, product and business experts in the automotive industry about the importance of producing good software quality for the automotive software-based product. The authors are convinced the paper will benefit the practitioners in the industry as well as the generic audience with interests in this topic. It will also bridge the knowledge gap between ‘computer science’-background and ‘conventional automotive’-background engineers in the automotive software development and safety topics.