Polestar exec outlines why China is leading the shift toward SDVs

Car buyers in China are leading the transition to software-defined vehicles because they have very different demands for the models they chose, a top Polestar executives said.

"In China, people use the vehicle in place of their home. Many people do not have a large and luxurious home," Polestar CTO Lutz Stiegler told Automotive News Europe. "So, they sit in their car, often in a traffic jam. They are not so much into the driving characteristics of the car, they are more interested in its ability to entertain."

Because of this, he said "the car becomes a software-defined vehicle from an entertainment perspective. That is something very different about China and Europe."

Top supplier executives agree with Stiegler on China's SDV lead.

"It is very clear that SDVs will accelerate. The software technologies are there. And the prerequisites to make it happen are also there. It is going to accelerate across the globe massively. China is already leading this," Marelli Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Joachim Fetzer told Automotive News Europe.

Separately, Robert Bosch CEO Stefan Hartung told Automotive News Europe that in China new players are trying to lure customers by offering cutting-edge functionality.

The Geely-owned electric car maker's journey toward SDVs started with the Polestar 2, which Stiegler said has been getting over-the-air software updates for more than three years.

"We can actually update a brake control as we update a HMI (human-machine interface) feature," he said during an interview near  Madrid, Spain, on May 28. "We have also changed a lot of things in the propulsion of the car to make it more efficient. That worked because we can really go down into every single component in the car."

This trend will continue with the its newest models, the Polestar 3 large and Polestar 4 midsize crossover.

"We also have the chance really to bring new apps, new functions and new stuff. So, from that perspective, I would say content-wise, we are software defined, but it depends on how you use this term," Stiegler said.

However, to the German-born the engineer, who joined Polestar from sister brand Volvo last year, software-defined vehicle is a "fashion term."

"It's not only software. A car is so much more than a cellphone with wheels," he said. "It's so much more difficult to make it refined and make it suitable for every single customer because there are so many different expectations about how a car should behave."

Bosch's Hartung added that while software will be a "game changer" in the coming years, "each SDV needs hardware. ... you still need brakes, drivetrains and more."