The Annual Traverse City Management Briefing Seminar quietly concluded this week without shedding any newsworthy light on the future of alternative powertrains, the realistic prospects for autonomous vehicles or the ongoing impact of China on vehicle design and production.  Also missing was a presentation explaining how the auto industry was going to overcome the worst year on record for vehicle recalls.  And no one mentioned the ongoing carnage on U.S. highways – nearly 100 daily fatalities.

If it weren’t for a stirring, from the heart and straight from the shoulder, speech from Fiat’s Sergio Marchione (who was coincidentally briefing financial analysts away from the event), I am sure the attendees will have spent much of their time sleeping off their cocktails or working on their golf strokes.

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I got to thinking about Traverse City because I am preparing to moderate a panel at an overseas event and the sponsor and operator of the event wants to put its customers on the panel I am moderating.  My thought was that it will be more interesting to put the customers’ customers on the panel – they are more likely to speak freely.

Free speech was in short supply at Traverse City, at least until Marchione stepped to the lectern.  Marchione spoke freely about wanting to claw back the profits his suppliers are bragging about every quarter in their financial reports.  This perspective was in conflict with the more palliative comments of those same suppliers, many of whom spoke at the event of a new age in the automotive industry when auto makers will no longer hammer their suppliers chipping away at those profit margins.

These auto industry suppliers – nVidia and Delphi notably among them - were surfacing an issue which has crept to the forefront of the automotive industry and which the industry itself is still struggling to manage.  The average car now has more than 100M lines of code on board. The software content is gradually coming to eclipse the hardware content in the car. 

Sourcing software is a far more complex exercise than sourcing hardware.  What are you buying as a car maker?  Bits and bytes?  Software code? Do you own that code or do you rent it?  Does your supplier own that code or is it open source?  How do you maintain and/or replace that code? And where does liability reside?

For years the automotive industry has been pursuing a strategy of segregating hardware from software, while suppliers have been fighting to keep hardware and software firmly stitched together in competitive bids. 

By selling hardware and software as a package, Tier 1 suppliers may feel they have more pricing flexibility.  Now, even Harman has acknowledged the ascendance of software.  Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal recently told Bloomberg in an interview that his intention is to reduce the companies hardware manufacturing activities and shift its focus to software, which already represents 75% of Harman's revenue. ttp://tinyurl.com/oa5hbv8 - Harman Stakes Future in Software as Autos Become Smarter)

Unfortunately, car makers are increasingly determined to segregate these two pieces.  The net result is that contract manufacturers have emerged to compete with and sometimes partner with Tier 1s while software only integrators have proliferated.  Tier 1s that might have played fast and loose in their bids – offering “integration” for “free” may have painted themselves into a corner. 

All suppliers are putting a price tag on integration these days.  In fact, integration has become a “thing.”

Tier 1 suppliers from Bosch and Continental to Delphi, Magna and Denso are caught up in this battle to either preserve their hardware/software packages or create separate software teams to pursue RFQs with segregated hardware and software requirements.  But it is more complex than that, as auto makers have sought to take ownership of the software code and related intellectual property.

Missing from the Traverse City event was a voice from the software side of the industry.  Stuffy old Traverse City

(50 years running) missed the email once again – nary a word was heard of open source software, Google/Android or Linux.  The most likely source of such a perspective was John Ellis of Ford, who participated on the “Designing for Technology and the Customer” panel.

John is a truth talker, but I’m not sure the Traverse City crowd was ready for two double shots of espresso in one week.  Marchione surely left a few headaches and upset stomachs in his wake.

Just as Google was not represented at the Traverse City event there was also no speaker from a wireless carrier, a Chinese car maker, Tesla Motors, a leading dealer organization (with the possible exception of Joe Carlier, senior vice president of Penske Logistics) or a single car owner – or even a victim of a car crash resulting from a vehicle defect.

The rising influence of software is transforming the automotive industry.  To preserve its relevance, the Traverse City Management Briefing Seminars needs to integrate a powerful voice for the role of software in vehicle design and operation.  How about a panel on the role of GenIVI, AUTOSAR and model-based software?  How about a panel on the challenge in finding enough programmers to fulfill the industry's requirements.  Even powertrains come with engine controls, after all.

It would also be helpful to include a voice from the wireless industry – since vehicle connectivity and software updates are rapidly becoming de rigueur.  Tesla anyone?

We’ll see if the Center for Automotive Research can reverse this Traverse City travesty.  If it continues on its current trajectory, your time on the Upper Peninsula, if you go next year, will be better spent on the golf course.