‘Vehicle architectures are getting simplified significantly’

California-based Nakul Duggal, SVP and GM, Automotive, Qualcomm Technologies, in a freewheeling interview with Mayank Dhingra, dwells on a host of issues relating to connectivity, EVs, the chip shortage and the company’s outlook towards India. Duggal was in India recently.

- Mayank Dhingra

What is your take on the massive transformation now underway in the automotive industry?

These are fascinating times for the transportation industry which is getting disrupted at various levels. There are multiple factors at play and one of the major ones is electrification, which nobody imagined would move at such an accelerated pace.

Electrification has brought an opportunity for automakers to reinvent themselves in terms of creating a new identity and how they associate with their customers. While it has also allowed newcomers to enter into the market, a lot of the existing car companies are even reinventing internally.

This reinvention is really about creating an experience with the consumer and also one with the car itself that now has to last much longer than what has traditionally been the case. Connectivity is the centre of it because if the car is not (connected) just like any other mobile device today, it really does not have any life once it’s driven off the showroom.

Moreover, as far as experiences go, we focus on so many different aspects of modernising the car and working with our customers to do that. It is the in-car experience, software ecosystem, and how the car is relevant for the use case it is designed for. So, a lot of catalysts have caused a massive amount of transformation in a very short period of time.

Why is connectivity the key driver right now and what role would 5G technology play?