Ultifi, General Motor’s new end-to-end software platform for vehicles has been unveiled, which aims at providing “frequent and seamless” delivery of software features, apps and, services to customers over the air.
The company claims that the new platform will offer the potential for faster software development, as well as offering more cloud-based services. GM believes that the new platform should improve customer loyalty.
Ultifi is based on GM’s existing Vehicle Intelligence Platform (VIP). But while VIP provides over-the-air updates, “plenty of bandwidth, robust cybersecurity, and lightning-fast processing power,” Ultifi should make everything faster and easier for customers and the company alike.
According to GM, their engineers centralized the “key software” of the vehicle system in a “powerful hub,” so the Ultifi platform will enable the accelerated development and deployment of software to “millions of customers.”
“Now with Ultifi, we will be able to improve our software continuously, and deliver new features and apps to customers in a fraction of the time,” says Mark Reuss, GM president.
GM reckons that drivers can expect regular updates and “will be able to choose from a suite of over-the-air upgrades, personalization options, and exciting new apps” – just like a smartphone. The company claims that the platform will let customers “reimagine the ownership experience”.
Ultifi also offers advantages in cloud-based connectivity, bringing better in-car facial recognition, route planning, or teen driver settings. It can “potentially” extend to vehicle-to-everything apps as well, through communication with other connected devices and infrastructure.
“Increased flexibility and faster software development are two major benefits of this new technology,” says Scott Miller, GM vice president Software-Defined Vehicle.
“Our in-house developers are designing Ultifi to maximize software reuse, which frees up more time to create value-adding features and services for our customers.” Based on the Linux operating system, GM is hoping that Ultifi will be a hit with third-party developers, as well.
GM is planning to enable Ultifi in its “next-generation products” starting in 2023, including internal combustion and electric vehicles.
Keyword: General Motors Releases Ultifi Software Platform Promising “Frequent and Seamless” Updates