Expanding into Adjacent Mobility Segments: Automotive Software
- Daniel Ezekiel
- Aug 17
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 1
Unlocking New Revenue Streams in Transportation: A Guide for Automotive Software Vendors
Introduction
To fine-tune strategy and unlock monetization, automotive software vendors and Tier 1s must expand their focus beyond traditional passenger cars into adjacent, high-growth transportation segments. By applying their proven expertise in ADAS, digital cockpit, and telematics, they can open new revenue streams and establish leadership in untapped mobility sectors.
Drawing on my earlier work at Intel, where I led the Marine Business Unit and contributed to the Smart Cities & Transportation division, I see a direct mapping of automotive software capabilities into adjacent domains such as ports, maritime logistics, and smart urban mobility. These adjacencies provide a natural segue for vendors seeking diversification and sustainable growth.
For a deeper exploration of this opportunity, I recommend Intel’s eBook: 🔗 NEX Ports and Maritime Cities: Critical Infrastructure eBook – Marine
Adjacent Segments of Relevance
The core automotive software solutions are highly transferable to other transportation domains, presenting low-hanging fruits. Here are some key segments to consider:
Marine Transportation
- Apply digital cockpit, telematics, and ADAS expertise to ships, port vehicles, and container handling equipment.
- Opportunity: Autonomous vessel navigation and berthing, port fleet management, predictive maintenance.
Commercial Fleets & Logistics
- Extend OTA, cybersecurity, and fleet-level telematics into trucking and logistics platforms.
- Opportunity: Fleet SDVs, subscription services, compliance solutions.
Smart Cities & Urban Mobility
- Integrate vehicle software stacks with smart infrastructure for EVs, last-mile transport, and mobility-as-a-service.
- Opportunity: Connected mobility platforms, infotainment, real-time safety and efficiency software.
Heavy-Duty & Industrial Machines
- The functional safety, perception, and control software developed for passenger cars can be a perfect fit for heavy-duty vehicles in controlled environments like mines, ports, and construction sites.
- Opportunity: Connected mobility platforms, real-time safety and efficiency software.
Unmanned Systems
- Solutions in the digital cockpit and ADAS are directly relevant to enabling remote operations for vehicles, which is a key requirement for modern AGVs and other industrial automation.
Leverage Core Competencies for New Markets
The next steps are to:
Adapt ADAS for Industrial Use: Modify perception and sensor fusion software to handle the unique environments of ports and mines, and operational constraints compared to public roads (Computer Vision and AI Re-Training/Fine-Training).
Build a Remote Operations Cockpit: Digital cockpits for human drivers can be used to create sophisticated remote operator stations. These stations, equipped with telematics and a seamless "cockpit to cloud" experience, can enable remote control of heavy machinery, improving safety and operational efficiency.
Focus on Cybersecurity and Functional Safety: Expertise in cybersecurity and functional safety, which are critical for passenger vehicles, is a major differentiator in these nascent markets. Ensure your solutions for adjacent segments meet the highest safety standards to build trust and credibility.
Edge AI and Private Networks: The private networks and edge solution topology, V2X that are used to enable some of the maritime, enterprise, and industrial segments can be reused.
Reuse Scope of Automotive Software in Other Mobility Segments
The core software components of a Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) are highly reusable across different mobility and industrial segments. The key is to adapt the software's algorithms and data models to fine-tune them with respect to the relevant operational environment. In some cases, such as autonomous navigation, different radar and camera capabilities are required, which might necessitate training on a different set of models.
Component | Reuse Factor | Examples of Segments |
Digital Cockpit | The HMI (Human-Machine Interface) and UX (User Experience) principles for safety-critical information and controls can be adapted for remote operator stations. Instead of a driver's seat, you have a centralized control room from which a single operator can manage multiple vehicles. | Heavy Machinery: Remote control of excavators, haul trucks, and cranes in mines or construction sites. Marine: Remote navigation and control consoles for unmanned surface vessels (USVs) or ships. |
ADAS | The perception, sensor fusion, and path planning algorithms are the most valuable and reusable parts. They must be re-trained on data from the new environment to recognize different obstacles (e.g., containers vs. pedestrians) and terrain (e.g., a mine pit vs. a highway). | AGVs & Industrial Robots: Obstacle avoidance and navigation in warehouses and factory floors. Mining & Agriculture:Autonomy for haul trucks, tractors, and combines to operate in repeatable, controlled environments Marine: Autonmous Navigation in vessels, and Autonomous Berthing on Ports are enhancements of the existing Autonomous Vehicles implementation. |
Telematics | The core telematics software stack for OTA updates, remote diagnostics, and fleet management is almost directly reusable. It allows for the collection of data on machine health, performance, and operational efficiency, all critical for asset management in industrial settings. | All Segments: Fleet management for long-haul trucks, remote diagnostics for industrial engines, and real-time tracking of cargo on a container ship. |
Monetization and Strategic Growth
Monetization in these new segments will follow a similar model to the SDV, but with a focus on specific enterprise needs.
SaaS for Fleet Management: Offer your telematics and remote operations software on a subscription basis to fleet owners and operators. This allows them to pay for a service rather than a large upfront software license.
Strategic Partnerships: Partner with industrial equipment manufacturers and port operators to co-develop and integrate your software. This will ensure your solutions are tailored to the specific needs of these segments.
Market Model
While the focus of this article is to provide high-level directional insight into additional revenue streams, a cursory overview of these segments indicates:
Market Size & Growth (CAGR)
These segments are seeing high growth as industries seek to improve safety, efficiency, and address labor shortages.
Autonomous Trucks: The global market for autonomous trucks is projected to grow significantly. Different reports show varying figures, but they consistently indicate a high growth trajectory, with some reports projecting a CAGR between 10% and 20% over the next decade.
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs): The AGV market is also experiencing a strong push. Market reports project a CAGR of around 9% to 14% from 2025 onwards, with the market size reaching several billion dollars in the next few years. The main drivers are logistics and warehousing.
Autonomous Mining: The autonomous mining equipment market is growing rapidly, with some estimates placing the CAGR at over 20%. This is driven by the need to increase safety by removing humans from hazardous environments and improving operational efficiency.
Autonomous Marine Operations: This is a globally growing segment with a CAGR of 20% over the next decade. The post-COVID situation and the advent of digitization in these traditional segments provide significant scope for SDVs.
Key Companies
The ecosystem of players is a mix of traditional industrial players, established automotive Tier 1s, and new tech entrants.
Trucking: Plus, Aurora Innovation, Waymo, Kodiak Robotics, and TuSimple are leaders in autonomous trucking. Traditional OEMs like Scania and Volvo are also heavily invested in developing autonomous transport solutions.
Mining & Construction: Komatsu, Caterpillar, and Volvo are major players with decades of experience and are now investing heavily in autonomous and remote-control technology.
AGVs & Industrial Robots: Companies like Dematic, Seegrid, Daifuku, and Locus Robotics are leading the way in warehouse automation.
Challenges and Scope of Reuse
Functional Safety: While ISO 26262 is the standard for automotive, other segments have their own safety standards. Software must be adapted and certified to meet the specific requirements of that industry.
Environmental & Operational Diversity: Unlike passenger cars that operate on roads, these machines operate in highly diverse and often extreme environments (e.g., dusty mines, rough construction sites, open seas). The software must be robust enough to handle these conditions, and sensors need to be highly resilient.
Software vs. Hardware Integration: The software for these vehicles must be designed to work with a wide variety of hardware from different vendors. This is often a more complex integration challenge than in passenger cars, where the hardware is relatively standardized.
Business Model: The business model for these segments is B2B, not B2C. Monetization will focus on services that improve operational efficiency, safety, and profitability for the fleet operator, rather than on personalizing the user experience for an individual driver.
Next Steps
There is tremendous scope for the reuse of automotive software solutions across multiple mobility and other segments. Many of these segments have started their digitization journey recently. They depend on SIs, ISVs, and OEMs to create the software solution stack. Automotive software companies and Tier 1s enable these solutions already at a higher level of requirements for safety, scalability, and niche partnerships. Extending these partnerships to these segments would be a low-hanging fruit and effort.
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