How can software benefit chassis innovation? | with Ramiro Gutierrez of ZF

Recorded live at Auto Tech 2026, this episode of The Garage features ZF North America President Ramiro Gutierrez explaining how software is transforming traditional chassis hardware like steering and suspension into dynamic, customizable driving experiences. He highlights how software-defined vehicles enable hardware reuse, over-the-air performance updates, and major innovations like steer-by-wire technology.

Creators and Guests

Host

John Heinlein, Ph.D.

An experienced technology and marketing leader, John brings his background from startups and established companies to Sonatus. He worked for 14 years at Arm, most recently leading Automotive Partnerships for North America where he engaged OEMs, Tier-1s, and others to deploy Arm-based solutions into automotive applications, including autonomous vehicles. His team was integral to launching the SOAFEE industry initiative for software-defined vehicles of which Sonatus is a member. Earlier he served as VP and Chief of Staff to the CEO and led a group responsible for competitive strategy. For three years, he was VP of Corporate Marketing where he led centralized outbound marketing, spanning marketing campaigns, press, events, web, digital marketing, ecosystem programs, and working closely with investor relations. Prior to Arm, John had an 11-year tenure at microprocessor startup Transmeta where he held several senior roles spanning business development, marketing, and customer success, among others. John earned his B.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and an M.S. and Ph.D., both in Electrical Engineering, from Stanford University.

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Today in The Garage and an
episode recorded live at Auto

Tech 2026 in Novi, Michigan,

we're talking about
something very different.

So often when we think about
innovation in vehicles,

it's easy to think about
autonomous driving,

or it's common to think
about the infotainment system

or an app store or
the latest streaming

services or voice
capabilities or so on.

But so often, it's easy
to forget about the actual

driving and how the
car actually feels.

And so much of that is done
by the chassis subsystem.

And that includes the tires, the
braking, the steering, the suspension,

all of those things which are
so important to the driving

experience but often are
not thought about by maybe

the average person.

But in fact, there's incredible
innovation in chassis and in fact,

as we go to software defined
vehicles where software brings

innovation and enhanced
capabilities over time,

innovation in chassis is
a super exciting area.

And who better to talk about
that than the president of

either "Zed-F" or ZF,
depending on your perspective,

which is a major tier one
supplier that drives a lot of

these subsystems.

Ramiro Gutierrez, who
is president of ZF North

America.

He joined us and we talked
about so many different

exciting ideas about how
chassis innovation can

both drive a better
experience for the driver,

but also improve cost
and reuse and bring those

capabilities to a wider
range of price points.

It was a fun conversation
and I really hope you enjoy.

Let's go!

Welcome to The Garage.

I'm John Heinlein, Chief
Marketing Officer with Sonatus.

We're here at Auto
Tech 2026 in Novi,

Michigan and we're so pleased
to be joined by Ramiro today.

Ramiro, welcome to The Garage.

Thank you very much, John.
Very happy to be here.

You want to start by telling
us a little about you and your

background personally?

Yeah.

I am originally from Spain as
you can tell by my accent and I

came to the US fourteen years
ago moving with my family to

here to Detroit working
at the time for TRW.

As you probably know, TRW
was bought by ZF in 2015

and since then we
we've been here.

I mean, the only fun factor there
is that every Christmas we go to

Africa.

We have some family there from
Spain that move into Africa and

we normally spend
Christmas in Africa.

It's a good break from the
winter here in Detroit.

It's quite different
than Detroit.

So you went right to your
fun fact, that's excellent.

I had the opportunity a few
years back to visit Malawi in

Africa. We had a collaboration
at Arm with UNICEF.

I was actually one of the champions
of our collaboration with UNICEF.

So I got to spend an incredible
week looking at the great work

they're doing Okay.

And visiting this incredible
part of the world and and

trying to do some
trying to do some good.

So it's exciting exciting
adventure for you.

Interesting enough.

I mean, is where you're probably
familiar with the Kalahari test.

Kalahari is that in the
south part of Africa,

which is where I go.

So normally I see plenty of
test cars going around even if

I go there for vacation.

Very good.

For the ZF is a hugely
successful company,

but for those of our listeners
who may not know about it,

can you tell us about your company
and then also about your role?

Yeah.

So ZF is as you said, a
big supplier out there.

We cover multiple areas of
the business and we have a

passenger car division that
basically covers transmissions

and chassis products.

And within chassis,
we cover braking,

we cover steering,
we cover suspension.

Right?

So on top of that,

have an industrial division
and on top of that,

we have a commercial vehicle
division that basically covers

similar kind of product
portfolio elements.

So my role at ZF,

I am the president of North
America and on top of that

role, I am the head of our
steering business globally.

Steering globally, okay.

Correct.

So I basically manage our
steering business across

all the customers and all the
plans that we have on engineering.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, let's
jump right into it.

Historically, I think people would
have thought of chassis and steering

and all these things you're talking
about is very hardware centric thing.

In a world where now we're
bringing software into more and

more subsystems, how is
software making its way into

the subsystems in chassis?

I think this is actually
a pretty good question.

I mean, in the old times, I
remember somebody told me,

you know, braking was used
to be a very boring thing.

It was just about calipers.

And then somebody came
with this idea of ABS and

then as a sudden, you know,

the the thing of a caliper
was moving into something more

technology driven
and then after that,

came up with the idea of
stability control and then

suddenly braking was
something even bigger.

And so this is what is happening
right now with software.

We have now the ability
through software to manage

very traditional mechanical
equipment that is sitting in

the car in different ways that
traditionally has happened.

Not only that, we
can actually make the

braking, the steering, the
suspension to work together

through software in a way
that creates value for the end

customer that has
never happened before.

You mentioned so many
different aspects of that.

I mean, I think ABS isn't kind
of an easy one that people think

about in terms of
like an obvious,

but the idea of stability
control and steering and

braking working, that's a very
interesting way to look at it.

Yeah.

I mean, can put the
same analogy for

braking into a steering.

Mean, steering probably I am
old enough to drive cars without

power steering, right?

Probably you drove
some of those too.

I mean, there, we went
into hydraulic steering,

from hydraulic steering we
went into electro hydraulic,

from there we went into
electric steering and now we're

going into a steer by wire.

So is a constant evolution
in the chassis components.

It may not be as
sexy as infotainment,

but certainly chassis has been
going a long way from what it

was a pure mechanical
element into

high technology or top
technology part of the equation.

You talked about not not sexy,

I think the reality is that
brands care a lot about

the feel of their cars.

Certainly a number
of brands, you know,

pride themselves on
having a specific feel.

Mercedes, BMW,

they all have a kind of a brand feel
I think that they want to deliver.

How are you able to use these

capabilities to allow OEMs to
deliver brand specific kind of

a IP in a way,
driving IP, right?

And that has been, you know,

a question or a topic for
many of our customers, right?

We have customers
that by nature,

they are global players.

And in some cases, their
customers in Europe have a like

or a dislike for a particular
element of the driving and

they struggle to have a global
car that would satisfy their

customers in Asia,

their customers in Europe and their
customer in the US, let's say.

Now, software is bringing
the ability to them to get

the same hardware behaving
in a complete different way

depending on how
you want to tune it.

So our ability
here is to give our

customers, let's say, a
middleware where they can build

upon their DNA to get that

particular element, let's
call it the steering,

behaving in a completely
different way as per the

customer like or customer taste.

This very morning
I was driving a car

from one of our customers
and they gave us a car,

a US only vehicle, right?

And they say, our team
thinks that we can get some

European like steering
into this vehicle.

Would you guys be able
to do something for it?

So we retrofitted the steering
system of the vehicle into an

steer-by-wire system.

And then as a sudden,

I am driving a muscle
car US based for

US centric customers and
the steering feels like a

911.

So the beauty of it is that
as soon as you are now on the

highway, you touch a button
and then it goes back to a very

comfortable cruising
steering kind of feeling.

So that is the beauty of this
software defined vehicle.

That is the beauty of all these
by-wire technology into these

traditional chassis components,
steering being one of them.

I was really excited to to
speak with you this week and I think

you're bringing such
a unique perspective.

We we had conversations in the
past with different subsystem

made or for example, or thing,

where one of the other reasons
you might want to have things

that are portable is because
of regulatory reasons.

Lighting, there's all kinds
of regulations and stuff.

But you're bringing a completely
different perspective.

It's it's feel and
personal preference and also whether

it's a sportier feel.

And thing you just said
blows my mind about how dynamically

during the drive you can
say, I'm on the highway.

Maybe I could do a comfort
feeling now cause I don't need

it to feel stiff and and tiring.

But then I get back on the road
now and I get my sports car

back and they press the
button and it comes back.

I love that.

And then as a sudden,

you have a car that
behaves completely different in one

scenario or the other.

You don't need any sports
car and a cruising car.

And you can have the both worlds
with just through software.

That's great.

So it's not driving
any engineering spend,

not driving any hardware cost,

it's just pure software.

I think I mentioned to
you the other day, I mean,

through our customers, in AP
because they are kind of more

dynamic thinking to understand
that the traditional customers.

We are creating things like now
that you have an steer-by-wire

and a brake-by-wire
system in the car,

you transform your car into
a racing simulator or a

video game kind of
functionality where you may

be charging your battery
for twenty minutes.

You're sitting in your car, I
don't know, listening to music,

but now you can do it
like a PlayStation mode.

And then can you get a better
driving simulator than an actual car?

I mean, the decoupling of
the steering wheel from the

steering column or the wheels,

decoupling or your pedals from
the hydraulic system that is

not there anymore is giving you
the ability of getting all the

fillings together with this
panoramic IP that will give you

a perfect driving
simulator at home.

It's such a great story,

and I know that anytime I'm

charging my EV,

I'm immediately ejected
from the driver's seat by my

daughter who wants to do the driving
simulator while we're charging.

There you go.

But you made me think of
something kind of silly or

maybe it's maybe
it's really funny,

but when you know when we
dream, when we're sleeping,

the body disconnects your
brain from your muscles.

So you can imagine
you're running,

your brain believes
that you're running,

but of course you're
not actually running.

It's sort of the
same idea. Kind of.

You get the feeling of driving,

you get the feeling of the
steering feel and and the and

perhaps braking feel
and things like that,

but the car doesn't go anywhere.

That is absolutely correct.

And so you have all
this expensive hardware,

why not make it the
best video game ever?

I just love that.

The beauty of this is that that
hardware is there for a primary reason.

Course.

But now that you
have the software,

you have the ability to use
that hardware for more things.

I truly believe we are only
scratching the surface of

value creation through software
defined vehicles when it comes

to reuse the hardware for
multiple different purposes,

Right.

I mean, is multiple examples
of that where you use probably

your ADAS cameras in the
car to do surveillance

or security cameras to use
like use them like security

cameras in your house, right?

In your driveway.

So there are multiple
examples of these and I think

there is this discussion
about affordability.

And I think actually software
defined vehicles would

work in terms of getting
them more affordable.

But it's not more affordable
in terms of the pure content,

it's affordability that comes
from the capital that you have

spent in producing multiple
different part numbers.

Now you have one part number
and that one part number

becomes multiple
by the software.

So there is no hardware.

So your capital is reduced
during engineering.

You only validate that
mechanical component once.

Then through software
you can. It's true.

There's a lot of conversations
around software defined

vehicles being a premium thing
and when we think about things

like central compute or
higher things, people say, oh,

it's lots of
expensive computers.

And the reality is you can
have different trim levels,

you can have different
performance levels of the

processor, perhaps different
headroom as you need.

But your point about
validating the subsystems,

the subsystem could be common.

Software programmable, yes,

but the compute requirements
there are modest because

they're localized.

And then the central
computer or the, you know,

the the controller of the car
then brings higher premium

features or mid-tier features
or lower features while reusing

the platform that's
been validated.

That's a very clever approach.

That is absolutely correct.

And one of the difficulties
that we have sits more into,

let's say the established
thinking in some customers

where it's actually
very difficult to have a

conversation about how to put
together the braking and the

steering or the suspension
to work creating a

particular functionality that
is new because some of our

customers, they
still work in silos.

So you cannot get the braking
guy to have a conversation with

the steering guy or
the steering guy have a

conversation with
the suspension guy.

And this is one of the things why
this is now moving even faster.

It's incredible.

Look at CES, I know
just a few months ago,

ZF announced a number of new
exciting innovations where

you're bringing software to enhance
capabilities as a separate thing.

Things like road noise reduction
and steering feel and stuff.

Do you want to talk about
some of those new innovations you I

think those are actually
very good examples.

The noise reduction solution
that we announced at

CES, for example, basically
sits into two elements that are

already part of the vehicle.

One is the high leveling sensor
that normally you use for your

lights and the other one has
to do with the suspension,

the shock absorbers.

So what we have been able to
develop is a system through

software that basically
actuate the valves on the

shock absorbers, breathing
the frequency that the high

level sensor, an accelerometer in
the high level sensor is providing.

And with that create a
counter frequency that kills

the tire noise.

So, and we get an
incredible result with that,

reducing the noise
level for customer,

for the driver in
about three decibels,

which sounds like a small number
but in reality it's a big number.

And again, the beauty of this is that
we're doing that through software.

We are not doing it
through hardware.

The hardware already sits
in there for the primary

functionality and we
actually extracting,

creating value for the end
customer out of that hardware

that is already
sitting in there.

It's very interesting
because I think, you know,

the frequency when going
over different road surfaces,

different speeds,
perhaps different tires,

different wear
levels of your tires,

all of those things will affect the
noise and how the tire vibrates.

And you're sort of just
creating, if you will,

anti-vibration to counteract it. Yeah.

I mean, you have
cases, for example,

where you have vehicles that
have these off road package.

That looks nicer,
more attractive.

Not necessarily that you're
going to do a lot of off road,

but you like the look.

And but those tires, they
have a higher profile, right?

And that higher profile
creates some road noise.

Here you go, you can
kill that road noise

through this system where
you're generating this counter

frequency that eliminates the
tire cavity noise that is being

produced out there.

It's wonderful and I

actually didn't choose the
off-road package for that

reason because I was
worried about road noise.

I didn't have your technology. Would
have been able to do it.

But it is important to see that
you you don't necessarily have

to trade off safety or let's
say if you need traction,

Detroit, there's tons
of snow here, right?

If you need those
kind of capabilities,

there's ways to
counteract it in software.

Another thing that comes to
mind is by decoupling hardware

and software, which is sort of
the promise of SDV in a way,

it allows you to
learn over time.

Because these algorithms
you're describing,

these these the analytics and
the signal processing and so

on, It's not a
single done answer.

You're going to learn and
improve and you can bring those

updates to the vehicles later.

That's correct.

I mean, by definition,

the software-defined vehicle is
going to have an OTA capability,

over-the-air capability and
that is going to allow you to,

again, get a new experience
with a new update of the

software into your
vehicle, develop more functionality.

As I said before, I think
developers, engineers,

even non-automotive engineers
will help us develop

functionality out of hardware
that is sitting in there for a

different reason that we
don't even know today.

If you buy a car today
and that functionality is

being developed,

in a year from now you
will have the ability to have an

over the air update into your
car and then you're going to

experience the
new functionality.

So it's absolutely fantastic.

It's true that we're just
at the very beginning of how

software-defined vehicles can enable
innovation from third parties.

I know today that's
relatively new area,

but clearly that's a direction of
travel that people will be doing.

Just like open source has
sort of democratized a lot of

different innovation from
many places, in a similar way,

think there's going
to be a lot of smart,

thoughtful innovators that
can say, well, you know,

you have all this
hardware that can do X,

why aren't you doing X?

And you're like, "I never
thought of that!" Exactly.

And I like to say that we
almost need to design systems

for applications that we can't
even visualize yet because

smart ideas will come and the
hardware plus software tightly

coupled of the past, which
perhaps served us well in the

past, won't give us
that flexibility.

I agree and as I said before,

there are so many
examples of these.

Quite recently I discovered
another attribute of steer-by-wire.

I said,

one of my engineers
told me, Well,

you remember we have
this ability now to turn

the steering farther because
through software we know what

is the diameter of the
wheel, the rim diameter.

A lot of people doesn't know
that when you produce a car,

if the car has an option that
will have twenty two inches

wheel, even if the
mainstream is twenty inches,

the guy that buys the
twenty inches car will have

a smaller turning radius that
actually the hardware would

allow him to have because it
has to be protected for the

twenty-two inches option.

So the twenty-two inches option,

fine is going to be there,

but the customer having the
twenty inches cannot take full

advantage of the hardware
sitting in there.

Now with the steer-by-wire is
gonna push a bottom into the

dashboard saying,

have twenty inches and
automatically it's going to

gain a smaller turning radius.

That's incredible.
What unique story.

I'm going to quote you on that
because so often people don't

think about something
so simple as that.

That in turning radius, I
mean, who doesn't want --

in California, we make
U-turns like constantly.

So there there are some places
you you if you can't make it if

you don't make a U-turn, you
will not be able to get there.

So turning radius is premium.

But if if you haven't chosen
these gigantic wheels,

why not get a better
turning radius?

Alright. I love that.

And and again, I I want you to stay
with this thinking about affordability.

Affordability these days is
on the media all the time.

Software

is a key element to keep
creating value at an

extremely low marginal cost.

That is very important
that people understand.

There is a thinking about
affordability that means, oh,

let's de-content the vehicle.

Let's de-content the vehicle.

Automatically, you may reduce
the cost of the vehicle,

you may reduce the price of the
vehicle but customers may not

find that vehicle
attractive anymore.

Here we have a tool,
software that can create,

can keep creating value,

attracting those
customers to your brand,

to your car at an extremely
low marginal cost.

And that is the
thinking in here.

Well, a perfect topic to then
pivot from is to consider

the decoupling of hardware
and software where

suppliers like you would have
historically years ago provided

hardware and software
in a box sealed up,

never to be looked at again.

But as what we're talking about
now is this decoupling of IP

and intellectual property
around software and hardware.

And in some cases,

what I hear you saying is you
might sell those separately.

Customer might have a subsystem
hardware that they like

already, but that you could sell
them some software separately.

That's correct.

I mean, we have all kinds of customers
from the customer that wants a

turnkey solution.

So they want the full
functionality developed to a

customer that wants a very
specific part of their solution.

So what we're doing is
opening our software tool to

customers where they can build
upon, as I said before, middleware,

their functionality so that
their DNA is still going to be

there but we provide that
middleware that does most of

the functionality and then they can
tune it in a direction or another.

And that doesn't necessarily
require our hardware

to sit on the vehicle as well.

It's so interesting.

I'm so pleased that we were
able to have this conversation

because it's an area
we've not covered

before and my eyes have
been open to new ideas and

I think all day long
about these topics,

but my eyes have been open to
new sectors and new parts of

the vehicle that I
didn't think about.

So I'm so glad you shared this
with me and with our listeners.

Yeah. Absolutely.

And, you know, maybe
when you are around,

you can come to the office and
I can get you in one of those

cars so you experience
it by yourself.

Would love to to try that out and to
be able to experience it firsthand.

Ramiro, thank you
for joining us.

Thank you, John. Thank
you for having me.

If you like what
you're hearing today,

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We look forward to seeing
you in another episode of The

Garage very soon.