Can we future-proof cars with software? | with Chip Goetzinger of AutoMobility Advisors

Recorded live at Auto Tech 2026, this episode features AutoMobility Advisors' Chip Goetzinger discussing the rise of software-defined vehicles, embedded connectivity, and changing OEM-supplier relationships. He also explores emerging automotive trends like vehicle commerce and digital identity, along with insights from his background as an amateur race car driver.

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.

What is The Garage by Sonatus?

The Garage Podcast from Sonatus brings you conversations with thought leaders from around the vehicle technology space discussing far-reaching topics about software innovation in vehicles.

These episodes will include industry experts, whether from Sonatus, or from our amazing partners across the industry, all of whom will share their Ideas and their outlook for the most important topics in vehicle technology. Episodes span from more technical topics, to business evolution, and market trends. Join us and learn about the future of vehicle in The Garage.

Today in The Garage,

we're recording live at Auto
Tech 2026 in Novi, Michigan.

One of the themes you see
consistently around the show

and conversations in the
exhibits and in the awards

is technology and bringing
technology into vehicles.

And obviously every different
company is looking to bring in

new innovations and new
capabilities into vehicles.

You're also seeing a wide range
of different philosophies and

approaches for how that
technology is being brought in.

There are trade offs that come
from companies that are more

consumer electronics background
or companies that are more

traditional automakers that
are looking to bring technology

into their portfolios
more fundamentally.

There's no single answer.

There's no single clear
approach to how this technology

will be brought in.

And we're seeing a lot
of experimentation.

And to explore this topic,

we thought it was great to
bring on an expert who talks to

automakers all day long and
hears their ideas and hears

some of the trade
offs they're making.

And my guest today
is Chip Goetzinger.

Chip is Solutions Director
for Automobility Advisors,

which is a consultancy that
helps give analysis and

strategic advice to OEMs and
suppliers in the automotive space.

We talk a lot about how OEMs
can bring technology into

their vehicles successfully and
cover a range of interesting topics.

I think you'll really
enjoy today's conversation.

Let's go.

I'm John Heinlein,
Chief Marketing Officer.

Today in The Garage,

we're recording live at
Auto Tech Detroit 2026,

and I'm so pleased to
welcome Chip to the podcast.

Chip, welcome to The Garage.

Thanks very much, John.
I'm happy to be here.

Always like to start by
getting to know our guests.

Tell us about you
and your background.

Well, I came out of technology
and then into automotive and I'm

now consulting and helping
companies that are trying to

find their way in the ecosystem
of providers that bring

connected services to
vehicles and other mobility.

And what was your background?
What did you do before this?

Before this in Silicon
Valley, started with Oracle.

I started to run my own
company for a while.

And then when I shifted
into automotive,

I found that marriage between
automotive and technology,

which has been a really
great place to be.

And as a tradition
on The Garage,

we always like to ask a
fun fact about our guests.

So tell us a fun fact about you.

Oh, fun fact about me is that I
really am into cars and I'm an

amateur automobile racer.

So I compete with NASA,

which is the National
Autosports Association in the

Mid South region.

I'm an instructor there and
I do time trials in my 2004

Corvette.

2004 Corvette? Yes.
That's a cool vehicle.

And we were just chatting
about this before the show.

You don't have roll
bars in the car.

No, because I'm
doing time trials,

it's not wheel to wheel,

it's not first to
the checkered line,

it is best lap time of the day.

So we tend to try to be pretty
respectful about passing and

car positioning, reduce that chance
of car to car impact.

Well, have never
done car racing,

although it's
terribly interesting.

I feel like I wanna go
out on the track sometime.

I've done a lot
of bicycle racing,

although I'm not very good, but
I can't touch your car racing.

So good for you.

I'm happy to give you a ride when
you come out of the track someday.

And where are you based out of?

Nashville, Tennessee, but I
race all over the Southeast.

You know, Nashville
is an amazing city.

Everybody tells me how amazing
it is. I haven't made it there.

So that will have to be a
reason to come visit you in

Nashville.

That's a fantastic place.

I've been there almost
twenty years and it's barely

recognizable from
twenty years ago.

That's what I'm told.

So tell us about your company
and the firm you're with

AutoMobility Advisors.

George Ayres was a guest on the
podcast a couple of years ago.

George is a good friend.

So tell us about there and
your role at that firm.

Yeah, I've known George
a very long time.

I started working with AMA
three and a half years ago.

I'm the solutions director
there and I help companies

figure out where they belong
in the ecosystem and what their

product portfolio should look
like, what their strategy is,

how to provide value and
to capture that value,

which is challenging for technology
companies learning automotive.

Kind of consultants
and strategic advisors.

Yes, absolutely. That's great.

We're excited to talk with you
and I think there's so many

interesting trends that
you can speak to very well.

One is the evolving
supply chain.

We talked here at the show,

you see tier ones, you see OEMs,

but what you're seeing is I
think a relationship between

OEMs and tier ones is changing
where tier ones used to

deliver a whole subsystem,

whether it's an instrument
panel or something,

but in a connected car world,

think the supply chain
engagement's different.

What are you seeing
and how is it evolving?

Yeah, that tier one model has
been traditional for decades in

automotive as you know and
there have been some companies

that have tried but there isn't
really that tier one model in

the same way in connectivity as it
is in physical parts in the car.

And what you're seeing instead
is sort of a best-of-breed

strategy where you're bringing
together a full ecosystem,

the right partners for the
right service delivery and the

right components,

which is challenging sometimes
for the automakers to try to

assemble that group of
partners, but when done well,

it can provide a lot of value.

In connected car, a lot of the focus
in connected car is user experience.

And some of the things that I
think many automakers feel are

both loyalty creating
to the driver and also

very driver facing.

So I think automakers
generally feel or have shown a

willingness to want
to control that more.

And yet the evolution of make
versus buy is certainly evolving.

Where do you feel like we are
in that spectrum these days?

Yeah, that make-versus-buy process
has been very cyclic in this space.

So initially you had OnStar
starting in the mid nineties

and they were doing
everything themselves.

But when other
automakers came on,

they're looking for partners to bring
in and help them with the technology.

And then as you got
into the mid teens,

a lot of automakers were
bringing things in house.

We can do all of this.

We're going to be
technology companies.

And I think we're swinging
the pendulum back now when they're

realizing this isn't
a core competence,

it's very difficult, it
requires a lot of people,

a lot of expertise and we're
back into the bringing lots of

partners in to help deliver the
services that their customers need.

It's exciting and one of the
important things that comes out of

the connected car
space is data service.

Data service to vehicles has been
something that I think has changed a lot.

It used to be for many years
charging for data service.

Many automakers would
have charged that,

were there an annual
fee or something?

And that seemed like a good
idea at the time but as

connected car
capabilities are evolving,

it seems like that
model's changing a little.

Yeah, it was a little bit of a
penny wise pound foolish early

decision where there was this
concept of charging off for

subscriptions for the in
vehicle services but people

have gotten accustomed to the
consumer electronics model

where you're paying for the
phone but all of the apps,

of the capabilities kind
of come along with that.

And there's so much value that
can be generated through having

that connectivity for
the automaker in terms of

management of
their own vehicles,

over the air software updates,

warranty cost reduction as
well as leveraging the data

generated that it makes more
sense to ensure that the

vehicle stay connected and
not try to charge the customer

subscription fee for that
base level of connectivity.

Rather generate value in other
ways to not only cover the cost

but to generate revenue and
other streams for the automakers.

You mentioned a number of
important services that OEMs

are providing and we're talking
about a number of those as well.

For example, our AI Technician
product is using data to

diagnose vehicles and help
improve service costs and

improve the service and
warranty experience.

What are some of the services
you're seeing OEMs use data for

that are helpful and let's
say loyalty creating?

Yeah, so one area is just what
you talk about is improving the

sort of traditional
vehicle services.

How can we use data to improve our
quality management of vehicles?

You know, identify
issues earlier,

diagnose and address
those before they get

into customer hands to improve
the service experience and

process at dealerships to be
able to diagnose the vehicles,

get the right parts,

get it repaired the first
time and even to be able to do

over-the-air software updates that won't
even require a visit to a dealership.

So that's an area that's
really a good internal value

generation capability
for the OEM.

In addition to that you've got
a lot of integration between

OEM data and other ecosystems that
can improve the in vehicle experience.

One area that's been getting
some discussion that's kind of

popular to dig into right now
is we call V-commerce, right?

So people are accustomed to using
their phones to make payments.

Well, for a vehicle, is it
sensible to make payments from

your vehicle for certain
kinds of services, Right.

You're not going to compete
directly with the phone that

people are carrying
with them all the time,

but there are certain scenarios in
which it makes sense for the

vehicle to be a
payment mechanism.

Well, there are
obvious examples,

parking and charging
are two examples.

We had Parkopedia on the
podcast a few years ago.

Exactly right.

I can't remember the last
time I've paid for charging because

my vehicle is connected to and
aware of the networks I use,

But some people do, you know,

have to kind of authenticate
with a credit card or

tap-to-pay kind of card.

And then parking
is another example.

Are there other examples
you think of as well?

Tolling's another one that's pretty
natural to do in the vehicle, right?

Folks are getting accustomed
to having something attached to

their windshield but there's no
reason you can't just have that

built into the vehicle as
you go through tolling.

There are some technologies and
services out there that do that Yeah,

are e-tolling companies that
have been here at the show the

last couple of years as well.

Yeah.

Now, if we pull back more
generally and we think about

SDV, the full promise of
SDV is the decoupling of

hardware and software.

I mean, that's, if
you think about,

if you really boil down an SDV,

it's that this hardware and
software are separates and one

set of hardware
does multiple jobs.

So as we think
about that change,

how are you seeing that evolve
the design process and how are

you seeing that evolve the thinking
about how to design vehicles?

Well, decoupling has been something
that the industry has been

working towards for fifteen,

twenty-plus years because the
challenge in technology in a

vehicle is the life cycle of
a vehicle is so much longer than

the phones and the other consumer
electronics that we're accustomed to.

If you don't have a way to decouple
the base hardware from the services,

you get very out of date
very quickly and the vehicle

services are no
longer interesting.

So this is sort of the
culmination of years of effort

to pull those apart and to
be able to keep your vehicle

fresh, to be able
to keep it updated,

to be able to add services to
it after the point of purchase

is really a kind of a holy
grail in connected services to

ensure that your vehicle is
still interesting and valuable

to the customer
after you buy it.

We've talked about this topic
so many times from different

angles in the
podcast in the past.

And I think there's two interesting
angles I'd love to explore on that.

The first is

headroom.

One of the conversations that
you have is to be able to make

the vehicle fresh, because
think about your cell phones.

Generally you update
your cell phone every,

let's say one year, two years
ish for your leading edge

people, maybe some
people longer,

but the average person's obviously
two years is my understanding.

But vehicles tends to be longer.

Probably three
years, five years,

many people keep their
vehicles much, much longer.

So if you think about wanting
to keep the vehicle current

over that longer lifetime,

you need to have some headroom
built into the vehicle.

The challenge is, and I
had a guest from Ford,

retired from Ford,
a few years ago,

who was commenting that if you
put headroom in the vehicle,

that's extra cost.

The accounting
department says, Well,

how are you justifying
this extra cost?

And it's immediately red ink
on the balance sheets because it's

a loss day one, unless
they can be confident,

and that's the keyword,

confident that they
can sell downstream,

and then it's deferred revenue.

So it's different, right?

How are you seeing OEMs manage
that trade off of headroom?

And that really is a big
challenge because of course the

BOM cost of a vehicle coming
out the door is a huge area of

focus for profitability
of the company.

And you're exactly right.

When you're building an
additional hardware capability,

that's a cost that you can't
necessarily justify with

revenues today.

One of the ways to do that is
to build in the headroom in the

cloud as opposed to
in the vehicle, right?

So instead of building a lot
more physical capability into

the vehicle with hardware
technology that's going to be

dated in three to four years
and a vehicle has an active

life cycle of ten, twelve years.

Right. Well, after
resale of course, yeah.

Right.

So, yeah, we have to consider
the second owners, right?

So when you have services in the

cloud that can take advantage
of the in vehicle capabilities

that can extend that life cycle
without generating so much in

vehicle BOM costs that's really
challenging to build in from day one.

It's a really smart point.

It's a thing that Sonatus
cares a lot about.

We really focus on a balance
of what we do in the cloud and

what we do in the vehicle.

And we think there are some things
that should be in the vehicle,

whether they're latency-centric
or user experience-centric

and many other things
that don't need to be.

So it's a really
smart point you make.

Do you think about lifetime?

I've talked to a number
of people who feel that SDVs,

the promise of SDVs is to
potentially extend the lifetime

of vehicles because
of this upgradability,

because they don't
become as stale.

Do you believe that as well?

Well, I'll condition
that a little bit.

I'd say that the vehicle
life cycles are increasing

regardless, right?

Because the vehicle itself has
a very long useful lifetime.

And what has happened in
the past is that it's the

technology in the vehicle that
gets dated and stops being used

and people are just sticking
their phones to their windshields.

Right?

The goal of the OEM is to
ensure that the technology

systems can last as long as
the rest of the vehicle and be

useful at that point.

And that is what
SDV is working for.

That's great.

So if we look longer term,
let's think out to 2030.

You talk to lots of people
and as an analyst and advisor,

you see a lot of
interesting new ideas.

What are some things
that you think in,

let's say two thousand thirty
would be standard fare that

perhaps are not being
talked about today?

I think it has something
to do with the,

we talk about an ecosystem of
partners providing all these

different kinds of services.

One of the challenges there
is the multiple different

identities that you have across
all of these services and the

multiple different personas.

How are you identifying the
customer and how does your

identity from the OEM match up
with your identity with your

streaming audio service?

So federation of identity
through identification through

your phone or mobile device,

creating a singular seamless
customer experience is

something that people
are talking about,

but it's still evolving today and
it's not where it needs to be yet.

I think by 2030, there's going
to be that expectation of

a singular experience that follows
me around in and out of my vehicle.

We're not there yet,
but once we get there,

we're gonna wonder how in the world
did we live before that happened?

It's so interesting,

you're the first guest to talk
about that because when you

look at websites
or other things,

there's more and more
proliferation of things,

you know, sign in with
Apple, sign in with Google,

sign in with email
and so on like that.

And I think that there's
no single answer.

I mean, people are Google people
or Apple people or a combination.

Oftentimes you have combination and
clearly Google has a strong

Google and Apple both have
strong plays in the vehicle.

But there's no single answer in
any of those to what you just said.

Well, but once you get into
a device ecosystem, right?

There's Apple people and
there's Google people. Right.

But within your Google world
or within your Apple world,

you have a pretty seamless
experience and identity through

all your different apps,

through all your
different identifications.

And I think vehicles need to join the
internet of things in the same way.

I don't need to have a car
persona that's different than

my in home persona, that's
different than my on device persona.

I am who I am, I have
the same interests,

I have the same musical tastes
and having that carry with me

through all of my
different environments is

something that the automakers
are working to support so that

the customers have a
seamless experience.

We were just visiting last
night at the Auto Awards.

I gave away the OEM of
the Year Award to Hyundai.

We're excited to be
able to celebrate them.

What are some of the
technologies you saw at the

Auto Tech Awards last night
that were interesting?

Oh, there was some
really good stuff.

I was actually a judge for a
few of the awards and got to

see a number of the
technologies come through ahead

of the show, which
was fascinating.

And it's interesting
to see the application.

Of course there's all the
consumer facing technology that

everybody's familiar with,

always advances in AI and voice
control and all of these sorts

of things but it's really great
also to see technology applied

to internal processes into other
experience affecting things.

So we talked about service,

but test and validation as these
ecosystems get more and more complex,

ensuring that they work well is
really quite difficult, right?

So early on in technology
adoption in vehicles,

a lot of the challenges
in sort of J.D.

Power's reports and the like,

the declining quality
perception of the higher tech

vehicles and applying
technology to ensure that

everything works well,

maybe isn't the sexiest thing
to think about in terms of new

features, new customer
experiences, but just having it

work is sort of a baseline that
needs to be there for all the

rest of the services to mean
anything and seeing technology

applied there, I think
is really interesting.

It's very close to our heart.

We're doing a lot of work
on exactly those areas.

We didn't rehearse that answer.
Thank you for that answer.

But that's very close to our
heart. Thank for saying that.

Chip, great to visit with you.

Thanks for spending time
with us here at Auto Tech.

Great. Thanks for having me on.

Had a great time.

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