LGE gains mileage in smart automotive

Future vision

Offering an overview of the automotive offer, Valentin Janiaut, software solution task leader at LGE’s vehicle solutions company, reveals that the overarching strategy for the firm is to deliver “uncompromising” customer experience-driven products and service.

When Janiaut joined LGE in 2011, the automotive business was very new, employing around 250 people. This has grown to 5-6,000 people, with the division very much a big part of the LGE Electronics family, generating revenue of around $7.7bn, with essential work evolving from infotainment and navigation system projects to a current focus on software.

A main reason for the new vision is that the people are using their cars very differently from just a few years ago. While this has upsides, there’s also some challenges.

“Car passengers now want a car that can be used differently. They want to be able to jump onto a Teams or Zoom meeting, maybe taking a quick break to attend their work meeting and then driving back somewhere…We know they want these in their car, seamlessly shifting to different use cases,” Janiaut says.

“They also want to discover new experiences and for their car to invite them to try things they will not necessarily think about. They want the car to be able to suggest services, to bring them to new places, and so on, so they want this sense of the car being a partner for discovery.

“One of the very important things we found in our research is that people are being more stressed and anxious when using their car. There’s a lot of complexity in modern car – you have a driving system, lots of notifications, and your cluster is more complex in terms of number of icons and the feedback you get from the car.”

The mission now is for delivering experience solutions both from a passenger-centric and vehicle/OEM-centric perspective. In the former category, Janiaut notes the solution needs to display “versatility, discovery and serenity” – that is to say, LGE needs to create a space that allows passengers and drivers to explore new experiences based on the understanding of each journey’s context. This could range from what is effectively a cinema on wheels to an office space for meetings.

The three pillars for OEMs would be flexibility, modularity and monetisation. This will mean focusing on vehicle-centric software that can adapt to various architectures and operating systems, accepting functionality from across the partner ecosystem. By doing this, LGE believes that will be able to secure new revenues stream opportunities beyond traditional business models.

At the heart of the software stack is AlphaWare, a software suite designed to enable the SDV vision that LGE calls a “living space on wheels”. There are three SDV experience solutions – PlayWare, MetaWare and VisionWare – plus the BaseWare collection of software models form which an automotive company can build vehicle digital systems. These are complemented by the OpsWare product development tools and integration services and the overarching cyber security framework.

PlayWare taps into the LGE entertainment heritage by bringing TV experiences, powered by its webOS TV operating system, into a car. Apps supported natively include Netflix and YouTube, as well as office tools.

MetaWare enables immersive driving through augmented and mixed reality, with heads-up display and procedural 3D generation from 2D maps.

VisionWare is designed to perceive objects in video to provider safer driving, using AI-perception technology with field-proven capability supporting in-cabin monitoring for drivers and passengers alike.

A key element is ADAS forward-facing perception, fully compliant with new car assessment programme/general safety regulations (NCAP/GSR), which also provides vital sensing capabilities for drivers, along with emotion recognition.

The company says work in the area is being driven by increasing numbers of mandates for in-cabin monitoring. The solution employs a camera acting as a monitoring system to ensure the driver is not falling asleep and is paying attention to the road.

Driving forward with partner ecosystem

An essential element in the company’s growth has been its partner ecosystem. This spans the global automotive industry and includes the likes of Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Bently, Porsche, JLR, Jaguar, Land Rover, Renault Group, Citroen, Ford, GM, Chevrolet, Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai.

Historically, LGE’s first projects in the automotive sector were with fellow Korean firms Hyundai and Kia. GM and Renault are also long-term partners customer that are still very strong.

Janiaut offers a particular focus on the Renault Mégane, which is currently using Android-based LGE products: “If you buy a car today, there is a very high chance that there will be an LGE product, whether it’s a display or telematics, inside the car.

“So, if you have access to internet in your car, it’s very likely that it’s thanks to LGE – or, if you have a navigation system in your car, it’s very likely an LGE product. We work with basically every OEM in this industry, and we have made strong relationships with most of the largest group in this industry.”

Almost invariably, partnership projects begin with connectivity. Janiaut notes that currently around 93% to 95% of cars are essentially connected devices.

“When we started in the business, it was unclear if the industry would go to that path,” he says. “When we started, having connectivity inside your car was a luxury, rare feature. Today, over 90% of new cars on the market have 4G and 5G, and so you need to set up a modem and order connectivity with the antenna inside the car.

“The next big area is infotainment. LGE has been a key supplier for the computer and the software to run those infotainment system. We provide those navigation systems, the integration, voice assistant and so on.

“We have been working with partners such as Google and Android to bring their products to the automotive market. We also have the ADAS solution that is currently the main focus in cabin monitoring. When you have the car driving on the highway without touching the wheel, the camera will check that the driver is still paying attention.

“And so you need the camera system, but you need also the AI system to determine this. You need to have the eye-tracking solution for that as well to make sure that the driver is watching the world.

“Then we have what we call HMI, or human machine interface. We are always trying to work with the OEM to push the boundaries of what we can do in terms of display and cockpit interior, as well as in terms of the solution for them to bring those innovations to their customers,” adds Janiaut.

Geographic proximity is a key part of working with automakers, with companies such as LGE needing to build a supply chain and a logistic chain, along with being close to the factory. In addition to its South Korean operations, LGE has European offices close to each OEM, as well as a North American headquarters in Detroit. These offer support, local R&D and quality testing close to customers.

LGE has production centres in Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, Poland and US so distributed facilities can address the different customer needs in terms of logistics. It also has two large development centres in India and Vietnam, which are designed to help the firm scale its software business.

Another revelation from Janiaut is the fundamental and rapidly increasing value of software in the car. He reveals that software is currently around 10% of the value of a car, with more software and more lines of code now in a car than there is in an airplane. He expects that around 30% of the value of the car will be in the software by 2030.

“For the software business, it’s about finding the balance between a different country and different team, and so our Vietnam team and Indian team have been a tremendous asset for us to achieve this and to grow our software footprint in the industry,” he says.

“The car is a complex network of small computers working together, and this is getting consolidated. You get one big computer running everything in the car – the driving system, infotainment, the brake, and so on.

“We see players like Tesla being extremely good at developing software, providing very good experience to their user, bringing connected services inside the car, bringing big partners. We see that competition coming from these new players, where traditional and legacy automakers need to react and address [to] customer demand to have a better interior, better experience. It not always easy for those customers to [make] that transition. So, that’s where we can step in to help them with our software solution.”

The AI route

As ever in today’s IT industry, and particularly with software, the conversation inevitably turns to artificial intelligence.

While the need for AI is certain, driven by the demand for new in-car features from car owners who want new features right away, what is not so cast-iron is the way in which AI will shape the industry – and how the automotive OEMS will implement AI solutions. They’re trying to find their way at this point, believes Janiaut, and the LGE offer to address these challenges will to be deliver to OEMs white-label solutions, unlike key rival software suppliers.

“It is an uncertain picture for a lot of people,” he says. “They don’t know what’s the right path. We are trying our best to help [OEMs, but] people are unsure what the market wants. We’ve decided to go white label. We don’t brand it and the customer in the car won’t know it’s an LGE solution.

“We’ve been using AI for vision recognition software and so on – this is not a large language model [LLM] and is not generative AI [GenAI]. We have an AI model already for training and machine learning and in camera perception. Now we are looking at our strategy for generative AI.

“The LGE AI research centre is very active. We have our own LLM model, and so on. But the strategy on what we do is it’s a work in progress. We can’t make any [launch] announcement yet, but it’s something we’re actively working on. We have a lot of ideas.

“The question is, which technology stack we use? And the main difficulty in the automotive industry is in bringing your technology stack to the OEM, because they have their own constraints.”

Moving into 2025, LGE’s vision in automotive AI taking clearer shape. At CES 2025, the company showcased an AI-based in-cabin sensing solution designed to bring greater safety and convenience to the driving experience, using LGE’s Vision AI solution to detect and respond to the needs of vehicle occupants while optimising conditions within the cabin.

It announced that it was working with Qualcomm Technologies to introduce the Cross-Domain Controller (xDC) platform for vehicles. Based on the  Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, which pre-integrates Snapdragon Ride automated driving stack and computer vision, and incorporates LGE’s IVI and ADAS into a single controller.

It’s worth looking at the moves in automotive in the context of the reason for the B2B pivot, namely to “transform and leap forward as a smart life solution company that connects and expands customers’ various spaces and experiences” is taking shape.

In its financial results for the third quarter of 2024, the LGE vehicle component solutions company reported third-quarter revenue of $1.88bn and an operating profit of $790m. Revenue increased compared with the same period in 2023, but slightly decreased from the previous quarter due to a slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) demand

Financially and technologically, automotive business looks to have changed significantly since 2023 and is operating in an industry where innovation is everything – an industry where the tech rivals are of an equal size, an industry where manufacturers and users demand this innovation quickly. That’s what the drivers of profitability will be.