The Dispatch: Week 49
From hype to hardware: LG rallies SDV builders, More leadership shakeup at GM, Nissan redefines value, and open-source hits the shop floor.
SDV Insider — December 5, 2025
This week: LG rallies global SDV builders, Nissan bets on software value, open-source gets a new SDV platform, and the digital chassis debate heats up. Plus: virtual ECUs, OEM shake-ups, and why costs still aren’t falling with connectivity. Buckle up 🚀
🚀 Top Story
LG’s Global SDV Meetup Signals a Maturing Software Race
LG Electronics convened hundreds of OEM, Tier 1, and platform leaders in its first Global SDV Meetup, pushing a unified vision for software-defined vehicles as the “next trillion-dollar ecosystem.” The message: collaboration beats isolation. From in-vehicle OS to connected services, LG wants to be the integration fabric—not just a component supplier. 2025 feels like the year SDV went from slideware to structure. LG’s move mirrors the industry’s pivot from tool talk to orchestration—ecosystem events, APIs, and real governance frameworks. Watch how this reframes supply-chain expectations: from deliverables to deployables.
🧠 Industry Pulse
SDV digital chassis demands new design strategies — Automotive World lays out the blockers to SDV velocity: petabyte-scale assets, design–engineering hand-off gaps, variant sprawl, and compliance drag. The fix: SDV-grade data management and immutable audit trails for ISO 26262. Treat this as your operating-model blueprint. Without stream-based branching, binary-aware repos, and automated compliance, OTA cadence and feature reuse will stall under scale.
Nissan reframes value around software — In its latest investor pitch, Nissan spotlighted software and electrification as the twin levers for long-term margin recovery. Think SDV platforms that extend lifecycle value beyond initial sales. Nissan joins Toyota, Stellantis, and GM in treating software IP as the real residual-value driver. Expect sharper separation between hardware depreciation and service-based earnings.
GM software leadership shake-up — Baris Cetinok, SVP of Software and Services, exits as GM folds vehicle software engineering under global product. Short-term turbulence, long-term consolidation of compute and product could tighten reuse loops.
Wingtech vs. Nexperia: chip geopolitics again — The Dutch top court battle underscores SDV supply-chain fragility. Dual-source critical compute and pre-qualify alternates now; silicon uncertainty is the new recall risk.
REE × Mitsubishi partner on SDV platforms — The two are co-developing modular electric platforms with centralized software architecture for commercial fleets. Fleet SDVs will be first to hit true OTA velocity. REE’s skateboard plus Mitsubishi’s scale = testbed for productionized software governance.
MotorTrend announces 2026 SDV Innovator Awards finalists — A spotlight on toolchains, safety, and in-car UX. Handy signal for talent scouting and vendor benchmarking.
🤖 Tech & Innovation Spotlight
Automotive Grade Linux launches SoDev reference platform — The open-source alliance unveiled SoDev, a baseline SDV stack integrating Linux, virtualization, and containerized middleware to accelerate OEM prototyping. Our take: It’s the first coordinated attempt to create a neutral, open reference for SDV developers—think Android Open Source Project for cars. If it gains traction, expect pressure on proprietary middleware vendors to interoperate.
Virtual ECU integration and AV testing accelerate in IPG’s CarMaker — Deeper virtual ECU workflows and richer AV test capabilities push validation left. Translation: faster iteration, less HIL dependence, cleaner interfaces.
👀 What We’re Reading
Why automotive OEMs need precise positioning — Trimble’s e-book on high-precision GNSS (RTX) for ADAS and V2X. Worth a skim if you’re fusing maps + perception and chasing edge-case closure.
👋 Wrap-Up
Keep shipping, keep simplifying—platform thinking beats one-off heroics every time. The SDV playbook is finally congealing: open platforms, modular governance, and software that pays rent long after SOP. See you next week 🚗💨
— The SDV Insider Crew 🚗