Qualcomm’s automotive showcase debuts new tech

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Dan Howley discuss Qualcomm’s new vehicle technology with Nakul Duggal, SVP and GM of Qualcomm Automotive.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Today is a big day for Qualcomm. It's the chip maker's auto day where they released new products and services related to car tech. Joining me now is Nakul Dugal, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Automotive. We're also joined by our tech editor, Dan Howley, who's making a rare double appearance on the show today. Thanks to you both for being with us.

So Nakul, I want to start with the news of the day. I saw that Qualcomm has made good on his promise to sign a deal with the automotive tech firm Veoneer to develop a software and chip platform for advanced driver assistance systems. When I read about it, it sounded like a direct shot at Intel's Mobileye. Tell us how this fits into your overall strategy.

NAKUL DUGAL: Yeah. Thank you for having me, first of all. A tremendous amount of transformation going on in the auto industry-- to your question about the partnership with Veoneer, what we are doing with them is to build a platform that brings their vision perception stack, the entire policy stack, it runs that on our Snapdragon [INAUDIBLE] platform, and really creates more alternatives, more choices for automakers.

As we engage with the auto industry, what we hear is over the long run, the automakers want to be able to own differentiation around the basic fundamental driving behavior of the vehicle. And what this partnership, along with many others that we announced today, are essentially geared up to be able to go make that happen.

DAN HOWLEY: Nakul, I want to ask about the Snapdragon driving platform that you announced, and how it works with advanced driver assist systems, and how long that will take to eventually get to a self-driving future. We've heard so much about self-driving. But when are we going to get there?

NAKUL DUGAL: So I think it's a great question, Dan. You know, I think the complexity involved in removing the driver completely from the task of driving a vehicle is complicated. It's complicated because there are differences in terms of regions, in terms of the environment that you're driving in. Is it a highway? Or is it a surface street?

The other big aspect to keep in mind is there are a lot of sensors that are required around the vehicle and a lot of compute capability needed to be able to actually realize this. Now, that technology exists to actually be able to make the car as independent of a driver as possible. But then the question is, economically, can you bring it down all the way to passenger vehicles?

There is a lot of work going on in this space. And the approach that we have taken is we want to be able to make sure that we focus on where the sweet spot is, which is passenger vehicles. We make cars safer, create a safety cocoon around the vehicle, bring convenience features, and yet make sure that the driver is still responsible for the fundamental driving behavior of the vehicle.

I think what you're going to start to see over time is a number of applications are going to move towards what is called Level 4 autonomy, where the driver is less engaged or the car is much more responsible for its behavior. However, those will happen in specific circumstances-- robotaxis, long-haul trucking. For you to be able to bring that type of capability to a passenger vehicle is going to add a lot of cost. And it's probably going to take some time to be able to be available across the board.

DAN HOWLEY: Nakul, I'm glad you point out that it's not something that's going to happen right away. Because I think that's something that a lot of people seem to get confused with. They hear Tesla talking about its autopilot. That's not really autopilot. Self-driving is still a couple of years down the road, especially for folks like you and I.

I guess I want to talk about more along the infotainment space and how Qualcomm is improving there. What kind of enhancements are you bringing this time around with your announcements? And as far as the chip space goes, how robust is the availability of chips for cars? I know we've seen some issues with that in general.

So speaking to the digital cockpit space, one thing that we have seen and heard from our customers is that automakers want to be able to own the experience that they provide to their customers. One of the major focus areas is to be able to reinvent the in-cabin experience. Now, what is changing in the cars is two primary things. As 5G comes to life, the car is connected in real time to its environment, to its cloud environment. That's number one.

Number two, the amount of integration that we can now build into our next-generation application processors is allowing automakers to be able to completely reinvent the cabin of the vehicle. You are starting to see applications like data monitoring. You are starting to see multiple displays. In next-generation high-end vehicles, we are seeing as many as eight displays in the same vehicle. The audio systems in these cars are becoming more and more immersive in terms of the experience that they provide.

Our approach has been as follows. We build application processors that have very strong software scaffolding, as I like to call it. Because the goal that we want to be able to accomplish is to create a lot of choice for the automotive ecosystem. Cars are a little bit different than phones. There is no one similar experience that automakers like to have. Each region has its own requirements. Each tier of vehicle is unique.

And so our focus has been, how do we create the optionality for automakers to be able to have access to a portfolio that is very broad, very flexible, and yet not have to reinvent the wheel every single time there is something new that has to be done? And this approach, I think, is very visible in the partnerships that we announced today with various tier ones.

We've been working with Google for a number of years in the Google automotive services space. We announced a partnership with Amazon on the Alexa integration for their next-generation car assistant. You start to pull all of this together, it really does take a village to go build next-generation platforms for the automotive ecosystem. And that has been our approach.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Can you give us a little more insight into those partnerships? Because I know you have a huge pipeline of orders from automakers and tier-one suppliers. You mentioned Amazon just now, and Google. But what are some other partners in that area for you?

NAKUL DUGAL: So Qualcomm is a company-- we've always been very heavy on making sure that we have a broad ecosystem behind us. Our approach has always been, we are an enabler company. We are going to be standing behind our customers and make them successful. And that's the approach we've taken in automotive.

In the tier one space, we announced a number of names-- at the risk of maybe missing somebody out, we've been working with companies like Bosch, like Continental, Harman, JoinNext, [INAUDIBLE]. There are so many tier ones.

And you know, one thing that it has allowed us to do is to really transition from a smartphone-focused company to, really, an automotive systems player. This transition has happened, I would say, over the last five to seven years. But there is no other way to really embrace the automotive industry then to consider all of these various tier one partners as your customers.

And then there is also a very broad ecosystem of software partners who are very focused in the automotive space, companies like QNX, like Greenhills, several software vendors that have a lot of experience in this space. So a combination of this ecosystem is what allows us to be able to go win designs, deliver to the needs of our automotive partners.

We now have over 20 automakers that are using the Snapdragon Cockpit platform for their next-generation designs. And it's been possible because of the cooperation of these various companies.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Well, exciting stuff going on there are Qualcomm Automotive for sure. Nakul Dugal, thanks so much for joining us.

NAKUL DUGAL: Thank you for having me.