“If there’s a vulnerability in one car, it could mean there’s a vulnerability in every car.”<br />Conversely, Mr. Wall pointed out that de facto software standards mean<br />that more programmers are focused on making those systems as secure as possible, versus having only a few coders working on a single, narrowly used program.<br />“A side benefit of controlling the entire thing,” said Mr. Grover at Hyundai, “is that we know everything that’s going on.”<br />A lack of standards and a diversity of self-driving systems does present one other obvious challenge: Variety is not<br />a virtue when cars must interact predictably with human drivers — and other robotic vehicles — to guarantee safety.<br />Douglas L. Davis of Intel, recently charged with spearheading<br />that company’s new self-driving car platform, Go, said, “Given the amount of computing power necessary for autonomous driving, we think it can benefit from greater commonality and predictable interfaces.”<br />“Mobileye already has the computer vision, for example,” he said.<br />“And we don’t want to go down one path that hinders us in the future from introducing new innovations.”<br />Bosch, which supplies safety and technology systems to automakers, including its own self-parking technology, acknowledges<br />that a single, one-size-fits-all system would be easier to work with.<br />“There is certainly no doubt that many carmakers have expressed the idea<br />that a more standardized platform would be attractive,” said John Wall, a senior vice president at QNX, which develops software that is used in millions of vehicles today.<br />A common automotive platform could also make it easier to develop new software and safety systems for self-driving cars.
