How cellular connectivity impacts electric vehicles throughout their lifecycle
by Per Gadenius
According to IEA reports, in 2023 electric car sales neared 14 million, and their share in total car sales has increased to 18% from around 4% in 2020. By the end of this year, sales are expected to increase to 17 million, and electric cars to account for one in five cars sold.
Wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles is backed by governments all over the world. Some aim to ensure that EVs are a certain percent of all the new vehicles sold. Others plan to ban fossil fuel cars. Some call for toll discounts for EVs and air pollution charges for gas vehicles. Experts forecast that under today’s policy settings, every other car sold globally is set to be electric by 2035.
Among innovative technologies that are driving the surge of EV sales, cellular connectivity plays a major role. Let’s look at how it impacts electric vehicles throughout their lifecycle and becomes critical for EV adoption and ecosystem development.
Manufacturing
Since cellular connectivity is one of the main enablers of smart manufacturing, it is essential for EV manufacturing as well. It is used both in the manufacturing process of the vehicle itself and in the following procedures of firmware and software uploads and updates.
At its manufacturing facility in Dunton, Essex, UK, Ford is using cellular connectivity for multiple solutions including real-time analysis of machine performance and managing responses to changing conditions during the production process. To improve the process of assembling automotive parts, AI-based predictive maintenance was deployed, and it needs ultra-reliable connectivity. Also, low latency is required to enable the factory to react quickly so that settings on machines can be changed in milliseconds to continuously optimize production quality.
Tesla has constructed a private cellular network at its factory in Berlin and plans to deploy the technology across its production facilities worldwide. The network supports speedy, low-latency connections and can work indoors and outdoors, which is critical to the company, because it allows to update hundreds of cars outside without needing to run fiber and power to outdoor locations. Tesla also sees private 5G as a foundation for innovation and next-level operations at its manufacturing and warehouse facilities.
Distribution
Cellular connectivity is also key for the distribution stage. While initial firmware and software configurations are set during production, final adjustments and updates specific to regional requirements may be applied during the pre-delivery inspection stage. That’s why over-the-air update infrastructure is essential for modern software-defined vehicles. Where OEMs once relied on physical vehicle recalls to make software updates or changes, OTA updates enable them to do it completely remotely, lowering costs while increasing speed and efficiency.
It also helps car manufacturers to use new selling strategies. In the United States, Tesla outsold its rivals thanks to implementing smart branding around the ability to enable in-vehicle features with OTA updates. GM, in turn, has lowered the cost of selling a software defined vehicle for the dealer by using its own fulfillment centers to deliver an exact configuration of the car to a customer within four days, while other OEMs can take anywhere from six to eight weeks.
Since OTA updates impact the ability of a vehicle to operate safely and efficiently, to perform them it is crucial to have robust and reliable connectivity. With their low latency and good coverage capabilities, cellular networks are the only option to ensure that cars get their firmware and software properly updated regardless of location.
Operation
As an essential part of the connected cars ecosystem, cellular technology is instrumental for connecting vehicles and transmitting data necessary for advanced diagnostics and remote OTA updates, as well as infotainment data. But what is more specific to electric cars is connected infrastructure that allows charging.
There is a direct correlation between electric vehicle adoption and charging network development. In every country where EVs have successfully been introduced, so has a charging network. Prime examples include Norway (86% of all new cars sold are EV) and Iceland (72%).
To ensure successful development, reliable wireless connectivity on a country-wide scale is needed to collect real-time data from each charging station. Currently, the only standards-based technology that can do this is the cellular Internet of Things (IoT). Public cellular networks can be used to connect charging stations and provide real-time data transfer and asset management. It allows to optimize operations, including the processes of user authorization, payment, and smart energy management, and also utilize current data analytics to optimize charger performance. Providers can monitor and control key charger operations, scale their network, and increase overall user satisfaction.
Charging station maintenance can be improved with cellular connectivity as well, which would help providers reduce costs on regular technician’s visits and inspections. Moreover, it is especially beneficial for off-grid charging stations that can be located literally anywhere with no access to fixed communications and still have connectivity.
Connectivity Requirements
While it’s hard to overestimate the role of cellular networks at every stage of the electric vehicles lifecycle, there are certain connectivity requirements to be met in each of the use cases.
Coverage
Even though cellular connectivity is the best option for vehicles for its ubiquitous reach and global viability, each operator’s network inevitably has its weak spots. Sufficient coverage is one of the most critical requirements for all connected cars, which is not the simplest task with about 40 million miles of roadways encircling the Earth.
It is critical for EV infrastructure as well. RAC Foundation reported that around two-thirds of Britain’s most common type of public electric vehicle chargepoints suffer limited mobile signal connectivity from one or even several major carriers. Across the US last year, more than half of all EV charging failures came from a station not being able to connect to its cellular network.
Solving coverage issues can be a serious challenge for OEMs that ship connected cars to multiple markets and charging infrastructure providers. Getting continuous coverage in every region would require contracting with several mobile operators and physically changing SIMs, which is often impossible due to logistics and technical reasons. With the emergence of eSIM and its remote provisioning capabilities the latter problem was somewhat alleviated, but ensuring that vehicles remain connected wherever they go and can recharge using a connected charge station remains a significant pain point.
Latency
Just like other connected cars, electric vehicles are dependent on networks’ latency. Delays in transmitting data may affect not only the infotainment system and result not just in poor user experience. Failure to perform over-the-air (OTA) drive control updates or interact with road safety infrastructure may lead to grave consequences. Besides, in any advanced driver assistance system latency in computing the car position or predicting velocity is critical to overall safety.
Cellular networks, in particular 5G and 5G Standalone, can provide better latency compared to other connectivity methods, but it should be noted that technically, latency depends on the architecture of your provider’s core network and may vary significantly.
Compliance
Embedded electronics and apps in electric vehicles enhance vehicle performance and efficiencies through data utilization, which requires compliance with stringent data governance practices. Depending on the country, there may be legislation on cybersecurity, data sovereignty, data privacy and industry-specific regulations.
Technically, the regulations related issues may start at the manufacturing stage with solving the problem of having different SIMs for each country that OEMs ship vehicles to because of different legal requirements.
There also might be problems with data localization, as most countries have already enacted legislation on data sovereignty that requires connectivity localization. There can be three types of localization, including IP localization (IP traffic stays in the country), soft localization (IMSI from a local carrier), and full localization (local SIM profile and connectivity services from a local carrier).
Besides that, some restrictions are specific to the automotive industry, like eCall, a manual or automatic call that is generated from a vehicle to the nearest emergency-response network in case of a serious road accident, which is mandatory in some countries and may require a local SIM profile depending on location.
Webbing’s Solution
Webbing offers a connectivity solution that ensures global access to reliable and high-quality internet, with low latency and the best of class coverage. It provides secure and continuous internet connection, delivering a streamlined, centralized, and scalable means of deploying, controlling and monitoring electric cars. that ensures global access to reliable and high-quality internet, with low latency and the best of class coverage. It provides secure and continuous internet connection, delivering a streamlined, centralized, and scalable means of deploying, controlling and monitoring electric cars.
Webbing’s partner network of over 600 mobile operators worldwide guarantees global coverage. It allows to roam on several carriers’ networks in every region, solving the problem of weak spots that any mobile network may have and ensuring full coverage and continuous connectivity even at remote locations.
Webbing’s distributed core network with local breakouts, multiple network solution, and data server redundancy can provide OEMs connectivity stability and low latency. It also allows for all types of localization – from IP traffic that remains in the country to designated profiles for emergency calls, so it’s easy to comply with local and regional connectivity regulation requirements.
Our eSIM solution ensures failover connectivity with the capability of using multiple mobile carrier profiles, easily changing carriers at any time with zero integration, and an option to fall back from a failing profile to a different profile without any need to communicate with a remote server. Webbing’s eSIM is aligned with the GSMA SGP.32 IoT eSIM specification, which means it will be fully compatible with the new standard when it becomes ubiquitous. More than 1 million WebbingCTRL eSIMs/SIMs have already been deployed globally since its release. ensures failover connectivity with the capability of using multiple mobile carrier profiles, easily changing carriers at any time with zero integration, and an option to fall back from a failing profile to a different profile without any need to communicate with a remote server. Webbing’s eSIM is aligned with the GSMA SGP.32 IoT eSIM specification, which means it will be fully compatible with the new standard when it becomes ubiquitous. More than 1 million WebbingCTRL eSIMs/SIMs have already been deployed globally since its release.
Webbing also offers a centralized way to manage eSIMs throughout their lifecycle, making deployments future-proof and eliminating the problem of ever-changing legislation on connectivity and data protection. With our solutions, OEMs can set up business rules that would allow connected electric vehicles to change the serving carrier automatically under specific conditions, such as location, loss of connectivity or even after a certain amount of time, which can be of use for cars shipped to some markets.
Our solutions help electric vehicle manufacturers overcome their connectivity problems and reduce time to market for global deployments, providing the benefits of roaming with multiple carrier options in every country, and seamless transition between carriers, while maintaining low rates and low latency on a global scale.
Reach out to learn more about our connectivity solutions.
