How High-Relief Design Challenges in 2025 Are Shaping the Future of Automotive Software & Connected Infotainment Platforms

Your car isn’t just a machine anymore. It’s a rolling computer—loaded with code, sensors, and personality. And the race to build the perfect connected car? It’s less like auto design and more like minting a $4,000 collectible coin: every curve, every detail, every layer must be engineered to perfection.

The Software-Defined Vehicle: A High-Relief Engineering Challenge

Let’s get real: I’ve spent years tuning infotainment systems that crash when the rain hits too hard. I’ve debugged OTA updates that bricked head units because a memory buffer overflowed by 0.2%. And I’ve watched luxury automakers argue over whether ray tracing belongs in a navigation map.

Why? Because building automotive software today feels a lot like sculpting a high-relief coin. You’re pushing depth, detail, and durability to the edge. Too much relief—too many features, too much complexity—and the whole thing cracks under pressure.

Just like the 2025 American Liberty coin, where intricate sunflower swirls and eagle feathers demand flawless metal flow, your infotainment system must handle:

• Smooth 3D navigation
• Real-time voice commands

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• Over-the-air updates
• Security checks running in the background

All while not slowing down your startup time or draining the battery. And yes, it’s running on hardware built to survive potholes and extreme heat.

Some call modern infotainment “overkill.” I call it necessary. Because today’s drivers expect their car to understand them—not just drive them. Complexity isn’t the enemy. Poor execution is.

Why Depth Matters: From Coin Relief to Software Stack Layering

The “depth” of a coin’s relief affects how it catches light and resists wear. In software, depth determines how smart the car feels. Think of it like this:

• Surface layer: What you see—the HMI, touchscreen, voice assistant (Alexa Auto, Google Assistant). This is the “shine”.
• Mid-layer: The backbone—Android Automotive, QNX, 5G, Wi-Fi 6. This is the “weight”.
• Deep layer: The silent guardian—CAN signals, OTA security, V2X handshakes. This is the “core”.

More layers? More capability. But also more places for things to go wrong—just like a coin with an eagle’s wing stretched too far risks cracking at the edge.

Without that depth, you can’t have:

• Facial recognition that loads your seat and climate settings before you buckle in
• Predictive navigation that reroutes based on live weather and traffic
• Your car texting the dealership when the battery’s low
• Smart city integration where red lights turn green as you approach

Connected Car Systems: The New Embedded Architecture Wars

Today’s cars run on more code than a small airport control tower. A mid-tier EV likely has over 100 ECUs—each a tiny computer managing brakes, batteries, or ambient lighting. It’s a mess. And it’s changing fast.

We’re moving from a “many small brains” model to a “few big brains” architecture—like Tesla’s three-compute-module system. Fewer boxes, but each one carries a mountain of software. It’s like switching from stamping 100 simple coins to minting one ultra-detailed masterpiece.

From CAN Bus to Ethernet: The Backbone Upgrade

The old CAN bus was built for talking to your engine, not streaming Spotify or negotiating a lane change. It’s reliable, low-latency, and… painfully slow for modern needs.

Enter Automotive Ethernet (100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1). It’s the upgrade every connected car needs. But it’s not plug-and-play. I’ve seen teams spend months adapting legacy systems that can’t handle the bandwidth jump.

It’s like upgrading a coin die: you get sharper details, but you risk cracking the mold during the transition. So we use a hybrid—Ethernet for high-speed tasks (OTA, V2X, streaming), CAN for safety-critical signals (brake lights, airbags).

Here’s a real snippet from a recent luxury sedan project:

// CAN-to-Ethernet Bridge - Pseudocode for Real-Time Translation
void canToEthernetBridge(CANFrame canMsg) {
  if (canMsg.id == 0x123) {
    EthernetFrame ethFrame;
    ethFrame.src = "GATEWAY_ECU";
    ethFrame.dst = "INFOTAINMENT_HEADUNIT";
    ethFrame.payload = canMsg.data;
    ethFrame.qos = HIGH_PRIORITY;  // For ADAS alerts
    enqueueForTransmission(ethFrame);
  }
}

// Handle TCP/IP in infotainment
void handleOTAUpdatePacket(EthernetFrame packet) {
  if (packet.port == OTA_UPDATE_PORT && verifySignature(packet)) {
    decompressAndApplyUpdate(packet.payload);
    rebootSystem("Infotainment");
  }
}

This split-backbone approach is now table stakes—especially in Gen 3+ connected cars.

Infotainment as a Premium Product: The “Numismatic” Mindset

Infotainment systems aren’t free add-ons anymore. They’re profit centers. Tesla sells FSD. BMW charges for heated seats over OTA. Polestar monetizes Google integration.

As engineers, we need to design for pay-to-play. That means:

• Microservices so features can be licensed individually
• Modular code so AR navigation can be added without breaking media
• Usage analytics to refine UX and boost retention

We built a feature flagging system for a Tier 1 supplier that lets OEMs toggle features by region, trim, or post-purchase:

// Feature toggle JSON (loaded at boot)
{
  "features": {
    "ar_navigation": {
      "enabled": true,
      "tier": "premium",
      "license_check_required": true
    },
    "spotify_connect": {
      "enabled": true,
      "tier": "standard"
    },
    "voice_drive_assistant": {
      "enabled": false  // Coming in OTA v3.2
    }
  }
}

It’s like releasing a high-relief coin—first to select collectors, then to the public.

IoT Integration: Turning Cars into Mobile Nodes

Your car is becoming a digital assistant on wheels. It can:

• Order your morning latte before you pull into the drive-thru
• Tell your smart home to turn on the lights and heat when you leave work
• Feed excess battery power back into the grid (V2G)

But that means shifting from isolated ECUs to cloud-connected edge devices. On a recent delivery van project, we used AWS IoT Core to keep a fleet talking:

// Publish sensor data to AWS IoT Core
void publishVehicleData() {
  JSONSerializer serializer;
  serializer.add("timestamp", getUnixTime());
  serializer.add("speed", canBus.read(SPEED_CAN_ID));
  serializer.add("battery_soc", batteryECU.getSOC());
  serializer.add("geofence_status", gps.checkGeofence());
  
  if (mqttClient.connect()) {
    mqttClient.publish(
      "vehicle/" + VIN + "/telemetry",
      serializer.toString(),
      QoS::AT_LEAST_ONCE
    );
  }
  
  // Schedule next publish in 30s
  timer.setTimer(30000, publishVehicleData);
}

Security in the Age of Connected Coins

Rare coins attract counterfeiters. Connected cars attract hackers. A flaw in the infotainment system can let someone unlock doors, disable brakes, or steal driver data.

My non-negotiables for every project:

• Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect encryption keys
• Secure boot to block unauthorized firmware
• RASP to catch suspicious behavior in real time
• Pen testing before every OTA rollout

We use automotive PKI to verify every update:

// Verify OTA signature using onboard certificate
bool verifyOTAPayload(const uint8_t* payload, size_t len) {
  const uint8_t* publicKey = getOEMPublicKey();
  const uint8_t* signature = getSignatureFromPayload(payload);
  
  return crypto_verify(
    payload, len,
    signature, SIGNATURE_LEN,
    publicKey, PUBKEY_LEN
  ) == CRYPTO_OK;
}

Skip this, and a bad update could brick your car—or worse, expose your location history.

The Collector’s Mindset: Software as an Appreciating Asset

We used to buy cars and watch them depreciate. Now, we expect them to get better over time. A 2025 car with a $3,400 infotainment might gain:

• 2026: Wireless Apple CarPlay
• 2027: AR HUD with lane-level guidance
• 2028: An AI co-pilot that learns your habits

That’s the software-as-a-service model hitting the road. Unlike a coin that gains value from scarcity, a car gains value from utility—but only if the software is built to last.

Actionable Takeaways for Engineers

1. Build modular systems. Split infotainment into independent services—navigation, media, climate. No more monoliths.

2. Design for updates. Use A/B partitions so an OTA can fail without bricking the system.

3. Use the right network for the job. Ethernet for new features. CAN for safety.

4. Secure it early. Don’t wait until the OTA is ready. Bake in HSMs and secure boot from day one.

5. Think long-term. Write code that adds value over time—like a well-designed coin that collectors still want in 2035.

The High-Stakes Game of Automotive Software

The 2025 American Liberty coin isn’t just art. It’s a mirror for what we’re building in software-defined vehicles. Both demand:

• Engineering precision under tight constraints
• Premium positioning in a crowded market
• Long-term value through smart design

We’re not just coding cars. We’re shaping how people interact with the world from behind the wheel. Every line of code is a chance to make that experience smarter, safer, and more human.

And just like collectors line up for the next rare mint, developers should be pushing the limits of what cars can do. The future isn’t just rolling off the assembly line. It’s being written—one function at a time.

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