Automotive infotainment systems

The screen in the dashboard, for maps, music and the reversing camera

Sit in a new car in India, and the dashboard looks more like a phone than a panel of dials. The speedometer is a screen. A touchscreen in the middle shows maps, music and the reversing camera. You can ask the car to call someone, and in some cars a small camera watches whether you are looking at the road. All of this is run by computers and software.

What is in the cockpit. The industry calls the driver's area the cockpit. It has four main parts:

The instrument cluster

the display behind the steering wheel that shows speed, fuel or charge, and warning lights. It used to be dials. Now it is usually a screen.

The infotainment system

the central touchscreen, which combines information and entertainment. It runs navigation, music, phone calls and the car's settings.

The voice assistant

it lets the driver ask for things without taking their hands off the wheel.

Driver monitoring

a camera that watches the driver's eyes and face, and warns if they are drowsy or distracted. Europe now requires new cars to warn drowsy drivers.

These parts used to run on separate boxes. More and more, one computer, called a cockpit controller, runs all the screens together.

The four parts of the cockpit, the instrument cluster, the infotainment system, the voice assistant and driver monitoring, used to run on separate boxes; more and more, one cockpit controller runs all the screens together.

Who makes it, who buys it. Carmakers buy the cockpit from specialist suppliers, who make both the hardware and the software. Much of the value is now in the software. Carmakers increasingly want to own that software themselves. The industry calls a car that is defined and updated mainly by its software a software-defined vehicle. The phone makers compete for the dashboard too, with systems that put a phone's apps on the car's screen.

Who makes it, who buys it: specialist suppliers such as HARMAN, Visteon Corp., Xperi Inc. and Cerence AI sell the cockpit to carmakers, while the phone makers compete for the dashboard with systems that put a phone's apps on the car's screen.

Where it is built. Bengaluru is one of the world's largest centres for car software.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Cockpits, screens, voices and cameras

Cockpits, screens, voices and cameras

Cockpits and infotainment

HARMAN

now part of Samsung, with engineers in Bengaluru and Pune, makes the digital cockpits, infotainment systems and in-cabin sensing of many carmakers. It also makes car audio, sold under JBL, Harman Kardon and other names. Its Bengaluru centre is among its largest anywhere. HARMAN has by far the most job postings in this Industry Vertical.

Visteon Corp.

with engineers in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai, makes instrument clusters, cockpit controllers and infotainment software.

Xperi Inc.

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes DTS AutoStage, an infotainment platform, and cameras for inside the car.

Voice

Cerence AI

with engineers in Pune, makes the voice assistants built into cars.

Decibels Lab, in Bengaluru, is another company in this area.

One company covered mainly in another Market Segment also works here:

Ather Energy

with engineers in Bengaluru, writes the dashboard software of its electric scooters. (More on it in Market Segment 38.11, Electric two-wheeler makers.)

The car you talk to.

The cockpit is where AI models reach drivers first. Assistants now understand a request in Hindi or Tamil, explain a warning light and plan a charging stop. Some of this runs on the car's own chips. The suppliers here are building these assistants. The open question is whether carmakers keep control of the dashboard, or hand it to the phone makers' systems.

That is the cockpit business: the screens, voice and cameras in front of the driver, bought by carmakers from specialist suppliers. Much of its software is written in Bengaluru.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What automotive and mobility companies hire for.

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