Star Metro - Press Release QNX Research Finds Automotive Developers Spend More than a Third of Their Time on Software "Plumbing" Slowing SDV Innovation

WATERLOO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / October 21, 2026 / QNX, a division of BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB) today released its second annual Under the Hood: SDV Developer Report, a global study of 1,100 automotive software developers that examines how attitudes towards the software-defined vehicle (SDV) development landscape are evolving as the industry moves from ambition to execution. When it comes to innovation roadblocks, the research found that developers spend an average of 35% of their time on foundational software integration work rather than developing new features and capabilities that differentiate vehicles, while three quarters say the lack of a common, reusable software foundation is slowing overall SDV development.

Software-Defined Delays
The automotive industry is at a critical inflection point, with automakers racing to move faster and ship software more efficiently. Against that backdrop, 79% of developers report feeling pressure from faster-moving competitors, reinforcing the need to balance software development speed and scalability with safety and reliability.

This pressure to go faster however introduces new risks, and software failures are continuing to reshape automotive development practices. Just over half (53%) of automotive software developers are directly influenced by product recalls affecting the industry, with nearly nine in ten (88%) say recalls or failures have led to major or moderate changes in how their teams develop software, suggesting teams are no longer adjusting processes at the margins after an incident, but fundamentally changing how software is architected from the start.

The Need for Application-Layer Innovation
Developers are also clear about where they would rather focus their energy. More than three quarters (76%) agree that OEMs should concentrate on application-layer innovation rather than foundational software infrastructure, the layer where brand identity and customer experience are increasingly defined. That view has softened slightly from 80% in 2025, pointing to a more measured sense of how quickly that shift can happen in practice. When asked what would free their teams up to spend more time on differentiating features, developers almost half (46%) identified better integration across development tools and environments, alongside greater software reuse across vehicle programs (38%), and a pre-integrated foundational software solution (34%). Together, the findings describe an industry that knows where it wants to go but is still getting bogged down in the foundational work beneath.

Delivery is Under Strain
These pressures are showing up in day-to-day software delivery. Debugging and testing is now the single biggest challenge facing automotive software teams, cited by 44% of developers and up eight percentage points year on year, moving ahead of integration complexity (39%) and long development cycles (37%). Perceptions of development environment productivity have also softened, with the share rating their environment as "excellent" falling from 30% to 20%. Taken together, the findings point to teams that are well equipped but increasingly stretched, spending more of their effort finding and fixing problems in foundational layers than ideating, creating and delivering new features that can influence consumer purchase decisions and build brand loyalty.

"The industry is facing a complexity management challenge. Automotive software developers are trying to solve the same integration, software development and safety problems time and time again, and when a third of engineering effort goes into rebuilding software below the application layer, that is a third of the effort not going into the differentiating features drivers actually notice," said Justin Moon, Vice President, Core Product Engineering at QNX. "This year's data shows this approach is beginning to have consequences; debugging has become the biggest challenge developers face, perceptions of productivity are freefalling, and security has moved to the top of the agenda, all of which are symptoms of technical complexity. To reduce that, teams need a trusted software foundation they can build on, certify against and reuse, rather than starting from scratch with every program."

Security and Regulation Move up the Agenda
Looking towards the future, security has moved from a technical consideration to the industry's defining concern. Almost half of developers (48%) now rank security threats as their greatest worry, up five points year over year, while 47% point to cyber vulnerabilities as the biggest risk to rolling out SDVs at scale. More strikingly, 83% expect SDVs to become a 'major' target for cyberattacks within the next three years, a view that reflects how quickly connectivity and the potential for OTA updates have widened the attack surface. From a regulatory standpoint, cybersecurity standards (ie: UNECE WP.29, ISO/SAE 21434) remain the hardest to meet, cited by 46%, underlining that compliance is no longer a checkbox exercise, but rather, a design constraint shaping architecture decisions from the outset.

Additionally, more than 700 new regulations and legislative proposals affecting in-car technology were introduced globally in 2025 alone, with a third of respondents claiming this has delayed development timelines. With no year-over-year improvement, the data suggests the vast majority of developers haven't yet identified how to efficiently manage the global regulatory burden.

AI: From Hype to Workflow
Expectations of AI have matured rather than cooled. The share of developers describing AI as 'transformational' has fallen from 36% to 25%, while those expecting it to play a significant role integrated into everyday workflows has risen from 55% to 62%. However, 87% still expect AI to have a major role in development but the emphasis has moved from complete reinvention to practical, embedded assistance. That pragmatism suggests an industry moving past the experimentation phase and beginning to judge AI on the same terms as any other tool in the toolchain and whether it measurably shortens the workload in front of them.

"The industry has spent several years talking about SDVs as a design ambition, but as the data shows, resources during that time have been concentrated on the middleware layer," said Maite Bezerra, Senior Principal Analyst at Omdia. "When teams exhaust resources building custom infrastructure instead of standardizing foundational layers, they miss the point. Innovation in middleware is not only challenging for companies that aren't software-first, but it also doesn't drive direct customer value. Until automakers step away from the plumbing and focus on the application layer, they will continue to lack a solid business case for SDVs."

Additional sources:

• Download a copy of the 2026 Under the Hood: SDV Developer Report to learn more.
• Read more about the key findings from the report, and how leaders can take action now on the QNX blog.
• Listen to the latest Code the Future podcast episode with Omdia's Maite Bezerra to explore the themes and wider industry impact.

For more information on QNX, visit QNX.software and follow @QNX News.

ENDS

Methodology: This online survey of 1,100 embedded automotive software developers was commissioned by QNX and conducted by market research company OnePoll, in accordance with the Market Research Society's Code of Conduct. Data was collected between [20/07/2026] and [04/08/2026]. All participants are double-opted-in to take part in research and are paid an amount depending on the length and complexity of the survey. This survey was overseen and edited by the OnePoll research team. OnePoll is an MRS Company Partner, a corporate member of ESOMAR, and a member of the British Polling Council.

About BlackBerry
BlackBerry (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB) provides enterprises and governments the intelligent software and services that power the world around us. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company's high-performance foundational software enables major automakers and industrial giants alike to unlock transformative applications, drive new revenue streams and launch innovative business models, all without sacrificing safety, security, and reliability. With a deep heritage in Secure Communications, BlackBerry delivers operational resiliency with a comprehensive, highly secure, and extensively certified portfolio for mobile fortification, mission-critical communications, and critical events management.

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For more information visit BlackBerry.com and follow BlackBerry on LinkedIn

About QNX
QNX, a division of BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB), provides the trusted foundation that software-defined and physical AI systems depend on to operate safely and predictably in the real world. For nearly half a century, QNX has powered safety-critical applications where failure is not an option. The business leads the way in delivering safe and secure operating systems, hypervisors, middleware, solutions, and development tools, along with the support and services delivered by trusted embedded software experts. Today, QNX technology underpins hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road and a wide range of mission-critical systems across industrial controls, robotics, medical devices, commercial transportation, rail, and aerospace and defense. QNX is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Learn more at qnx.software.

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SOURCE: QNX

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