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18 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2023 Article by Tracy Riggan IPC In the first-of-its-kind event, IPC brought together stakeholders from e-mobility, OEMs, their supply chain, regulators, and policy and technology experts at IPC APEX EXPO 2023 for the e-Mobility/EV Automotive Special Session. ese experts discussed the many challenges as well as collaborative-based solu- tions to those challenges. Panelist Udo Wel- zel of Robert Bosch framed the challenge with a compelling statement: "e modern car has 10X more lines of code than an airplane, thus making it the most complex technical system we are building in volume." Even if a failure rate stays the same, Welzel advised, when opportunities for failure rise, failures rise as well. In the first part of the special session, Tom Derry, CEO at Institute for Supply Manage- ment, framed the supply chain circumstances challenging EV makers. Loren McDonald, CEO of AVAdoption, added the context of gov- ernment regulations and incentives, as well as consumer trends driving EV maker design and implementation choices. is confirmed the supply chain trend of de-emphasis on China, consumer focus on technology features, and policies that will drive charging unit reliability requirements higher. While this session was dynamic, it was unable to take a deep dive into the technology chal- lenges facing EV designers. Michael Schleicher of Semikron Danfoss said these challenges are behind the push for more features with higher reliability, and that the complexity is causing more issues for consideration, like added heat and system capacity. e key takeaway was that industry is focused heavily on soware vs. hardware and yet, over- the-air (OTA) updates cannot fix a resistor or a dendrite. Hardware must be a focus to sup- port the power, heat, and safety demands of feature-rich, OTA upgradeable systems. Special Session: e-Mobility/EV