On a 55-acre track in Oshawa, Ont., the future of driving is taking shape, one line of code at a time. A test vehicle hits the pavement with software and hardware working together, after both have been pushed through models, simulations, and lab work to get here. It’s a big moment–one Sahar Kokaly, a software engineering manager at GM Canada, calls taking the “code to the road.”
It’s also a glimpse of a much larger change sweeping the auto industry.
“We’re moving from an automotive industry to an auto-tech industry, and this tech portion is really going to frame where we’re headed moving forward.”
Sahar Kokaly, GM Canada
This is the era of the software-defined vehicle, a car that behaves less like a machine and more like a supercomputer on wheels: running on millions of lines of code, improving through updates the way a smartphone does, and taking on more of the driving responsibilities.
“We’re referring to it as an inflection point,” Kokaly explained. “We’re moving from an automotive industry to an auto-tech industry, and this tech portion is really going to frame where we’re headed moving forward.”
Getting there will take a huge investment in artificial intelligence and other technologies. It’ll also take talented engineers and software developers who can move easily between big ideas and practical solutions, and building systems that can handle the unpredictable business of driving.
Making research road-ready
GM is strategically building that capacity through its Canadian Technical Centre, where Kokaly co-leads the Academic and Scientific Partnerships program. Alongside managing a team that contributes to the safety of the company’s automated and autonomous driving software, she works to bring the industry’s toughest challenges together with academic experts and students across the country who are developing new ways to solve them.
“The idea is to bridge between all the great research happening within our Canadian universities and translate that back into the engineering work that we’re doing,” she said.
The CTC provides a base for that effort, employing more than 1,100 engineers across three Ontario sites in Markham and Oshawa, including the McLaughlin Advanced Technology Track, where critical testing is done. Its Markham campus is also one of GM’s largest software hubs outside the United States.
The model is hands-on by design. GM collaborates with university research teams on projects aligned with its engineering priorities, and has been a long-standing partner in competitions such as AutoDrive and EcoCar, providing the McLaughlin Advanced Technology Track for real-world vehicle testing. Its engineers and developers help shape hackathons, competitions and capstone projects, so students are working on challenges that look more like the ones they would face inside the industry. The company also brings students into the industry through co-op terms, internships and visiting scientist roles, giving them time to work closely with some of the industry’s leading thinkers before they graduate. Critically, the program’s reach is national, because the software, data science, and cybersecurity skills that software-defined vehicles demand are spread across universities and disciplines.
“We’re making sure we’re leveraging strong research across the country,” said Kokaly.
Engineering’s next generation
Academic research can open the door to new ideas, but today’s vehicles demand much more. The technology has to work in real conditions, inside complex and fast-changing systems, and with enough reliability that people can trust it on the road.
That bar is especially high in automated and autonomous driving. As Kokaly put it, a vehicle is “a product that has potential to cause harm.”
Some of that work is already shaping how GM develops its vehicle technology. In partnership with researchers at the University of Waterloo, the company is using simulations to study how vehicle materials might perform in a crash or under stress, helping engineers do more early virtual testing before moving to physical prototypes. Safety-critical software is also a priority: through its collaboration with the McMaster Centre for Software Certification at McMaster University, GM is advancing research into the certification of safety-related software systems that underpin modern vehicles. Another project brings the challenge closer to home, with GM and the University of Toronto working on harsh-weather autonomy—a distinctly Canadian problem that asks how vehicles can better see and respond while maneuvering through snow, ice and poor visibility.
“Specialization is definitely important. But having an interdisciplinary and system-level way of thinking and the ability to connect those different disciplines is how we succeed in building our products.”
Those challenges will only become more important as vehicles take on more autonomous decision-making. GM is currently planning to bring its first eyes-off driving to market in 2028 in its Cadillac Escalade IQ electric SUV, enabling the vehicle to handle more of the driving along approved routes.
For students and early-career engineers and developers, Kokaly said the shift toward software-defined vehicles creates a real opportunity to work on technology that is still being defined. The key is to start building industry connections before graduation and to stay curious about how different systems come together inside a vehicle.
She also advises students not to box themselves in too soon. Deep tech skills still matter, but the most interesting work in the automotive sector right now happens where different fields come together. The engineers and developers who can move between them, ask good questions and see how all the pieces fit together will be the ones helping define the new era of automotive tech.
“Specialization is definitely important,” said Kokaly. “But having an interdisciplinary and system-level way of thinking and the ability to connect those different disciplines is how we succeed in building our products.”
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Feature image courtesy GM.