Harold C. A. Goddijn – TomTom N.V. – Co-Founder, Chairman of the Management Board & CEO
Yes. So yes, IVI platform, it's quite exciting times, actually, because one of the first cars that's based on our new IVI platform will — is nearly ready for SOP, start of production. And that is the first proof point out there in the market that it all works. We had, in our marketing communication, told the market that we think we can, by applying this technology, reduce cycle times by at least half and reduce cost of developing those systems by 70% to 80%. And those numbers are confirmed.
Now, we can do postmortem with our launch customer. We have indeed developed this in record time, and total cost to develop these systems are only a fraction of what it typically would cost a larger, more complex — arguably, also more complex OEM, to develop this. So that is an early proof point that the assumptions for getting in this market are validated. And that means that this platform is especially suitable for lower volume applications. The benefits are real. You need to think about electrical vehicles and start-ups, but also trucks, light commercial vehicles, that can benefit from the implementation of this technology.
On the commercial side, forward-looking, we're busy. There are five situations where we're in discussion to license this platform. We expect at least some of them to be finalized in a positive way over the next, I would say, 6 to 12 months or so.
With those five we are in detailed discussions. There is interest from the larger OEMs, but indeed, they would like to see more proof it is really working and doing what it is supposed to be doing. But that proof is accumulating, and we are in a much better position, a strong position than we had — than we were, let's say, 12 months ago.
We have gathered a ton of experience, of course, also connecting to the rest of the hardware and the electronics in the vehicle, how that all works together. It's a good trajectory, and it gives us an opportunity to serve those start-ups and smaller vehicles in a very cost-effective way. That's good both for the OEM and for us. And we hope that we'll build a nice portfolio of growing brands in that space.
I think it's kind of where the market is going to anyway, we see smaller runs. Electric platforms give you more opportunity, flexibility, to do special purpose vehicles. All that needs IVI and software. There's no known way of doing that cost effectively. And I think that our IVI platform is a clear beacon and an example of how you can build in flexibility and efficiency in your development flow, by working with well-thought-out components, to do in a fraction of the time and cost what the larger players need to spend in order to get their IVI products to life.
So, it kind of fits in a market trend of modularity, reusability of software, scale, and shorter times to market. So, in that respect, it's also an important development. I think we are on the money here, in terms of what the market will require over time, and that's not just for the smaller ones. But over time, that will also matter for the larger ones.