Daniel Knobloch of Car Connectivity Consortium: The Smartphone Has Completely Replaced the Traditional Car Key

The automotive industry has been disrupted recently with new exciting technologies that have made cars and trucks much smarter, much safer, and much more sustainable and more environmentally friendly.

What other exciting disruptive technologies will we see in the next few years? How much longer will fossil fuel powered cars be produced? When will we see fully autonomous vehicles? Can we overcome the challenge of getting stuck in traffic? As cars become “moving computers”, do we have to worry about people hacking our cars? How else will our driving experience be different over the next five years? To address these questions, Authority Magazine started a new interview series about “Exciting Leading Edge Technologies That Are Making Cars & Trucks Smarter, Safer, and More Sustainable.” In this series we are talking to leaders of automotive companies, automotive tech companies, EV companies, and other tech leaders who can talk about the vehicles of the future. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Knobloch.

Daniel Knobloch is the vice president of the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), a cross-industry organization advancing global technologies for smartphone-to-car connectivity solutions, such as the CCC Digital Key, and the lead engineer for wireless ecosystems at BMW of North America.

Daniel has served various roles during his five years at the CCC including being chair of both the ecosystem and technical working groups, two vital components to the advancement of the consortium. In his previous role as president of the CCC, Daniel led the global vision of the CCC Digital Key and gathered industry experts to support the ecosystem of over 177 members including major brands in vehicle and device industries.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started in the automotive industry?

Five years after I started my career in audio signal processing for a loudspeaker measurement equipment company, and as a passionate automobile enthusiast, I decided to dedicate my work to the end products at one of the premium car manufacturers.

In 2015, I was approached by BMW to join the team developing digital keys. I was excited to be part of this group and explore the possibilities of using smart devices as car keys and virtually sharing with friends and family. A believer in the innovative idea, I accepted the position. I started researching the most appropriate technologies to build a digital key, enabling the passive entry user experience with smartphones to allow approaching your car without the need to take the device out of your pocket when entering the vehicle.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

My career has evolved over the years, from pioneer work on digital key at BMW to leading the Car Connectivity Consortium as president. In 2021, when asked to take full responsibility for the organization, I agreed to the assignment with three main goals; forming a solid team, finding the best executives to lead the CCC long-term, and building an organization that provides a strong foundation for the CCC Digital Key ecosystem.

Within the first year, I was lucky enough to find Alysia Johnson, who, as of the first of 2023, took over operative control of the CCC as president, allowing me to invest more time in the future of the CCC Digital Key. I will continue serving as the CCC’s VP and Board Member.

Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?

The Car Connectivity Consortium is currently in an extraordinary moment. Over the years, the entire smartphone and vehicle industry has gathered and standardized the CCC Digital Key. The organization grew quickly from a few companies to over 170 working on the digital key ecosystem.

The CCC Digital Key is a standardized technology that enables mobile devices to store, authenticate, and share digital keys for vehicles in a secure, privacy-preserving way that works everywhere. It allows consumers to use their mobile devices to access their vehicles even when the smartphone’s battery is low. Along with CCC Digital Key’s convenient usage, it offers enhanced security and privacy protections. CCC Digital Key aims to complement traditional key fob implementations while being robust enough to potentially replace them in the future.

The CCC Digital Key uses Near Field Communication® (NFC) technology for contactless communication between smartphones and vehicles. The most recent CCC Digital Key Release 3.0 adds hands-free, location-aware keyless access and features for an improved user-friendly experience. It has been achieved using Ultra-Wideband (UWB) in combination with Bluetooth Low Energy® connectivity. It maintains support for NFC technology to ensure backward compatibility.

Everyone who has used the function so far has had a positive experience. The accuracy and ease of use are unparalleled, and once installed, you can bring your phone and leave your key at home.

How do you think this might change the world?

Passive electronic key fobs are widely used, but you still need one for each car you own. With increasing focus on our phones, a key fob is just one more thing to forget when we leave the house — your phone has replaced your travel pass and credit card, so why not your car key? What’s missing is a worldwide standard that enables our mobile devices to be used as keys for our vehicles. The CCC Digital Key closes this gap. Existing smartphone apps to control and manage access to our vehicles have used different, non-interoperable approaches with varying degrees of convenience, security, and privacy protection. CCC Digital Key gives users the security they’re looking for, and it’s convenient to implement in a smart device.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks of this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Security is the most sensitive topic of integrating a key into the smartphone. No one wants to wake up and find out their car is missing. Not only is it a monetary loss, but also the emotional damage of a thief intruding on your personal space. Stealing your car is something no vehicle OEM wants its customers to experience.

Therefore, in the development phase, security is something being taken care of with utmost importance. The CCC Digital Key architecture foresees all security-critical functions to be operated in an isolated security chip in the smartphone, called “Secure Element,” embedded technology that provides a tamper-resistant secure implementation to provide the highest level of protection from hardware and software-based attacks.

The proximity detection based on which the vehicle will automatically open the car and detects when the key is in the car to drive the car is based on a new wireless technology “Ultra-Wideband” (UWB). UWB is based on IEEE 802.15.4z, which allows a time-of-flight measurement by using the time a signal travels from the sender to the receiver at the speed of light. This technology has been specifically improved to use a cryptographically secured pulse sequence to protect it from attackers manipulating the distance to drive a vehicle when the key is not in the vehicle.

What are a few things that most excite you about the automotive industry as it is today? Why?

I am most excited by the interdisciplinary work and the great products in the automotive industry. Experiencing a new developed function on an actual car is most rewarding.

Based on your vantage point as an insider in the automotive industry, what other exciting disruptive technologies will we see in the next few years? Can you share some of the new developments that will make vehicles smarter, safer, and more sustainable?

With the introduction of CCC Digital Key, a new wireless technology is being included in cars: Ultra-Wideband (UWB). This technology is primarily used to sense a distance in a cryptographically secure way. However, that technology also allows radar use cases to be operated with the same modules. As vehicles use multiple such modules inside and outside, detection of stable and moving objects comes at a low additional effort. Primarily we will see applications in child live presence and gesture detection in the market throughout the following years.

In your opinion, how much longer will fossil fuel powered cars be produced? When do you think EVs will be the majority of vehicles in use? Can you explain?

Today, we are seeing a strong uptake in EVs. The demand is high, and there is a need. Many car OEMs have announced they are entirely switching to EVs soon. From these announcements and the decisions being made accordingly, we will reach a point where most cars produced will be electric in this century. Time will tell if this is in 10, 20 or 30 years, or there may be another disruption as we experienced in the last 20 years.

When do you think we will see fully autonomous vehicles deployed in a mainstream way? What do you think are the main barriers to reaching that stage?

Autonomous vehicles in certain areas are something we will see soon. In the future, it will be an expected standard feature to turn into an autonomous driving mode on long drives.

Fully autonomous cars will take some more time. It is a very complex task to cope with so many different things that could happen. The human brain is excellent at identifying unusual things and creating suspicion, which leads to special attention to the correct details, which could lead to an accident. In cities and other dense traffic situations, there are so many corner case situations that it will take some time until machines can cope at a level that the public and government authorities would accept.

How else will our driving experience be different over the next five years?

Cars are becoming more connected and integrated into services. Today, I can check the state of my vehicle in my Vehicle OEM App, and when it needs service, my app notifies me to do so. My seat position is memorized, and when I enter the car, it automatically adjusts to the correct position. In the future, more functions will be deeply integrated into services and daily routines, creating even more convenience. Enabled by CCC Digital Key, this will be possible to expand beyond the cars you own. Shared or rented vehicles can be accessed and used as conveniently as your car or as buying a coffee in a café.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Automotive Industry?

The car industry is a space with a long history, built on the traditional values of a successful business.

First, the most important quality is honesty and trustworthiness. Joining the automotive industry six years ago, I was impressed by the strong appreciation of trust and how the business is built around that. It allows high performance and honest handling of failure.

It leads me directly to the second quality, excitement, and passion. Working in a positive environment allows you to find your place and explore what makes you excited. I am sure everyone can understand that the way a sports car can corner mountain roads could only be developed by someone who loves cornering mountain roads.

The third quality is commitment. When I started to work on the CCC Digital Key years ago, there were more than a handful of situations where it seemed impossible to achieve a digital key ecosystem for the smartphone and automotive industries. Once you have a passion for the project and a vision, personal commitment carries you through the highs and the lows.

Responsibility is the key to a successful business. This is often achieved by substantial rewards being made dependent on the success of a project. Real responsibility, however, is intrinsic and will lead a team to care about every important detail of a project for the purpose of completeness and a bit of perfection.

Lastly is excellence. Developing new technologies will put us at the edge of possible achievement. Teams in the automotive industry can only manage these tasks with real excellence in the technology field itself. Developing the CCC Digital Key, we found that, for example, localizing a phone around the car with UWB is a challenging task. Only using the latest machine learning tricks, including robustness training, creates the excellent user experience expected by customers.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

When I entered the automotive industry, I did so because the product excites me. I considered it both a hobby and work. I want to inspire those to do the same and work on things that make them excited. Create an environment where going to work feels like a hobby while still having goals you want to achieve and cultivate that environment with trust and honesty.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Please follow me on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.