Qualcomm’s Nakul Duggal: Artificial intelligence agents will supercharge car features

**Molly Boigon** (0:04)
Hello, and welcome to the Automotive News Shift podcast, where we bring you the latest on automotive technology, trends, and transformation.
I'm Molly Boigon, tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News. Our guest today is Nakul Duggal, executive vice president and group general manager for automotive, industrial, and robotics at Qualcomm. He spoke to me about why satellite connectivity could become the norm for every new connected vehicle.

**Nakul Duggal** (0:31)
The tech is already here. It is moving so quickly that these use cases are now adding true value to the experience, because this is something that all of us have to deal with.

**Molly Boigon** (0:42)
But first, let's talk about the week. For that, I'm joined by my colleague, Vince Bond Jr., a reporter at Automotive News covering Stellantis, marketing, and diversity. Hi, Vince.

**Vince Bond Jr.** (0:52)
How's it going?

**Molly Boigon** (0:53)
Great. How's it going with you?

**Vince Bond Jr.** (0:55)
It's going fantastic.

**Molly Boigon** (0:56)
Great. You covered some new forecasts out recently from Cox Automotive and Alex Partners. What were your key takeaways from those briefings?

**Vince Bond Jr.** (1:06)
Yes. There were several. I will say one is that electrified vehicle sales of all types will continue to grow.
We always talk about the US and EV demand is slowing, but on a global perspective, electrified vehicles are an upward trajectory, so they're going to keep on going up.
Alex Partners in their report said that in 2030, electrified vehicles with plugs, so BEVs, range-extended vehicles, and plug-in hybrids will make up 36 percent of global sales by 2030 Then by 2035, that rises to 50 percent. So on a global perspective, I mean, everybody's going to be plugging in and getting some efficiency out there. Then also, automakers need to be investing in those technologies, so really compete on a global basis. Then a couple more points, and then just on affordability, Alex partners said that the bottom 60 percent of US households are leaving the new car market. I thought that was pretty astounding. Just my takeaway from that is that dealers need to make sure their used car operations are functioning and running smoothly, as these customers who may be priced out of the new car market, they're going to be coming in looking for some used cars, so make sure you're on point there. Then one more thing on affordability too, they had an interesting forecast from Alex partners where they said that, so the COVID price hike, there was just a big rise in 2020, 2022 in those years. We lost 600,000 sales in the US in 2025 because of that price increase from COVID. And so that's pretty huge, 600,000 sales based on that price, losing those sales.

**Molly Boigon** (3:14)
Yeah, that is huge. And it's really interesting because I feel like you hear sort of two parallel tracks in the auto industry about affordability right now. One is, yeah, average transaction prices are extremely high. Basically, those middle and lower income buyers have basically exited the new car market, as you said, and have moved to use car markets. But then on the other hand, you still have people purchasing these vehicles with enormously high transaction prices, extended loan terms, stuff like that.
But what you just said is really staggering that actually, even though it seems like the markets are chugged along despite those high prices, there was a significant loss in sales for the auto industry.

**Vince Bond Jr.** (3:55)
Exactly. Exactly.

**Molly Boigon** (3:57)
Yeah, that's really interesting. Alex Partners also highlighted three potential growth areas for auto companies and those were humanoid robotics, energy storage systems and defense. So why are these three industries of interest for the auto industry?

**Vince Bond Jr.** (4:15)
Really, it comes down to just new revenue. So some of the traditional expansions for car companies and suppliers, they're like in aerospace or motorsports or aftermarket, things like that. But as you pointed out, defense, robotics, even battery energy storage systems, those are all new opportunities to really get some revenue out there. Their presentation actually highlights Tesla Energy.
So they have the big battery storage systems that can be used by commercial partners and utility companies out there. So that's one way to really branch out and try to find some ways to make some additional money out there.

**Molly Boigon** (5:01)
Yeah. Is the interest in those auto industry companies making additional money that way because of things like a loss in sales from the COVID hike or because of losses from EV sales, is it tied to other dire financial straits or is it just like, why not?

**Vince Bond Jr.** (5:19)
Yeah. So the presentation didn't really touch on that too much. But if you look at the atmosphere out there, just with terror pressures and regulations out there, I mean, yeah, you do need to make some money in different ways now.