WedoLow, winner of the 2023 GPACF Autotech Pioneer Prize

WedoLow, a startup based in Rennes that publishes software promoting the eco-design of digital services, is among the 2 winners of the 2023 edition of the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France Autotech 2023 (GPACF) for the Pioneer Prize, an international startup competition supported in particular by industrial heavyweights such as Renault Group, Forvia, Motul or Plastic Omnium.

WedoLow — 2023 Pioneer Prize Winner

The Grand Prix Automobile Club de France Autotech is now an unmissable event for the startup ecosystem dedicated to the vehicle and mobility industry. Last Thursday, April 20, the last round of the 2023 edition was held with the Pitch session for the 6 finalists divided into 2 categories.

After applying in December and then passing the selection on the application and the semi-finals in January, WedoLow, a startup from Rennes created in April 2022 offering a solution for optimizing embedded and hosted applications promoting software eco-design, was declared the winner of the 2023 Pioneer Prize by a jury of 19 prestigious members by a jury of 19 prestigious members including managers and managers from Renault Group, Forvia, Plastic Omnium, Dassault Systèmes or even Motul.

The car in the midst of a software revolution

A car is now 200 million lines of code. And 600 million by 2025. Manufacturers are now talking about a “Software-defined vehicle”. It is the software that drives the car, provides added value and contributes to disrupting the economic models of large groups based on the dynamics initiated by Tesla. Volkswagen and Stellantis are now presenting themselves as “software companies.” The reason is simple: 60% of the value of a vehicle in 2030 will come from software.

This multiplication of lines of code, in addition to its functionalities and its added value, also has a significant impact in terms of energy consumption and CO emission.₂. Even more so with the electrification of the fleet.

That's where WedoLow comes in. Its expertise, in optimizing the algorithms (=calculations) of software embedded in vehicles, makes it possible to reduce their size, improve their performance and speed of execution and therefore to generate gains in energy consumption.

A response to the challenges of vehicle manufacturers

By allowing software engineers and developers to design optimized applications as needed, WedoLow gives them the power to act at all stages of their development to correct and improve them. An opportunity to offer a final product that is better designed prior to its marketing, to reduce interventions afterwards and to reduce the time-to-market.

For the automotive industry, these are key assets in meeting the challenges of this industry, including:

. guarantee controlled release times for new models because they are not impacted by software faults in terms of performance and efficiency

. guarantee good management of the battery system and greater autonomy

. enable updates more easily and quickly

. reduce costs during the development phase and generate new gains through the addition of new functionalities or applications, on the same model as smartphones.

. offer a better experience for drivers (autonomy, charging speed, new features)

The members of the GPACF Autotech competition jury, by designating WedoLow as the winner of the 2023 Pioneer Prize, recognized the technological and scientific innovation and the added value of its expertise as well as its ability to contribute, alongside industrialists, to supporting this ongoing revolution towards a” Software-Defined and Sustainable Vehicle ”.

Relive the winning pitch of Justine Bonnot and the question and answer game with the jury: