Software Firm Stuns Auto Industry by Building Electric Car in Just 9 Months

The global automobile industry was left astonished when an IT services company, not a traditional automaker, unveiled its own electric car at the Japan Mobility Show 2025. Tokyo-based SCSK Corporation, best known for its software and cloud solutions, developed a fully functional electric vehicle (EV) concept in just nine months — a feat that typically takes major manufacturers three to five years.

SCSK named the project the Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) EV Concept. Interestingly, the car was not created for commercial sale but to demonstrate how software-driven innovation can revolutionize vehicle development.

Why only nine months?
According to Koji Watanabe, General Manager of SCSK’s Mobility Business Group, the idea behind completing the car in nine months symbolizes “the time of a child’s birth” — representing the dawn of new mobility. Traditionally, car development follows a vertical model: hardware comes first, followed by software integration. But SCSK flipped this approach.

Watanabe explained, “We started with software at the core and collaborated horizontally with hardware partners worldwide. By prioritizing software, we drastically cut development time.” This experiment highlights how cross-industry collaboration can break long-standing barriers in automotive design and production.

Futuristic features
The SDV EV Concept looks like a car from the future. It features a large interactive front grille display and a massive 44.6-inch 8K pillar-to-pillar screen inside the cabin. A built-in AI assistant learns user habits — automatically adjusting temperature, navigation, and other settings to create a personalized driving environment.

SCSK aims to showcase how IT innovation and automotive engineering can merge to form a new ecosystem — one where car manufacturing becomes flexible, efficient, and software-first.