The number of connected vehicles in service worldwide is projected to rise from 473.7 million in 2025 to more than 1.05 billion in 2035, according to Omdia. The challenge is that many of those vehicles rely on 4G LTE modems while some mobile operators could begin retiring LTE from 2030, potentially cutting off cloud-dependent vehicle features long before the vehicle itself reaches the end of its life.
The risk is not that an LTE-dependent car would suddenly lose core locally operated driving functions such as steering or braking. It concerns services that need an active connection to external networks, and the exact impact will vary with the vehicle architecture and the services provided by its manufacturer.
- Over-the-air software updates
- Live traffic data used by navigation systems
- Route planning for electric vehicles
- Certain connected safety services
Newer hardware will not automatically solve the problem for vehicles already on the road. Omdia has projected that nearly 89% of automotive communication modules shipped in 2035 could be 5G-compatible, but those shipments do not upgrade the hundreds of millions of older installed modules. Cars typically remain in use through several generations of cellular-network changes.
A 2030 timeline should not be read as a worldwide LTE switch-off date. Omdia’s warning concerns the potential start of LTE withdrawals by individual operators, while a vehicle’s connectivity can also depend on where it is driven, its roaming arrangements and the cellular standards supported by its modem. An eSIM may make it easier to change providers, but it cannot turn a 4G-only modem into 5G hardware. The key unresolved issue for automakers is whether affected vehicles will have a long-term connectivity plan, including a practical hardware-upgrade path where necessary.
