A consortium of 11 automotive OEMs and suppliers (including BMW, Continental, Eclipse Foundation, ETAS, HELLA, Mercedes-Benz, Qorix, Bosch, Valeo and Vector Informatik), with the support of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), have agreed on pre-competitive cooperation in open-source software development.
A corresponding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for this agreement was signed at the 29th International Automotive Electronics Congress (AEK). The agreement was motivated by the need to increase speed and efficiency in development while ensuring high quality and safety. Here, the consortium further noted that a significant portion of the vehicle software is not directly accessible to the user and, therefore, not differentiating. This fact, however, allows the corresponding software modules to be developed jointly in an open and collaborative ecosystem.
In order to achieve the necessary functional safety for automotive series software, the consortium with the VDA have prepared a development process for open source for certification according to the relevant standards. In addition, by providing executable software modules instead of detailed specifications, standardization and increased development speed are achieved through a ‘code-first’ approach.
The software development process, itself, will take place in a transparent and vendor-independent environment of the Eclipse Foundation as part of the S-CORE project. This ecosystem is open, both through software interoperability with relevant industry standards, and for contributions and collaboration from other European and international companies.
The modular software scope can be adapted or expanded and then made available to the industry as a customized distribution for series development. This will allow OEMs and suppliers to focus on differentiating features while maintaining core components together. Here, the VDA and the consortium are together aiming to create a strong foundation for innovation, while providing the industry with the freedom to focus on what makes the difference for the customer.
The initiative’s timeline envisages that the software scope for series development of a platform for autonomous driving will be available in 2026.