Alliance set up to develop “software-defined vehicles”

Developing the automotive future together

Software will play an increasingly important role in future vehicle generations, not least because new trends such as electromobility, automated driving, and modern mobility services would not be possible without it. Accordingly, updates and upgrades will also be much more frequent in the future.

However, stringent safety requirements throughout the vehicle’s lifetime make wireless software updates and digital services for cars very complex. The wide range of different series and models makes things even more challenging.

Having a comprehensive software platform from the vehicle to the cloud will reduce the complexity of the software development and the vehicle system integration. In this way it will create the conditions for wireless updates to work just as smoothly and conveniently in vehicles as they do in smartphones. The pre-integrated platform will greatly reduce the complexity of over-the-air updates, which help ensure that a vehicle’s software is always up to date, thanks to the fact that the software architectures of vehicles and the cloud will now fit together seamlessly.

The collaboration will benefit from Bosch’s deep understanding of electrical and electronic architectures, control units, and vehicle computers, which is necessary for over-the-air vehicle updates. In addition, Bosch will contribute its expertise as well as software-based products and development tools for cars. This includes the basic software and middleware for vehicle computers and control units, as well as cloud-based software modules to bring over-the-air updates to entire vehicle fleets.