German suppliers plan car operating system with Microsoft

The German supplier companies Continental, Bosch, and ZF have announced the joint development of an open-source operating system with the US software corporation Microsoft. The unified operating system is intended to be globally deployable and configurable by automotive manufacturers with individual functions. The open-source approach is expected to bring more speed to development. Peter Fintl, Head of Technology and Innovations at consulting provider Capgemini, emphasized: "Not everything needs to be developed by everyone."

Coordinated by the non-profit Eclipse Foundation

The Eclipse Foundation is a society founded by IBM with the task of supporting the open-source community and its projects. In the "Software-Defined Vehicle Working Group," the contributions that the various companies can bring into the process are synchronized. The focus of development is an automotive ecosystem that is intended to provide a kind of toolkit for automotive manufacturers. Linux is planned as the operating system, and Microsoft does not want to contribute its own Windows operating system, but rather its cloud solution.

“The idea is to use existing solutions and build upon them, not to reinvent the wheel,” explained Martin Schleicher, Head of Software Strategy at Continental.

Platform by Bosch and Microsoft

In parallel, Bosch and Microsoft are developing a joint solution based on Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing platform, which is designed to enable seamless connectivity between car and cloud. The goal of the collaboration is to ensure that vehicle software can be developed faster, easier, and over the entire life of the car, as well as being deployed to control units and vehicle computers via the cloud.

Automated Driving: Volkswagen and Bosch

Bosch and Cariad, the software subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, have agreed on a comprehensive partnership. The companies aim to make partially and highly automated driving suitable for mass production and available to everyone. These include so-called Level-2 "hands-free" systems for city, countryside, and highway driving as well as a system in which the vehicle takes over the entire driving task on the highway (SAE Level 3). Initial functions are expected to be implemented in 2023.

“The journey to driverless driving for privately owned cars happens step by step – at Bosch, we have been working on it successfully for years. Together with Cariad, we are now accelerating the market introduction of partially and highly automated driving functions across all vehicle classes and making them available to everyone. This will make road traffic safer and more comfortable,” explains Markus Heyn, Bosch Managing Director.

Software from California – Apex.AI

The two German suppliers and technology companies Continental and ZF have almost simultaneously acquired shares in the German-American automotive software specialist Apex.AI. Their operating system Apex.OS is a meta-operating system originally developed for robotic applications. Apex.AI has further developed this operating system for the automotive sector and received ASIL D certification according to ISO 26262 for functional safety for vehicles from TÜV Nord.