Out of fear of the Americans?
A huge group of no less than 11, mainly German, companies want to jointly develop open-source software for automotive applications. Participants include Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes.
BMW, Continental, Hella, Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, Valeo, Porsche, and ZF: just some of the big names from the European automotive industry that have joined this new, as yet unnamed collaboration. The collaboration is being established with the support of the German industry association VDA, which reports on its website that it is becoming increasingly important for the industry to take action as quickly as possible with automotive software.
Automotive News Europe also links the step to the superiority of, in particular, American companies in this area. If the European automotive industry wants to keep up with the times, it will have to come up with good alternatives quickly. The participating parties see software as something that does not essentially contribute to the distinguishing ability of the various parties to a high degree.
Moreover, there remains room to give the developed products their own twist, so that car manufacturers and suppliers can still distinguish themselves in this way. The collaboration wants to have the base in place in 2026, while the first cars that use this software platform should appear in 2030.