EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

AUTOSAR solidified

The worldwide development partnership for a standardized automotive software architecture started fairly promising. Unfortunately, 'versionitis' has taken hold and now the two lines 3.x and 4.x are in use concurrently and both need to be developed. The newest v4 release is mainly dealing with stability issues.

Kaluga’s drive to environmental protection

Russia is famous for many things, environmentalism not among them. In that huge country even small improvements can have a large impact - especially in heavily industrialized areas.

Back in Japan

In the weeks after the threefold disaster in Japan, many car manufacturers and automotive suppliers had to cut back their production. Yesterday, the 18th of April, Mitsubishi’s plants in the stricken country took up production again.

Joint venture for electric motors

A bold move: Daimler and Bosch plan to cooperate in the development and production of electric motors for all-electric vehicles in Europe. This is certainly good for Daimler where know-how in this area is scarce. Bosch on the other hand can but hope that its other customers don't see a conflict of interest.

Japan: News from Distributors

European and international distributors offer online information about the delivery and supply situation regarding their Japanese linecards.

Convertibles from Osnabrück

In the course of one year, Volkswagen has not just finished a new production facility but also brought its new convertible series to manufacturing readiness. The plant might help this economically unstable region of northern Germany to gain a foothold again.

Desperate days

After the horrifying earthquake followed by the disastrous tsunami, Japan now faces its most serious crisis since World War II. The country is confronted with a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled nuclear power plants could go on for weeks or even months. At least, Tokyo’s stock exchange Nikkei plunged over 6% with start on Monday and ended below 10,000 after the quake: Major carmakers fell across the board on Monday as they were forced to suspend operations at their plants, largely due to shortages of supplies, while construction-linked shares surged on investors' expectations of an increase in demand for rebuilding.

MOST150 on a roll

While MOST certainly is the largest, most implemented multimedia network for automotive applications, it seems to have got a bit quiet around it lately. Alas, springtime is MOST Forum time, where news get spread around.

The charging net

While finding a place where to charge an electric car can still be quite a challenge, Bosch Software Innovations already aims at the next level of infrastructure: A comprehensive open business platform for eMobility.

125 years on a ride

2011 is the celebration year for the automotive industry. 125 years ago, Carl Benz registered his »vehicle with gas-engine drive« with the Berlin Patent Office and in the same year 1886, Bosch also came into existence. At Daimler’s , the year started with an anniversary party.