VDA Guidelines Consumer Electronics

About This Publication

Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of new trends and developments in the automotive industry. Besides a changed communication behavior of the people in the vehicle, autonomous driving and the wireless networking of the vehicle with infrastructure and other vehicles (V2x) play an increasingly important role. This also includes, for example, outsourcing data and computing power to cloud service providers.

 In this regard, ever larger amounts of data and the necessary speed of communication require corresponding hardware within the vehicle in order to ensure the necessary computing power and low latency. In many cases, the corresponding microprocessors and memory have been defined and developed for use in the industry and consumer electronics sectors.

 Communication does not only take place between the vehicle and external devices and external infrastructure but also between the domains in the vehicle’s electrical system. In order to ensure this connectivity, it can also be necessary to use corresponding communication protocols and electronic components developed for the consumer electronics market (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, 5G, Ethernet). In addition, the human-machine interface (HMI) is changing more and more rapidly. The corresponding sensors and processors used here are also often taken from the consumer electronics sector.

 The aim of these guidelines is to allow for fact-based business decisions regarding the use of consumer electronics (CE) components in a vehicle and to point out potential risks.