October 19, 2012 For automotive OEMs, software - and the related competence - are increasingly becoming a decisive factor in the competition. At the recent VDI congress on automotive electronics, a major event in Germany's automotive engineering scene, BMW explained why and how carmakers can differentiate through software. Read more

October 11, 2012 In the project webinos, researchers are developing an open-source application platform for apps. The platform will help carmakers to integrate them into one of the most sophisticated mobile devices: The car. Read more

September 17, 2012 In a time when teens prefer smartphones over cars and urban traffic situation increasingly discourage the use of conventional vehicles as a means for individual mobility, carmakers rack their brains over sustainable vehicle concepts The BMW Group and the automotive open-source community Local Motors announced they will jointly launch a first-of-its kind ideas competition intended to identify vehicle features and functions that will define the urban driving experience in the year 2025. For the winners, BMW offers prizes with a total value of $ 30.000. Read more

September 11, 2012 Over the next three years, 15 partners from German science and the automotive and supply industry will research how the safety of lithium ion batteries can be further improved for electric and hybrid vehicles. Focal points of the research program dubbed SafeBatt will be new materials, test methods and semiconductor sensors for use in lithium ion batteries. 

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July 24, 2012 The new BMW 7 Series, to be rolled out these days, is packed full of electronics. The designs show in which direction the industry currently goes - and what middle-class and compact-class car drivers likely can expect in several years. Read more

July 13, 2012 Megatrends like sustainability, urbanization and materials revolution are forcing OEMs to build a web of partnerships that drive innovation – or to risk being left in the dust. Technologies like alternative fuels, electric vehicles, and advanced composites are partial responses to these megatrends, but understanding their impact on the industry requires looking at all of them in complete automotive ecosystems, according to a new Lux Research report. Read more

July 10, 2012 Though more and more OEMs yield to the market pressure and install inexpensive navigation systems from volume vendors, BMW these days has introduced the next generation of its custom-made navigation and infotainment systems, providing insights which direction HMI design will take over the years to come. BMWs latest ConnectedDrive generation features 3D representation even for the menus and animated transitions, all powered by a 1.3GHz processor with dedicated graphics chip. Read more

June 19, 2012 Silicon Valley is becoming the next Detroit, but Detroit is by no means asleep at the wheel these days when it comes to connected, green vehicles. Read more

June 11, 2012 Automotive subsystem supplier Preh GmbH has scored a success in addressing future markets for electric and hybrid vehicles: The company got the assignment to integrate the ECUs for the lithium-ion battery management in BMW's new ActiveHybrid 5 sedan. Preh expertise is also used in the BMW ActiveE, which is exclusively electric-powered. Read more

May 14, 2012 Software development gives headaches to automotive electronics R&D managers: While the development complexity increases rapidly, the software at the same time becomes an increasingly important and essential ingredient in automotive controls. During the fourth Congress on Real-Time Development organized by software vendor Inchron, OEMs and tier ones discussed strategies to tackle the challenges. Read more

May 3, 2012 While electric vehicles, driven by energy from renewable sources, could be an attractive option for urban mobility, e-cars derived from conventional cars are too heavy and too expensive to gain the acceptance of the masses. Light cars, in contrast, do not reach an acceptable level of safety. The Technical University of Munich has now launched a research project aiming at designing a vehicle that is light, safe and at the same time easy to manufacture. Read more

April 5, 2012 At the Beijing Auto Show later this month, BMW will show for the first time a two-seater sports car with hybrid electric drive. The vehicle exhibits rather extreme features and can be regarded as an example for what is possible today with a perfect blend of mechanics, electronics and smart connectivity. Read more

March 23, 2012 BMW will integrate Continental's second-generation head-up display into its medium-class 3 series vehicle. This generation is smaller but offers more features compared to its predecessor which was integrated into the 5 series. Continental is already preparing the third generation. One of the ingredients will be augmented reality, the company hints. Read more

March 16, 2012 The data infrastructure that enables electromobility is the sphere of activity for a startup company named hubjet GmbH, based in Berlin. The company is a joint venture of automotive OEMs BMW and Daimler, parts supplier Bosch as well as technology provider Siemens AG. Also two utilities, EnBW and RWE are part of the team. Read more

December 14, 2011 Communications chip vendor Broadcom Corporation has introduced a broad automotive Ethernet portfolio, engineered to meet the rigorous qualifications and demands of the automotive semiconductor market. Broadcom's BroadR-Reach automotive portfolio delivers high-performance bandwidth of 100Mbps and beyond while dramatically reducing connectivity costs up to 80 % and cabling weight as much as 30 %, the company claims. Read more

December 1, 2011 Carmakers BMW and Toyota have signed a medium to long-term agreement to jointly conduct R&D activities targeting an environmental-friendly automotive technologies. BMW will also sell fuel efficient diesel engines to Toyota Motor Europe (TME). Read more

November 9, 2011 The trend towards the deployment of Ethernet in for in-vehicle networking (IVN) is gaining further momentum: After recent announcements from chip vendor Freescale and automotive supplier Continental, four technology companies launched the OPEN Special Interest Group aiming at establishing the technology in automotive applications. Read more

November 7, 2011 For the first time, carmaker BMW has presented a Supplier Innovation Award. A total of nine suppliers were recognized for outstanding innovations, including some for electronics. Read more

November 3, 2011 Researchers of the Munich Technical University have developed a car-based sensor unit that can monitor the driver's health status. At the same time, the sensor can serve for early detection of sudden weakness of cardiac attacks. Read more

October 20, 2011 Siemens and BMW have developed a flexible fast transfer charging system for electric vehicles, enabling the driver to charge the battery from AC or DC energy sources using the same connector. Now the companies plan to transfer the concept into an international standard. Read more

October 14, 2011 Standard IT components and approaches increasingly enter automotive electronics. Now Ethernet is about to be established as the data bus standard for future car generations. Read more

October 11, 2011 At the International VDI congress and exhibition “Electronic Systems for Motor Vehicles”, vehicle manufactures Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche, and Volkswagen are going to present the Combined Charging System for the first time. The Combined Charging System has been developed in close cooperation with American vehicle manufacturers Ford and General Motors (GM). Read more

October 4, 2011 Automotive-related radio communications is an increasingly difficult terrain: Where once AM and FM receivers completely met the requirements of automotive infotainment, today a vast diversity of different standards is in use to interconnect the car with its environment - and the diverse electronic devices inside the car among each other. For automotive OEMs, this situation is increasingly a challenge. In order to keep hardware complexity at bay, BMW has joined forces with a number of partners and implemented a software-defined radio platform capable to handle the diversity of standards. Read more

September 28, 2011 Automotive OEMs and the University of Passau (Germany) have launched a research project that aims at reducing costs for safety-relevant driver assistant systems by shared use of components. The goal is to make these systems affordable also for compact cars and even small cars. Read more

September 1, 2011 Following the introduction of the full LED headlight, carmaker BMW regards laser light as the next logical step in the development of vehicle headlight technology. The development is already in an advanced stage, the company said. Read more

June 16, 2011 Car makers Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen have agreed to jointly incorporate a number of common architectural elements for their on-board power network. These include an additional 48V section and a charging connector type for all electric and hybrid vehicles as well as CAN bus interfaces supporting partial network operation. Read more

May 24, 2011 At the third Autosar congress, automotive vendors provided insights into the maturity status of the software system. In the half decade ahead, the market penetration for the automotive standard software environment is poised to skyrocket. Read more

May 18, 2011 BMW and Volkswagen have developed prototypes of "smart" intersection assistant systems aiming at improving the safety in blind or complex intersections. The assistant systems demo for the first time a practical use of the car-to-x communications scheme. Both systems were developed independent of each other, but as a contribution to the Intersafe-2 research project. Read more

May 9, 2011 Following on to its recent success at the Shanghai automotive exhibition, the BMW Group now plans to further expand its activities in China. The company announced to invest one billion euros into the plant it operates together with local joint venture partner Brilliance. Read more

April 28, 2011 BMW has a reputation for taking the lead when it comes to integrating fashionable consumer electronics functions and gadgets into its vehicles. In particular for its MINI brand, BMW engineers made great efforts to attract zeitgeisty customers. Now it shifted into the next gear on the road to its technophile clientele: It offers access to social networks during the ride. Read more

April 20, 2011 The RESCAR 2.0 research project seeks to enhance the reliability and robustness of electronic automotive components. Six partners from all levels of the development chain have joined forces in a quest to come up with overarching solutions. Read more

April 8, 2011 Transmission technology company ZF Friedrichshafen and carmaker BMW have launched a research project aiming at an integrated solution for hybrid components. Project goal is a design that brings the control and power electronics unit as close to the transmission as possible. As a result, production and servicing of hybrid vehicles would be much simpler. Read more

February 17, 2011 The increasing permeation of automotive and consumer electronics will become visible by a concept car BMW plans to exhibit at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show: The vehicle will feature a radical different HMI, taking advantage of achievements like augmented reality and software-configurable instrument panels. Read more

February 9, 2011 With the next generation of the traffic information system included in its ConnectedDrive communications platform, BMW claims it significantly will improve traffic information quality fed into the on-board navigation system: The system uses data bases collected from a large number of roadside sensors as well as anonymized mobile phone and navigation system motion data. Read more

February 2, 2011 Car makers BMW and PSA Peugeot Citroën announced to establish a joint venture named BMW Peugeot Citroën Electrification. The new company is dedicated to the development of components for hybrid electric vehicles including power electronics and software. Read more

January 27, 2011 Automotive component supplier Magneti Marelli and embedded software vendor Wind River have announced a technological collaboration to create what they call the first Genivi-compliant in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) solution for the automotive industry. The first customer is BMW. Read more

January 19, 2011 In times of increasingly more powerful driver assistant systems, automatic driving appears on the horizon of many automotive R&D managers. At the Innovation Summit in Munich, BMW explained the pros and cons of automatic driving. The discussion highlights the complicated splits between the feasible and the desirable. Read more

December 22, 2010 Not that it comes as a big surprise, but the year 2010 is about to peter out – a good reason to look back and reflect what it brought to automotive electronic designers and the industry. The ten articles most read in 2010 on this site provide a good overview on what occupied the engineers. Read more

November 11, 2010 A pan-European field trial of the eCall emergency system which automatically calls emergency operators in the event of a road accident has started today. The European Union has called for mandatory implementation of eCall with all new cars should be fitted with eCall as standard between 2013 and 2015. Read more

November 2, 2010 Against the background of increasingly restricted space for individual mobility in urban agglomeration zones BMW plans to intensify its two-wheeler activities targeted at commuters. In this context the company has announced to build an electrically driven big scooter. Read more

October 26, 2010 Carmaker BMW has announced the second generation of its NGTP (Next Generation Telematics Patterns) applications interface. According to the company, the open-source, technology-neutral interface is intended to speed telematics services development. Read more

October 19, 2010 BMW and PSA Peugeot Citroen have announced to expand their existing cooperation to hybrid systems. The companies said they will jointly develop electric drive trains and also plan to bundle forces in purchasing. Read more

September 23, 2010 At the Paris Motor Show, BMW will demo a concept study of an electrically driven scooter. But not so much the electric drive will likely attract mostly young customers but the degree of integrating consumer electronics into the vehicle. Read more

August 18, 2010 Car manufacturer BMW has concluded its e-car usability pilot project in Munich. Similar projects in UK, the U.S. and Germany have been extended. Now the company plans to launch such a project in China. Read more

July 27, 2010 In an project highlighting the increasing merger of home and automotive entertainment technologies, a consortium explores ways to use home media content in vehicles and mobile devices. Read more

July 13, 2010 As an example of the much-discussed consumer electronics integration into vehicles, BMW has announced to support Apple's iPod Out feature in its BMW and Mini vehicles. The feature enables in-car infotainment systems to display and control the music playback stored on the mobile players and handsets via the vehicle's main display. Read more

July 5, 2010 These days, BMW has introduced the concept for its first pure e-car, to be launched in 2013. Besides the electric drive, the vehicle will excel through its extensive use of carbon fibre reinforced plastic, an extremely light but stable material. Read more

June 17, 2010 A few weeks ago, a group of US scientist performed a rather spectacular hack on a car's electronics. EE Times Europe asked experts from industry and research institutes if this proves that today's cars are inherently insecure. The answers we received tell their own tale. Read more

June 16, 2010 While the FlexRay automotive data bus system has yet to find mass acceptance in volume vehicles, some OEMs already consider connectivity options beyond FlexRay. At a congress, BMW detailed plans to roll out Ethernet/IP technology within vehicles. Read more

June 2, 2010 Anticipatory driver assistance systems can mitigate the severity of an accident. This appears like plain logic. However, it hitherto was difficult to verify it since standard crash test methods did not allow taking the effect of these systems into account. BMW now developed such a crash test along with engineering services provider Dekra. The result: Driver assistant systems indeed help reducing the crash speed and thus improving occupancy safety. Read more

April 14, 2010 Effective April 1, Stefan Bunzel has succeeded Simon Fürst as the spokesperson for the Autosar software development partnership. The move follows the normal Autosar nine-month rotation scheme for this function. Read more

March 18, 2010 A joint project by Siemens and BMW aims at improving algorithms that help to reduce fuel consumption: The consortium plans to develop interaction schemes between car and smart infrastructure that can interact with the auto start-stop mechanism in the car in order to further optimize fuel consumption. Read more

March 11, 2010 As a measure to keep the ever-increasing complexity in automotive electronics at bay, OEMs and chip vendors have created the Autosar software standard environment. In order to broaden the expertise basis among chip designers, the Autosar group spreads its gospel among chip designers at the DATE congress taking place in Dresden. Read more