The Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source software foundations, and the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) today announced a significant expansion of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for an Automotive-Grade Open Source Software Ecosystem, transforming this group into one of the most advanced collaborations on next-generation vehicle design in the world.

Launched in June 2025 with 11 signatories, the MoU now includes 32 global companies, representing leaders across the entire automotive value chain. This reflects significant momentum and strong industry alignment around an open, interoperable, and certifiable software foundation for next-generation mobility, implemented within the Eclipse SDV Working Group.

“The growing participation in this collaboration reflects a clear global shift toward open innovation in the automotive industry,” said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. “Industry leaders recognise that trusted, open source foundations are essential to delivering the next generation of safe, intelligent, and connected vehicles.”

Aligning the industry around shared principles

The expansion of this global collaboration strengthens a shared commitment to addressing common industry challenges through collaborative open source development. By working within an open source software ecosystem with vendor neutral governance, participating organisations reduce fragmentation, improve interoperability and share the burden of developing complex, safety critical software.

The collaboration is designed to achieve:

• Up to 40% reduction in development, integration, and maintenance efforts for non-differentiating software, freeing up engineering capacity for innovative development
• Up to 30% faster time to market through shared, automotive-grade components
• Improved interoperability across suppliers and vehicle platforms
• Greater sustainability and long-term software maintainability

“Through joint development of non-differentiating software, manufacturers and suppliers can focus their resources on what truly matters: delivering unique, customer-centric experiences.”, said Dr. Marcus Bollig, VDA Managing Director.

A united, global ecosystem

With today’s news, this MoU group expands to become one of the world’s largest and most advanced open source ecosystems focused on code-first solutions for next-generation mobility.  New signatories include an array of industry leaders and innovators, such as 42dot, Accenture, AVL, Capgemini, Coretura, Cummins, ECARX, Elektrobit, Infineon, LEAR, LG Electronics, Michelin, MOBIS, QNX, Qualcomm, Red Hat, Schaeffler, Stellantis, Traton, T-Systems, and Useblocks joining founding participants Aumovio, BMW, Bosch, ETAS, Hella, Mercedes-Benz, Qorix, Valeo, Vector, Volkswagen, and ZF.

Together, this group makes up a global ecosystem that spans every facet of the automotive value chain, including manufacturers, suppliers, software companies, semiconductor providers, and cloud specialists.
 

From shared vision to working software

At the centre of this collaboration is Eclipse S-CORE, an open source, automotive-grade software stack developed within the Eclipse SDV Working Group. S-CORE brings together multiple SDV projects into a common reference stack and tooling environment designed to support certifiable, production-ready automotive software.

In November 2025, Eclipse S-CORE delivered its first public release (version 0.5), marking a key milestone and demonstrating the practical results of coordinated open source development. A full release is planned for 2026, targeting vehicle programs expected to reach the market at the latest by 2030.

A sustainable, global model for automotive software

Eclipse SDV provides a sustainable, transparent, and scalable model for industry-wide software innovation. By building shared software foundations in the open, participants are creating a common base for innovation that reduces redundancy, enhances safety, and accelerates time to market.

Together, these organisations are establishing a new benchmark for responsible, certifiable, and globally coordinated software innovation that will shape the future of mobility.

 

Quotes:

42dot.ai: Jinhee Choi, Head of Engineering

“Open collaboration around safety-critical automotive software is essential to realizing truly software-defined mobility. By joining the Eclipse SDV community, 42dot is aligning its full-stack SDV platform with a cohesive set of open initiatives – from the S-CORE safety-oriented vehicle core and OpenSOVD-based diagnostics, through rich Digital Twin capabilities, all the way to modern development tooling that unifies the vehicle and cloud software lifecycle. Drawing on 42dot’s experience in end-to-end software, data, and mobility platforms, we aim to help turn these projects into an integrated foundation that OEMs can rely on to reduce complexity, accelerate innovation, and focus on the in-vehicle experiences that truly differentiate their brands Together with Eclipse and our fellow members, we are committed to unlocking the next generation of connected, autonomous, and software-defined vehicles worldwide.”

 

Accenture Plc: Dr. Christof Horn, Global Lead SDV

“SDV is a team sport. Accenture is committed to delivering high-performance architectures into SoP, enabled by a vibrant open-source community.”

 

AVL List GmbH: Georg List, VP Corporate Strategy

“SDV technologies, open-source collaboration, and a strong ecosystem are key drivers for the next era of mobility. By contributing innovative solutions for SDV architectures and processes, AVL is enabling faster development cycles through intelligent, integrated tools.”

 

Capgemini Engineering: Peter Fintl, Head of Technology & Innovation

“Open-source is a key success factor in the race for innovative, sustainable, and inclusive mobility systems of the future. This also includes open standards to ensure interoperability, safety, security, and efficiency. Capgemini is a strong advocate of collaborative approaches - beyond the mobility industry. As an AI-powered business and technology transformation company, we see our role in the VDA open-source initiative as a contributor, orchestrater, and advocate in order to make open-source-based platforms and projects, like Eclipse S-CORE, ready for series development.”

 

Coretura AB: Johan Lundén, CEO

"Coretura is an independent company born from a joint venture between Daimler trucks and the Volvo Group. They are a software-driven, Al-first company developing the world’s first SDV platform for commercial vehicles. By building a solution with one language, one standard and one platform their technology is redefining how trucks, buses, and heavy equipment are designed, built, updated, and experienced. While building our own SDV solution, Coretura will share insights and findings within the open-source collaboration to help manufacturers solve common challenges and strengthen the shared software foundation."

 

Cummins: Jonathan Wood, Chief Technology Officer

“Cummins is committed to advancing software-defined vehicle architectures through close collaboration with OEM partners and Tier 1 suppliers. By working together across the commercial vehicle industry, we can enable cost-effective solutions that accelerate innovation and deliver value for our customers.”

 

ECARX PTE Ltd: Nicolas Persignat, Head of Global R&D

"At ECARX, we believe open-source collaboration is essential to unlock the full potential of software-defined vehicles. By contributing to the S-CORE initiative, we bring in our experience of intelligent automotive platforms to build a shared foundation that accelerates innovation and ensures sustainable growth for the entire industry."

 

Elektrobit GmbH: Maria Anhalt, CEO

“Elektrobit is deeply committed to open source, driving innovation through projects like EB corbos Linux and Eclipse Ankaios. We believe open collaboration is key to accelerating progress and managing the complexity of Software-Defined Vehicles. By fostering shared standards and open platforms, we help build an automotive ecosystem that is interoperable, secure, and sustainable.”

 

Infineon AG: Peter Schiefer, President and CEO, Automotive Division

„Open hardware will become a strong catalyst for the industry’s open-source software momentum. By aligning on a common, secure core software stack and working with well-documented hardware interfaces, we can improve safety, accelerate integration, and enable broader reuse across OEMs and suppliers. Recent collaborations within ecosystem show that open standards can meaningfully support next-generation automotive microcontroller development.”

 

Lear Corporation: Nick Roelli, President E-Systems

“Lear is pleased to support efforts that improve efficiency across the automotive software community. By participating in this important initiative, we are helping advance a more robust software ecosystem that accelerates innovation for our customers.”

 

LG Electronics: Eun Seokhyun, President of LG Electronics Vehicle Solution

“As the transition toward software-defined vehicles accelerates, open collaboration and standardization have become more essential than ever. We are committed to shaping the SDV era with safer, smarter and more efficient mobility solutions, and will continue to play an active role in advancing industry initiatives with our accumulated software expertise.”

 

Michelin: Ali Rezgui, VP Embedded Tire Digital Twin

“As the leader in Tire industry, we target to use the produced software to elaborate and validate our embedded tire digital twin. We are focusing now the tire contribution to ADAS: for example, maximizing the ABS and ESP efficiency thanks to a deep integration of tire models, to improve the safety and the driving experience.”

 

MOBIS: Sookyung Jung, Chief of Automotive Electronics R&D

"As a one-stop provider of all automotive parts, we fully support the industry's open source initiatives. We are eager to embrace this new challenge and work alongside the industry to contribute to the future of software-defined vehicles.”

 

QNX: John Wall, CEO

“This initiative underscores the industry’s united commitment to accelerate Software-Defined Vehicle development and shape the future of mobility. Our focus has always been on helping automakers deliver next-generation experiences built on the core principles of safety, security, reliability, and high-performance technologies. Through collaborative efforts like this, we can unlock the full potential of SDVs and drive innovation that benefits the entire ecosystem.”

 

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc: Laxmi Rayapudi, VP & GM, Software, Auto & IE-IOT

“Qualcomm Technologies’ engagement with S-CORE represents a pivotal step toward democratizing access to high-performance automotive middleware. By aligning our Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions with the S-CORE community, we’re empowering automakers and Tier-1 suppliers to innovate faster and deliver intelligent, connected, and safer vehicles.”

 

Red Hat Inc.: Francis Chow, VP & GM, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge

"Red Hat is excited to be part of this expanded collaboration alongside other industry leaders to support an open, interoperable foundation for software-defined systems. By contributing to a 'code-first' ecosystem like Eclipse SDV, we are helping the industry reduce fragmentation and accelerate the delivery of software-defined vehicles at scale. Open source is no longer just an option for automotive development; it is an essential engine for rapid innovation and long-term sustainability across the entire value chain."

 

Schaeffler AG: Uwe Wagner, CTO

"Being part of this open-source community enables Schaeffler AG to act as a partner for software integration, services, and functions in the software-defined-vehicle ecosystem. We can leverage our extensive experience in safety and security solutions to accelerate time to market through this initiative.”

 

Traton SE: Niklas Klingenberg, Head of Group R&D

“The TRATON GROUP is fully committed to a collaborative approach in technology development and regulatory alignment. By contributing to these initiatives, including open-source software, TRATON seeks to promote a balanced environment, which shall further boost innovation in the global market.”

 

T-Systems: Dr. Christian Hort, SVP Automotive & Manufacturing

"T-Systems has a long tradition in endorsing Open-Source Software. More than 36m cars worldwide are benefiting from our suit of Software Building Blocks for the vehicle backend. These Building Blocks such as Digital Twin, Software Campaign Management and E2E Over-the-Air Updates are non-differentiating and should be shared among the OEMs landscape. This is why we will contribute these components to the joint Software Stack and are looking forward to the collaboration with all the partners."

 

useblocks GmbH: Daniel Woste, CEO

"useblocks is actively supporting Eclipse S-CORE and all partners as maintainer of the open-source Sphinx Needs framework. This enables seamless traceability across documentation, requirements, architecture, source code, and testing, and is a vital contribution to the 'code-first,' open-source strategy in the automotive sector."