When Frank Welsch talks about the development of a new car, the member of the Board of Management makes a comparison: “Ten years ago, software in a new car consisted of ten million lines of code. In the meantime, that number has grown to 100 million.” That’s a ten-fold increase in just one generation of cars. The figures show that, more than ever before, modern cars are characterized by software. “The way in which we bring new models to series production readiness has been fundamentally changed as a result,” says Welsch.
Arguably the biggest challenge for the developers is the car’s internal and external network. The reason: all of a vehicle’s systems have to exchange data on a constant basis to ensure optimal functions. To the specialists this means that, whereas they used to be able to develop individual functions independently, they now have to take many interdependencies into consideration from the outset.
