You are reading part 1 of our series of articles on quality assurance for automotive software
The automotive industry is undergoing fundamental change. Vehicles are becoming more connected, more autonomous, and more electrified. This transformation is significantly increasing the complexity of the software used. Modern vehicles can contain over 100 million lines of code, and this figure is rising. With the trend toward software-defined vehicles, quality assurance is becoming central to vehicle development. But how do manufacturers and suppliers ensure that automotive software works reliably?
The increasing proportion of software entails considerable risks. Faulty vehicle software can trigger costly recalls. Safety-related defects endanger human lives.
Typical challenges in automotive projects include:
A well-designed quality assurance process does not begin with writing test scripts. Requirements engineering lays the foundation by precisely specifying and documenting customer requirements. Test teams systematically derive test cases from these requirements. The bidirectional link between requirements and test cases creates the required traceability.
The test levels build on each other:
Quality assurance for automotive software goes beyond simply performing tests. It accompanies the entire development process with reviews, inspections, and process monitoring. The seamless traceability of all requirements, design decisions, and test results is central to this. Every requirement must be covered by tests, and the results must be documented in a comprehensible manner.
Automotive SPICE® 4.0, published in December 2023, defines the current framework for process maturity in quality assurance. The new version brings significant enhancements:
The transition period ended in the first quarter of 2025. OEMs are increasingly demanding evidence of compliance with the new standard. A high level of maturity means well-structured, documented, and optimized development processes for your automotive software.
Quality assurance is the foundation, but the requirements for automotive software go further. Since July 2024, stricter cybersecurity requirements have applied to all new vehicles with UN R155 and R156. In the second part of this article series, you will soon learn how test automation, functional safety according to ISO 26262, and cybersecurity intertwine—and how you can efficiently meet these requirements.
With over 40 years of experience in safety-critical industries, we support automotive projects with quality assurance throughout the entire development cycle:
Talk to us about your quality requirements. In the second part of this series, you will learn how to secure automotive software through test automation and safety processes.
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