Ignition, engine and transmission electronics are also found in trucks, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, and other internal combustion powered machinery such as forklifts, tractors and excavators.
[1] Modern electric cars rely on power electronics for the main propulsion motor control, as well as managing the battery system.
Future autonomous cars will rely on powerful computer systems, an array of sensors, networking, and satellite navigation, all of which will require electronics.
The development of semiconductors after World War II greatly expanded the use of electronics in automobiles, with solid-state diodes making the automotive alternator the standard after about 1960, and the first transistorized ignition systems appearing in 1963.
[10][11] This led to the development of the power MOSFET by Hitachi in 1969,[12] and the single-chip microprocessor by Federico Faggin, Marcian Hoff, Masatoshi Shima and Stanley Mazor at Intel in 1971.
For example, if the infotainment system's application which could be running an open-source Android OS is breached, there could be possibility of hackers to take control of the car remotely and potentially misuse it for anti-social activities.
Typically so, usage of a hardware+software enabled hypervisors are used to virtualize and create separate trust and safety zones that are immune to each other's failures or breaches.
In order to minimize the risk of dangerous failures, safety-related electronic systems have to be developed following the applicable product liability requirements.
Disregard for, or inadequate application of these standards can lead to not only personal injuries, but also severe legal and economic consequences such as product cancellations or recalls.
The implementation of this new standard will result in modifications and various innovations in the automobile electronics development process, as it covers the complete product life-cycle from the concept phase until its decommissioning.
The same facility that allows the owner to unlock and start a car from a smartphone app also presents risks due to remote access.
Auto manufacturers may protect the memory of various control microprocessors both to secure them from unauthorized changes and also to ensure only manufacturer-authorized facilities can diagnose or repair the vehicle.
[28] In 2015 the German general automobile club commissioned an investigation of the vulnerabilities of one manufacturer's electronics system, which could have led to such exploits as unauthorized remote unlocking of the vehicle.