European-driven Open SDV SW Platform Initiative Technology Roadmap 2025

Today, the European automotive industry is at a turning point. Vehicles are becoming autonomous, connected, electric, and service-orientated, with software as the key driver of safety, innovation, and value creation. To ensure Europe’s leadership in this transformation, the European Commission launched the European-driven Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) platform initiative in 2023 as part of the broader Digital Vehicle initiative.

The Digital Vehicle initiative has been established to enhance Europe’s competitiveness against global players, particularly those from the U.S. and East Asia. It unites OEMs, suppliers, open-source initiatives, and national programmes around a common strategic and coordinated imperative: working towards the integration of project results into automotive series development by 2030 through the creation of a robust, open, and modular SDV software platform that will power European vehicles into the next decade.

In August 2025, the Commission took a decisive next step by opening applications for the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA). ECAVA’s role is to build the next level of collaboration with a broadened technology scope that ensures agility, strategic alignment, and legal clarity for cross-partner collaboration.

The newly published Technology Roadmap of the European-driven Open SDV Software Platform Initiative consolidates outcomes from EU-funded projects and leading open-source initiatives, including ECLIPSE SDV, AUTOSAR, SOAFEE, and COVESA. It outlines a layered approach, ranging from hardware and middleware to co-development, designed to streamline development, testing, and deployment across various domains, including automated driving, infotainment, body and chassis, and powertrain. The strategic alignment of all this is supported by the FEDERATE support action, which allows for the reinforcement of an ecosystem combining industry focus, agility, speed, and providing a legal framework for efficient cross-partner collaboration in both smaller and larger projects.

The roadmap is more than a technical document; it is a call to collective action. By coordinating investment, streamlining funding processes, overcoming legal barriers, and leveraging Europe’s strong and well-established industrial and engineering ecosystem, the roadmap demonstrates how the EU can secure its position as a global leader in digital mobility.

The Technology Roadmap serves as a working document ahead of the first ECAVA Steering Committee meeting. It sets the stage for future roadmaps on areas such as autonomous computing hardware and automated driving.

Read the full roadmap here.