“By joining the Eclipse Foundation’s SDV Working Group, we aim to bolster collaboration within the industry to increase software reuse and interoperability across the automotive industry, therefore benefitting customer experiences at scale,” said Frank Ghenassia, executive chief architect of Software Defined Vehicles at General Motors. “By creating an open, shared software-defined vehicle protocol, we hope we can enable software to be easily shared across multiple companies and across smartphones, vehicle computers and cloud services. We hope others join us in this pursuit so customers can enjoy the benefits.”

The growing number of so-called Software-defined vehicles has already complicated things because apps and software for each automaker require custom code. GM said this creates walled gardens that lead to more work and less scalability while taking longer to reach customers.

GM has developed uProtocol, a standard with the potential to connect automotive applications and services everywhere – not just in GM products, or even just in vehicles it’s claimed – but to create efficiency across the phones and other devices talking to vehicles as well.

This was introduced at a recent Eclipse Foundation event in Lisbon, Portugal. GM said uProtocol is not owned or trademarked by GM, but will “serve as a call to action for other companies to rally around a set of technologies that can be collaboratively deployed.”

Complicating things, GM is preparing to deploy its Ultifi¹ software platform at scale across its global portfolio of electric and internal combustion vehicles sold through the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands in the coming years, and an opportunity for all automakers, suppliers and others to align around standards that can benefit developers and consumers alike. There are several critics about GM’s past approach and what they view as a GM go it alone worldview.