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Historically, the long development time required to produce a new automobile has meant that the electronics in that vehicle might lag the state-of-the-art by several years. For traditional vehicle electronics, this was certainly an appropriate delay, ensuring through extensive testing and qualification that the quality and reliability of the electronic systems met rigorous standards. However, with the growing consumer-oriented electronics content in today's vehicles, it is becoming more difficult for the automotive manufacturers to meet consumers' expectations with older technology. Couple this with the fast-paced consumer product cycle, typically nine to eighteen and the result is increasing pressure on the vehicle manufacturers from after-market electronics suppliers, who can update their product lines as fast as the component manufacturers can produce new models.

Automotive development time precludes the timely integration of the latest developments in consumer items such as cellular phones, pagers, portable digital assistants, global positioning systems and other communication, computing and entertainment products into the automobile. Consumers, on the other hand, want access to the latest services and features provided by these devices when traveling. At the same time, consumers do not want to duplicate their expenses by dedicating this equipment to their cars. This paper will outline a current industry effort to define a solution for meeting the networking needs of these consumer products in the automotive environment.

With the pressure increasing to develop cost-effective zero-emission vehicles, manufacturers who are developing electric automobiles are faced with a double-edged problem: how to develop new, lighter weight electronics systems, necessary for increasing vehicle efficiency and range, which will operate in the harsh, electromagnetic interference (EMI)-intensive environment inherent in vehicles with electric drive systems. One promising technology for these new electric vehicle electronic systems is the serial multiplex communication networks now beginning to be used for networking electronic components and modules in traditional internal combustion-type vehicles. The use of serial communication technology can provide system designers with a variety of benefits. Serial networks can help reduce the size and complexity of the vehicle's wiring harness, thereby reducing the vehicle's weight and cost to manufacture.

As more automobile designs utilizing serial multiplex network protocols such as SAE J1850 and CAN go into production, automotive system designers must now seek ways to lower the cost of the multiplex communication devices used in order to allow the number of components communicating across the multiplex bus to expand. The first generation of J1850 multiplex devices were designed as the different versions of the protocol were being developed and as a result seem better suited for use as development tools rather than for use in cost-sensitive production applications. As the next generation of multiplex devices is being defined, a hard look needs to be taken at the actual system requirements for communication on a multiplex bus.