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The National Research Councils (NRC) Transportation Research Board has released a study that included a review of automotive electronics safety. The Research Councils study was requested in the aftermath of the 2009-2010 reports of sudden acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested the NRC study of how the agencys regulatory, research and defect investigation programs can be strengthened to meet the safety assurance and oversight challenges arising from the expanding functionality and use of automotive electronics. To conduct the study, the NRC appointed a 16-member committee of experts tasked with considering NHTSAs recent experience in responding to concerns over the potential for faulty electronics.

This report likely assures that NHTSA will proceed with policy changes relative to automotive electronics review and safety. The recent security breaches or hacking activities in some vehicles increases the need for automotive repairs to be done by professionals, said Bob Redding, ASAs Washington, DC, representative. The automotive industrys effort with the National Automotive Service Task Forces (NASTF) Secure Data Release Model (SDRM) is an example of independent repairers working with automobile manufacturers to ensure vehicle security. We are hopeful that NHTSA will include independent repairers in the strategic planning process for automotive electronics safety.

There were a number of key findings from the study:

• Electronic systems have become critical to the functioning of the modern automobile.

• Electronic systems are being interconnected with one another and with devices and networks external to the vehicle to provide their desired functions.

• Proliferating and increasingly interconnected electronics systems are creating opportunities to improve vehicle safety and reliability as well as demands for addressing new system safety and cybersecurity risks.

• By enabling the introduction of many new vehicle capabilities and changes to familiar driver interfaces, electronics systems are presenting new human factors challenges for system design and vehicle-level integration.

• Automotive manufacturers visited during this study and probably all others implement many processes during product design, engineering, and manufacturing intended to ensure that electronics systems perform as expected up to defined failure probabilities and to detect failures when they occur and respond to them with appropriate containment actions.

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