What is the extended vehicle concept?

The best way to provide safe and secure third-party access to vehicle data is by means of an off-board facility. This is a remote and secure server from where service providers can access the data, rather than directly having access to the (moving) vehicle in an uncontrolled way.

This off-board facility provides access to vehicle data in accordance with clearly defined technical, data protection and competition rules through various interfaces and means of off-board data storage – thereby reducing safety, security and liability risks.

In order to ensure interoperability across the globe, this means of off-board data access and its interfaces must be standardised. To that end, an ISO standard (20077-1) has been developed, better known as the ‘extended vehicle’ concept.

The extended vehicle consists of a physical road vehicle with external software and hardware extensions that are developed, implemented and managed by the vehicle manufacturer.