COVESA Receives a Warm Welcome at Automotive World Japan

Despite the rainy weather, COVESA was warmly welcomed into the Japanese automotive industry during our three-day participation at the Automotive World Japan event in the Makuhari district of Tokyo.

COVESA’s presence kicked off with keynote presentations by COVESA’s President Matt Jones and COVESA’s Board Chairman Graham Smethurst. The room was at full capacity, and attendees enjoyed an overview of COVESA’s work and a compelling adoption case study by BMW.

Meanwhile, a program track, entitled SDV Forum X – Powered by COVESA, ran in parallel. This SDV-focused track introduced the Japan audience to important COVESA projects like VSS, VDM, VISS, Capabilities, and the Central Data Service Playground.

In the spirit of cooperation and collaboration, the program also gave room for presentations from AUTOSAR, AGL, Eclipse SDV, JASPAR, OpenSDV Initiative, and other collaborative communities engaged in the SDV ecosystem.

Toward the end of the first day of the conference, COVESA welcomed senior leaders from Japanese companies to a networking reception. The event provided a context for sponsoring organizations – Renesas, Sonatus, Intellias, and Tuxera – to generate new Japan-based contacts and deepen existing ones. COVESA is very grateful for the sponsoring organizations’ contribution to making the reception such a success.

COVESA enjoyed a large footprint on the event’s expansive exhibit floor. In addition to significant signage and table space, the full membership logo list caught the attention of many visiting the booth. COVESA welcomed 14 organizations taking booth space in the COVESA Pavilion. Presence in the pavilion offered the organizations significant opportunity to dialog with prospective new customers in the Japan market.

COVESA leaders also held technical alignment and project leadership meetings with JASPAR to advance the API development project defined in the COVESA-JASPAR MoU. Finally, COVESA held several media briefings with Japanese press companies with the expectation that up to five articles will be written.

All in all, the event was a great experience and accomplished the primary goals of establishing brand recognition, building awareness of COVESA activities, strengthening the JASPAR relationship, and gathering contacts for prospective new members in the Japan market. A special thanks goes out to our Japan members (Bosch, Renesas, Honda) for supporting COVESA’s presence at this event.