Volkswagen Joins FlexRay Consortium; Breakthrough of FlexRay as the De Facto Standard for Advanced Automotive High-Speed Communications Systems

STUTTGART, Germany--Aug. 5, 2003--The FlexRay Consortium today announced a breakthrough in establishing FlexRay as the de facto international standard for advanced automotive control applications with the news that Volkswagen has joined the Consortium as a Core Partner. Formed in September 2000, the FlexRay Consortium Core Partner companies include founders BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Motorola and Philips, as well as Bosch and General Motors. It is expected that the news of Volkswagen joining the Consortium will provide significant additional momentum for FlexRay to be confirmed as a widely recognized standard in the automotive industry, encouraging further automotive manufacturers to embrace the FlexRay standard.

FlexRay is a flexible communication system that supports the future requirements of advanced automotive high-speed control applications. One of the key FlexRay target applications is known as x-by-wire (for example, steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, etc.), which involves the replacement of mechanical/hydraulic parts with fault-tolerant electric/electronic systems. This move to fully electronic systems will make it possible to provide car drivers with active safety and new comfort benefits via novel intelligent driver assistance systems. Another tangible feature for car buyers will be the new design freedom, particularly in the interior of the car, where the absence of a bulky steering column will allow a completely new look and feel in future vehicle models. In addition to x-by-wire, FlexRay offers numerous other application opportunities in automotive powertrain and safety electronics that require high-speed data transfers, such as serving as a central electronic "backbone" bus that interconnects the different bus networks within a vehicle.

"The increase in distributed failure-tolerant functions within our cars is a challenge for our new vehicle architectures, and we believe that membership and active participation in the FlexRay Consortium is essential," said Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, general manager of electrical/electronic development of Volkswagen AG. "We decided on FlexRay because we felt it is important to support one single strong industry standard."

Companies who have recently joined as new Associate Members of the FlexRay Consortium are Atmel, C&S Group, Fujitsu, Hella, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Renesas, STMicroeletronics, Texas Instruments, TRW and Visteon, among others. The number of supporting tool makers has also grown with new Development Members Cadence, CapeWare, Cardec, CRST, National Instruments, NSI, TECWINGS, Volcano Communications Technologies, Weise and 3SOFT.

Standardization of the FlexRay protocol will enable automobile manufacturers to lower development and production costs, as well as facilitate the introduction of new electronic control systems into vehicles. The FlexRay protocol is designed for use in chassis control, body and powertrain applications that require high levels of communication bandwidth and deterministic fault-tolerant data transmission. This way, FlexRay will complement the major in-vehicle networking standards CAN, LIN and MOST by adding a high-speed protocol for the most demanding systems. For more information: http://www.flexray.com.

All product or service names are the property of their respective owners.

About the Volkswagen Group:

The Volkswagen Group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg is one of the world's leading automobile manufacturers and the largest car producer in Europe. In 2002, the Volkswagen Group achieved the second-highest profit before tax in the company's history at 4.0 billion EUR. Last year the Group's sales totalled 86.9 billion EUR (2001: 88.5 billion EUR). With 4.984 million (2001: 5.080 million) vehicles delivered to customers in 2002, the company attained a global market share of 12.1 percent. In Western Europe, the largest car market in the world, nearly every fifth new car came from the Volkswagen Group.

About the FlexRay Consortium:

The FlexRay Consortium is an organization formed to drive the adoption of an open Standard for high-speed bus systems for distributed control applications in automobiles, such as x-by-wire. Since forming in September 2000, the Consortium has grown to include the automotive industry's largest and most influential players. FlexRay development is being driven by the core member companies, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Motorola, Philips and Robert Bosch GmbH. Various membership levels provide the ability to interact with the FlexRay Consortium working groups, propose ideas, participate in review meetings, and have early access to the specifications, as well as the opportunity to actively participate in the adoption of this global standard. A complete list of member companies and other information is available at the Consortium Web site, http://www.flexray.com.

For more information including how to apply for membership: http://www.flexray.com. Information on FlexRay Consortium members can be found on their respective Web sites.

http://www.press.bmwgroup.com

http://www.media.daimlerchrysler.com

http://media.gm.com

http://www.motorola.com/semiconductors

http://www.semiconductors.philips.com

http://www.bosch-presse.de

All product or service names are the property of their respective owners.