General Motors is contributing a vehicle services definition called “uServices” to the automotive software developer community. uServices aims to standardize software interfaces to access vehicle systems securely from anywhere in an OEM’s vehicle ecosystem.

This standardized interface and associated programming model enables efficient development of distributed software required by Software Defined Vehicles (SDVs).

GM is contributing uServices by joining the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance (COVESA), a global, member-driven alliance focused on the development of open standards and technologies that accelerate innovation for connected vehicle systems. COVESA originally was the GENIVI Alliance, a collaborative community developing open standards and software for in-vehicle systems; it rebranded to COVESA in October 2021.

General Motors intends to play a leading role in unifying a global community of creative developers while reducing the time it takes for the industry, from automotive manufacturers to suppliers, to develop and integrate these features.

By sharing existing technologies now in production, GM hopes to accelerate the development of an ecosystem that we can leverage to integrate third-party software at reduced engineering cost. This, in turn, can help lower the cost for customers and reduce time to market while opening the door for customers to gain access to more applications.

—Frank Ghenassia, executive chief architect of Software Defined Vehicles at GM

This complements GM’s recent commitment to SDV standardization. In April, the company announced it would share uProtocol with the Eclipse Foundation, a standard with the potential to connect automotive applications and services everywhere—not just in GM products or in vehicles—but to create efficiency across phones and other devices talking to vehicles as well.

While uProtocol serves as the backbone for more efficient vehicle software development across the industry, uServices is meant to set standards for interfacing with vehicle features and communicating through that backbone, serving as a standard API to abstract vehicle services, enabling a unified connected vehicle ecosystem. COVESA’s community brings extensive experience in the software services space.

Introducing uProtocol and uServices across two organizations links strong areas of experience and drives more unified collaboration across a greater population of contributors.

uServices was introduced to COVESA’s Data Expert workgroup during a meeting in July 2023. GM will be contributing uServices to COVESA throughout October 2023, continuing to add to the program as it is developed.