Rick Flores is an active member of the AUTOSAR steering committee representing General Motors since 2013. He holds the position of Technical Fellow of Model-Based Electrical System and Software Engineering at General Motors. He follows Kenji Nishikawa, General Manager of E/E Architecture and Vehicle Network Development at Toyota Motor Corporation. In this position, Flores will oversee administration, finances, internal coordination and AUTOSAR business development for his term of office. He formerly held the position of the AUTOSAR Spokesperson in 2014.
“I would like to begin thanking Kenji Nishikawa for his successful term of office,” says Rick Flores. “Even though AUTOSAR is well accepted as a worldwide standard, we will keep improving the quality and features with a strong focus on standardization and modularization of both Classic and Adaptive Platforms. The AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform will be a leading enabler in the automotive field of autonomous driving and connected vehicles with features like software download over-the-air and service-oriented communication while maintaining a strong focus on safety and security demands.”
Flores obtained a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan and has worked on Embedded Software and Systems for many years of his career. His latest focus areas include a leadership role in the advancement of Systems Engineering at GM while setting technical direction for alignment of software architectures, tools and process across functional domains.
Armando Hernandez, new deputy-chairman is an Embedded SW Senior Expert and Vice president at PSA Peugeot Citroën. Graduated with Master of Science from École Supérieure des Sciences et Technologies de l'Ingénieur de Nancy (called now Polytech Nancy), France, he has many years of experience in the field of software development and embedded systems. Since Hernandez joined the PSA Group as an expert in software engineering in 2014, he has had an important role for embedded software development.
“It is my privilege to hold another principal representative position at AUTOSAR”, said Armando Hernandez. “I am committed to the continued strategic development of the AUTOSAR platforms. I am proud of AUTOSAR that continuously enhances the software standards by improving the features of the platforms.”
Dr. Thomas Scharnhorst has been appointed as spokesperson for another term of office, the position he has held since January 2017. The well-respected industry insider and former Director of the E/E Architectures and Concepts Department at Volkswagen AG will continue to focus exclusively on the external representation of the AUTOSAR development partnership.
“It is an honor to represent AUTOSAR another term of office”, says Thomas Scharnhorst. “AUTOSAR continuously improves itself as a global standard and I will continue to support the success story of AUTOSAR as a spokesperson.”
Scharnhorst obtained a degree in physical engineering from the Technical University in Berlin, followed by postgraduate studies of aero- and astronautics at MIT in Cambridge. He was appointed AUTOSAR spokesperson in 2004 during his time at Volkswagen. Currently, in addition to be a partner of WiTech-Engineering, Scharnhorst organizes seminars on functional safety in the field of vehicle electronics.
In addition, Martin Lunt of Robert Bosch GmbH, who has been actively working in AUTOSAR Project Leader team, is a new speaker of the Project Leader Team. As a speaker he will support the other executives, and communicates internally and externally on behalf of the Project Leader team to improve the quality and features of the AUTOSAR platforms.
About AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture)
AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a global development partnership of car manufacturers, suppliers and other companies from the electronics, semiconductor and software industries. Since 2003, they have been working on the development and introduction of several open, standardized software platforms for the automotive industry. By simplifying replacement and update for software and hardware, the AUTOSAR approach forms the foundation for reliably controlling the growing complexity of electronic and software systems in today’s and future vehicles. In addition, AUTOSAR improves cost efficiency by enabling its partners to cooperate in a competitive way. The "Core Partners" of AUTOSAR are the BMW Group, Bosch, Continental, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, the PSA Group, Toyota and the Volkswagen Group. In addition to these companies, more than 200 partners play an important role in the success of the partnership and can use the standards free of charge.