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Google Cloud has added RemotiveLabs' RemotiveTopology to its Horizon platform for software-defined vehicle development, extending its cloud-based model beyond cockpit systems.
The integration is aimed at carmakers and Tier 1 suppliers that still rely on physical hardware for much of their vehicle electronics development. Many already build digital cockpit and infotainment software in cloud environments, but core electronic control systems such as gateways, body controllers, zone control units and sensor nodes often remain tied to physical chips and test rigs.
That reliance on hardware can slow development, as teams must wait for benches, samples and integration equipment before testing how systems work together. It also pushes multi-domain integration towards the end of the process, when defects are usually more expensive to fix.
RemotiveTopology is designed to create a virtual version of a vehicle's electrical and electronic architecture using existing network design files. In practice, this allows software running in Android Automotive OS within Google's Cuttlefish virtual testing environment to connect to simulated onboard computers, data networks and live vehicle signals.
Developers can run a vehicle model on demand, with cockpit software communicating with the rest of the system as it would in a physical car. Because the tooling is based on standard Linux, the same topology can run on a laptop or in a continuous integration pipeline on Google Cloud.
Broader vehicle scope
The companies are addressing a long-standing issue in software-defined vehicle development: the gap between cloud-based application work and the hardware-bound systems that control core vehicle functions. While infotainment software has increasingly moved into virtual development environments, many lower-level control modules have remained difficult to update, reprogram or expand after production.
Recent work on Android 17 and Android Automotive OS SDV has already widened the range of in-vehicle domains that can be developed in the cloud. Adding RemotiveTopology is intended to extend that approach across the wider vehicle architecture, including systems running other operating systems.
One use case is earlier integration between advanced driver assistance systems and cockpit software. A virtual vehicle running in the cloud can allow ADAS functions, infotainment systems, information clusters and body or chassis nodes to exchange signals from the start of development, rather than waiting for physical hardware to become available.
That could let engineers test events such as an ADAS alert appearing in the driver display or a driving mode change affecting multiple systems at once. The companies argue that this brings a critical phase of development forward.
Hardware parity
A central part of the approach is the use of Arm-based infrastructure in Google Cloud. This matters because cloud instances and vehicle hardware can share the same instruction set, reducing the gap between software developed in the cloud and software deployed to vehicle control modules.
Google pointed to its Axion-based infrastructure, including bare-metal Arm instances intended for automotive systems and Android software development, as part of that strategy. The aim is to let the same software move from cloud testing to actual control modules without rewriting or separate validation work.
For manufacturers, that promise addresses one of the bigger technical hurdles in software-defined vehicles: ensuring software created in a virtual environment behaves consistently when transferred to production hardware.
Faster cycles
Early customer engagements with RemotiveLabs have measured integration cycles that were more than 10 times faster, according to Google. It said cloud-based integration is becoming more important as AI-assisted development tools shorten software iteration times and increase pressure on hardware-dependent workflows.
The companies also said there is no need for a new proprietary toolchain to begin using the system. RemotiveLabs provides an open-source simplified vehicle model that can run with standard Linux tooling, while fuller manufacturer toolchains can be connected as projects scale.
The result is a model that treats the vehicle architecture as code, allowing it to be versioned, provisioned and tested in much the same way as modern software infrastructure. For an automotive sector trying to move more vehicle development into software workflows, the significance lies in whether that model can extend from the cockpit to the dozens of smaller electronic systems that still depend on physical hardware.
RemotiveTopology is now available in Horizon for use alongside other modules in Google's software-defined vehicle development platform.