Connected car → European Union

How this pathway works in practice

A telematics unit is never just a radio product. In the EU it enters through the Radio Equipment Directive, with EN 301 489-1 for EMC, the appropriate EN 300 328 or EN 301 908 parts for the radio itself and EN 62368-1 for safety, and then meets a second layer that has nothing to do with the radio file: if the unit is part of a vehicle type approval, UN R10 covers vehicle-level EMC, UN R155 requires a certified cyber security management system and UN R156 a software update management system. A unit with an emergency call function also has to demonstrate conformance to the eCall suite before it can be fitted to a type-approved vehicle.

Where projects lose time:

• Treating the component certificate as sufficient for the OEM. Vehicle manufacturers audit the supplier's CSMS and expect traceability from requirement to test evidence, not just a certificate.
• Testing only the standalone unit and not the state it reaches when installed behind a vehicle harness and a glass-mounted antenna.
• Starting the cyber file after the hardware freeze, when architecture changes are no longer possible and the threat analysis has to be retrofitted.

We build the radio, EMC, safety and cyber evidence around one architecture description, and we keep the installation assumptions explicit, because that is what an OEM auditor asks for first.

Each mandatory item above is mapped to a test standard inside our accredited scope, then tested on the smallest sample that still covers every variant you intend to ship, so the importer of record can hand the file straight to the European Union assessment route without a second round of questions. The 6–8 weeks lead time counts from the day production-representative samples arrive, not from the day the quotation is signed, and the 3 key documents listed above are the ones most often requested at the border or at listing review.