Connected car → United States

How this pathway works in practice

The American route for a connected-car module is narrower in law and wider in practice. Legally, the module needs Part 15 authorisation — certification with an FCC ID for the cellular or Wi-Fi radio and a supplier declaration for the digital circuitry — plus a safety evaluation to UL or an equivalent standard if the unit is powered from the vehicle bus or ships with an adapter. In practice, the requirements that decide the launch come from the vehicle manufacturer: a supplier quality audit, a functional safety argument at the appropriate level, and cyber security evidence aligned to the manufacturer's own management system rather than to a federal rule.

What we prepare, and why:

• Radio and digital evidence in one file, because a module that changes host or antenna after grant needs a new authorisation and the timeline is what suffers.
• A safety evaluation that states the supply conditions explicitly, since vehicle-bus transients are the usual failure point.
• An RF exposure assessment for the installed position, not just the bench position, because the antenna sits inside a cabin.

We hand over the technical file in an auditable structure, with the same configuration identifiers used in the radio report, the safety report and the manufacturer's PPAP package.

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 United States assessment route without a second round of questions. The 4–6 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.