HERE, Nokia’s mapping business set to be acquired by a consortium of German carmakers for €2.8 billion, led a meeting where 16 leading firms from the motor industry agreed on the need for a common specification for transmitting sensor data from vehicles to the cloud.

The mapping firm published an open standard for car sensor data in June that will allow vehicles to share information with the cloud, and with other vehicles on the road.

The 16 firms at HERE’s meeting included carmakers and suppliers, as well as system vendors. The announcement did not supply further names although leading tyre manufacturer Continental was at the meeting, and backs the proposed standard, according to a release. Mobile World Live contacted HERE for more names but the firm declined to provide further information, saying only the meeting attracted “broad international support”.

Just prior to the takeover being confirmed, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsch (part of the three carmaker consortium alongside Audi and BMW) said the mapmaker would become an open platform if the bid is successful. The idea was for other auto manufacturers to join HERE (maybe as investors), including the likes of Fiat Chrysler, Renault, Peugeot, Ford, Toyota and General Motors.

However, HERE’s latest announcement does not mention any non-car industry players such as mobile operators, Google or Uber.

Its proposed standard is called the Sensor Ingestion Interface Specification.

The announcement said vehicle data can be used to improve safety of other cars on the road through map updates or warnings on hazards. Transmitting sensor data in different formats undermines the ability to scale such efforts effectively, HERE argues.

During its forum in Berlin, participants also chewed over other technical issues, including data content, security and anonymisation.

Ronald Hain, head of back-end development team at Continental, expressed support for the proposed standard, which fits with its own strategy. “This is important for Continental’s eHorizon project where we merge data from different car makers in a backend.”

“The discussions at this forum were incredibly robust, key issues to address were identified – such as how to transmit accurate sensor information given that every OEM will have different sensors on board – and I believe we now have a solid foundation for our work ahead,” he added.