Recap of Open House Japan 2025
On September 26, 2025, Open House Japan was held, and welcomed more than 150 participants. The development environment for autonomous vehicles and the status of initiatives for simulation platforms through industry-academia-government collaboration were shared, along with specific use cases of CarMaker and future prospects.
Did you miss Open House Japan? Do you want to recall the highlights of the event?
This page gives you an overview.
Dr. Andreas Höfer, Senior Vice President Development & CTO of IPG Automotive GmbH, delivered the opening speech. He addressed the challenges posed by the shift to Software-Defined Vehicles (SDV), such as increasing software complexity and costs, and emphasized the need for a software-driven, end-to-end virtual testing strategy. IPG Automotive reaffirmed its commitment to supporting industry transformation through continuous virtual development and validation.
Session 1: Honda’s Intelligent Mobility for Safe and Free Movement
Mr. Yasui from Honda R&D introduced Honda’s 2030 Vision, aiming for “zero traffic accidents” and a “stress-free” society. He discussed the development of intelligent mobility using Cooperative Intelligence (CI), including autonomous driving and micro-mobility solutions like CiKoMa. Honda’s use of CarMaker for efficient simulation-based validation and the recreation of diverse traffic scenarios using real-world data was also shared.
Session ２: Comprehensive Solutions for Vehicle Development and Testing
Dr. Höfer presented the latest features of the CarMaker product family, such as realistic weather simulations, high-precision data acquisition with ground-truth sensors, and 4D radar for accurate object tracking. He also discussed upcoming features to meet diverse development needs.
Session 3: Simulation Platform Initiatives for Electric and Autonomous Vehicles
Mr. Takayama from JARI (Japan Automobile Research Institute) highlighted the development of high-precision standard models and component-level modeling and measurement techniques under the NEDO Green Innovation Fund. He also discussed scenario recreation using digital maps and real traffic data from JARI’s test course, as well as validation of autonomous driving algorithms through integration with CarMaker, MATLAB, and Autoware. These efforts are expected to enhance development efficiency and standardization across the industry.
Session 4: Rapid Software Validation to Reduce Warranty Costs
Michael Kochem of IPG Automotive introduced a rapid software validation workflow to address increasing warranty costs due to software complexity. By integrating virtual vehicles, vECU, Rapid HIL, and VIL V&V into a CI/CD pipeline, all software changes can be automatically tested within hours, enabling early bug detection, improved quality, and cost reduction.
Session 5: Euro NCAP 2026-Compliant Virtual Testing “UTAC Scoring Set Europe”
Charles Miquet introduced the new virtual test solution “UTAC Scoring Set Europe 2026,” compliant with the Euro NCAP 2026 protocol. This solution enables OEMs to efficiently handle a vast number of test variations, reduce development costs and time, and quickly assess NCAP scores, thereby enhancing the reliability of virtual certification and strengthening industry safety standards.
Session 6: Scaling Virtual Development Workflows
Michael Kochem demonstrated how to build accessible simulation environments, centralized data and virtual prototype management, cloud-based access, and improved traceability through version control. Real-world case studies from Asia and Germany illustrated the benefits of cross-domain collaboration, automation, and standardized model quality.
Partner companies (Fujisoft, Synopsys Japan, Toyo Corporation) presented CarMaker use cases, and 10 partner companies (including Horiba, Keysight Technologies, MathWorks, Ono Sokki, Rohde & Schwarz Japan, SDTech, Synopsys Japan, Toyo Corporation, and tracetronic) showcased demos. Attendees enjoyed food and drinks while networking and exploring the latest technologies and solutions, making it a valuable opportunity for information sharing.
