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2026 State of Automotive Software Development Report
- Chapter 1 - Top Market Challenges
- Chapter 2 - Leading Concerns
- Chapter 3 - Development Areas
- Chapter 4 - Shift-Left Adoption
- Chapter 5 - Recalls and Vulnerabilities
- Chapter 6 - Automotive Software Security
- Chapter 7 - Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs)
- Chapter 8 - Automotive AI Trends
- Chapter 9 - Standards Compliance
- Chapter 10 - Key Coding Standards
- Chapter 11 - How Teams Manage Their Work
- Chapter 12 - Software Dev Tools
- Chapter 13 - Open-Source Software
- Chapter 14 - Essential Perforce Solutions
- About the Survey — Appendix
Report > 2026 State of Automotive Software Development Report
Chapter 12 - Software Dev Tools
Using the right software development tools is essential for ensuring that your software is safe, secure, and reliable. Some of the top tools for those we surveyed included:
Static Analysis/SAST (55%) continued to be the leading tool for software development teams in automotive. Project Management returned to its 2024 position over Dynamic Code Analysis, but there is still strong interest in these two.
Automated/Continuous Testing (+4%) and Application Lifecycle Management (+3%), and Open-Source Tools (+7%) also increased year over year.
Those who do not use any development tools increased by 2% this year. It is recommended to use some kind of development tool, as they significantly increase time to market and help organizations retain a competitive edge.
Leading Benefit of Development Tools
A majority (29%) of those surveyed said that improving software quality was their primary reason for using development tools. As software quality was the leading automotive software and technology development concern in this report overall, respondents seem to be aware that development tools play a big part in improving quality.