Approaches for in-vehicle communication -- an analysis and outlook Electrical and electronic systems have been getting raising importance for innovations in the automotive industry. Networking issues are a key factor in this process since they enable distributed control functions and user interaction bringing together nodes from different vendors. This paper analyses available and emerging network technologies for in-vehicle communication from a requirements driven perspective. It reviews successful network technologies from other application areas regarding a possible deployment in vehicular communication and distinguishes passenger car and commercial vehicle sectors as far as possible. This contribution is oriented to the OSI reference model showing the state of the art and future opportunities at the level of the several communication layers with a focus on physical layer issues and medium access protocols and including information modeling aspects. Springer International Publishing