According to the released standard, ISO 26262 is intended to be applied to safety-related systems that include one or more E/E (Electrical/Electronic) systems installed in production passenger cars with a maximum gross weight of 3 500 kg. ISO 26262 does not address unique E/E systems in special purpose vehicles such as vehicles designed for drivers with disabilities. ISO 26262 applies to vehicle systems released for production or systems and their components under development after November 14, 2011.  26262 (the issue date of the standard).

For systems developed before publication date of ISO 26262, modifications and development done after the development date will be subject to the standard.

ISO 26262 does not address hazards related to electric shock, fire, smoke, heat, radiation, toxicity, flammability, reactivity, corrosion, release of energy, and similar hazards unless directly caused by malfunctioning behaviour of E/E safety-related systems.

ISO 26262 does not address the nominal performance of E/E systems, even if dedicated functional performance standards exist for these systems (e.g. active and passive safety systems, brake systems, Adaptive Cruise Control).

ISO 26262 is made up of ten individual documents each covering one specific part of the process.  Numbered ISO 26262-1 through ISO 26262-10 the individual sections often reference each other and combine to provide a complete system approach to management of safety related E.E safety systems.

ISO 26262-2 The Management component of ISO 26262 specifies the requirements for functional safety management for automotive applications, including project-independent requirements with regard to the involved organizations (overall safety management) and project-specific requirements with regard to the management activities in the safety lifecycle (i.e. management during the concept phase and the product development, and after the release for production).

ISO 26262-3 This part of the International Standard specifies the requirements on the concept phase for automotive applications. These requirements include the item definition, the initiation of the safety lifecycle, the hazard analysis and risk assessment and the functional safety concept.

ISO 26262-4 This part of the standard specifies the requirements on product development at the system level. These include requirements on the initiation of product development at the system level, the specification of the technical safety requirements, the technical safety concept, system design, item integration and testing, safety validation, functional safety assessment and product release.

ISO 26262-5 Clause 5 provides requirements for hardware elements and is applicable to both non-programmable and programmable elements. (such as ASIC, FPGA, PLD) and for programmable electronic elements, requirements in ISO 26262-6, ISO 26262-8:—, Clause 11 (Confidence in the use of software tools) and ISO 26262-8:—, Clause 12 (Qualification of software components) are applicable.

ISO 26262-6 Clause 6 specifies the safety requirements for product development at the software level. This includes requirements for initiation of product development at the software level, specification of software safety requirements, software architectural and unit design, software implementation, software testing, integration and verification.

ISO 26262-7 This clause specifies the requirements on production as well as operation, service and decommissioning.

ISO 26262-8 This part of the standard specifies the requirements for supporting processes including interfaces within distributed developments, overall management of safety requirements, configuration management, change management, verification, documentation, confidence in the use of software tools, qualification of software components, qualification of hardware components, and proven in use argument.

ISO 26262-9 Clause 9 specifies the requirements for Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-oriented and safety-oriented analyses. These include requirements decomposition with respect to ASIL tailoring, criteria for coexistence of elements, analysis of dependent failures, and safety analyses.

ISO 26262-10 This Part of the standard has an informative character only.  Clause 10 provides an informative overview of ISO 26262, as well as additional explanations, intended to enhance the understanding of the other 9 Parts. It describes the general concepts in order to make the complete standard easier to understand. The explanation expands from general concepts to specific contents.

Inconsistencies between this Part, and the other dedicated Parts of ISO 26262, the requirements, recommendations and information given in the dedicated part of ISO 26262 supersede statements in Clause 10.