Power management systems in modern vehicles are expected to guarantee the start ability without any losses of comfort and in addition to avoid premature battery failure by means of optimal operation of the battery. Furthermore power management can contribute to improved fuel consumption and thus reduce CO2-emissions. To make a trouble-free and economic integration into a vehicle possible, more importance is attached to an easy handling of the variety of versions and a free partitioning of the function modules. The proposed new power management approach, which was developed by the Robert Bosch GmbH in cooperation with the University of Kassel, tackles these aforementioned problems and presents a possible solution.