CAN was originally developed for in-vehicle networking of passenger cars. Today, CAN is used for passenger cars, heavy duty vehicles, trains and rail vehicles, maritime and other vehicles.
CAN is used in a broad variety of manufacturing industries, mainly for embedded machine control, but also for factory automation, process automation, and power generation.
CAN is used as an embedded network in construction machines. It is also used in building automation, for example, in lift control, embedded door control and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning).
CAN is used for postage and packaging and for embedded control in telecommunication equipment. For example letter sorting machines and conveyors are using CAN for embedded control.