Distribution of digital content to vehicles

The technology disclosed herein enables a processor to receive, at a distribution unit, a first content request from a distribution electronic control unit (ECU) associated with a vehicle, wherein the first content request reflects one or more filtering criteria, determine whether a content item that satisfies the filtering criteria is stored on a storage device of the distribution unit, responsive to determining that the content item that satisfies the filtering criteria is not stored on the storage device of the distribution unit: send, to a managed content delivery service, a second content request, wherein the second content request includes the filtering criteria, and receive, from the managed content delivery service, the content item that satisfies the filtering criteria, and send the content item that satisfies the filtering criteria to the distribution ECU associated with the vehicle.