CarPlay is probably the top of my list of features when I buy a car. I can careless about performance specs after a certain threshold. But not having CarPlay would straight up go into my do not buy list (yes, I wouldn’t buy a Rivian or tesla either.)
Manufacturers ditching Apple Carplay/Android Auto support will, if not immediately, inevitably pursue rent-seeking behavior in the form of paid subscriptions for services people could otherwise just have for free (and likely better) via phone.
It is a crazy step for GM in particular because it is not like they have any distinct advantages or differentiators as an automaker. Rivian and Tesla have specific niche appeal. I am not sure anyone is clamoring for a Chevy in the same way. Lack of Apple car play is a feature your average user will be aware of and consider when purchasing a new car.
GMs top end vehicles have been plagued with exploding engines recently so to remove CarPlay is a crazy move. I wonder how much additional revenue they expect from pushing ads and their shitty infotainment experience
I used to feel this way, but nowadays I've come to realize that Carplay's UX is inferior to my iPhone's UX on a mount. As long as I have Bluetooth or Aux-in, I'm fine.
(That isn't to say that I think GM will somehow produce anything other than a captured rent extraction tool)
I only care about bluetooth for music and handling phone calls, don't get the point why having the actual car dashboard show phone stuff that relevant.
You might as well be making the “I’m okay with my 2004 Honda accord with a tape adapter” argument.
There is no cost reason to exclude the option. Even if I don’t use it, if I’m buying a $30-50k new vehicle it better have it, even if that’s for the sake of resale or future family members I might pass the car down to. My 2016 has it, why am I tolerating the removing of such a feature?
If you want unscientific evidence you’ll notice that the Honda Prologue (has CarPlay) outsells the Equinox EV it’s based on.
> You might as well be making the “I’m okay with my 2004 Honda accord with a tape adapter” argument.
I love how authoritatively you say this, as though this is meant to be just so patently absurd it doesn't require any further argument. This is an attempted reductio ad absurdum, but the absurdum in question fails to actually be abusrd.
Not everyone wants to drop $50K every few years on some liquid-glass-operated subscription-based monstrosity. Some people much prefer cars operated by knobs and dials, that are easy to repair, and dirt-cheap to replace. It's simply superior tech.
I think it's hilarious that I can upgrade my 2004 Honda Accord and add CarPlay into it with a myriad of screen sizes and options, features, cameras. There's an entire world of car stereo / infotainment gear out there that is cheaper and better than ever. Meanwhile, everybody with their new cars are just stuck with the terrible built in systems, or can only upgrade with a $1000 worth of audio processing gear and multi-channel amplifiers.
I think this is a negative recency bias, nobody makes aftermarket stuff for brand new cars because nobody with a brand new car is trying to augment it.
Your link proves my exact point. You need some specific one-off gear from some no-name android tablet manufacturer that doesn't fit any other car. LOL@ this thing running Android 12, which was out of support in March of this year... Much aftermarket support wow.
The 2004 Accord has a DIN slot in it. Which has a myriad of options available for it, despite the dwindling aftermarket.
Have you seen how to upgrade a 2023 Honda Accord infotainment system? You can't without major work. You can use the factory head unit, and feed all the amplified signals into a $1000+ sound processor, with a bunch of other modules specifically built for the car, then run the speaker outputs out to some crazy-ass 8 channel amplifier (because more speakers means the stereo is better for some reason), then feed that back to your speakers. And then at that point, all you've upgraded is the audio, not even the head unit itself. And why does it even have a center channel again?
Also, people obviously care about what infotainment is in their cars, as there is a huge amount of people saying they won't buy a car without CarPlay. Sounds like people DO want to augment their infotainment systems. Nobody is trying to do it, because you can't do it. Imagine if you could buy the car you wanted, and install your own accessories in it.
Look, I wasn’t even getting into proprietary or not. Obviously generic DIN was better than the present automotive industry situation.
You made a claim that you can’t upgrade these systems without $1000 of gear and I proved that idea wrong with a single link. It doesn’t really matter that it’s Android 12 - nobody really cares because all it has to do is run CarPlay and Android Auto. As long as the system can do that it’s infinitely upgradable from a software perspective. Nobody’s actually using the base Android system.
I also have a friend that spent under $500 to add CarPlay to a Chevy Sonic with a similar system and they’re very happy with it.
And that’s why I want a car to have CarPlay and Android auto, because it negates any need to upgrade the system down the line. The upgrades happen on your phone.
Imagine if you could install your own accessories in it…like the one I linked? I mean, again, I get it, it’s not a simple DIN setup but for the 1% of people who are interested in upgrading their car system this this is a real product you can buy for basically any car model. I owned an Alpine head unit for my 2005 Volkswagen and I wouldn’t really describe it as not janky compared to the OEM head unit, but the thing had Bluetooth and that’s all I needed.
My "real lived experience" with a CarPlay device that I installed into my 2016 Toyota Sienna is that it was slow, annoying, and I actually removed it. You can have it for free if you are in the Calgary area, my email is in my profile.
The UX difference compared to my phone, and the change in speed / etc.. was infuriating. The experience with my phone was ALWAYS better.
An argument based on the desires of fiscally illiterate people with 19.99% APR loans on oversized cars would make more sense if I worked for an auto company, thankfully I don't.
Yeah that’s a Toyota problem, not a typical experience of old wired CarPlay systems at all.
And again I’m not making some kind of pro-consumerism buy a new car right now argument, I’m just saying that in 2025 CarPlay and Android Auto are high demand features that a lot of people insist upon.
I’m not making some kind of profound statement on the state of the car industry or whether infotainment is too deeply integrated into vehicles.
I’m just saying if it was time for me to buy a new car I’m thinking twice about buying something that’s not giving me phone mirroring, just like I want my car to have FM radio even if I rarely or never use it.
It’s almost same price as Halo11, but seems to be far better product and fit! During first look of it, it felt expensive, but after looking at Halo11, it seems affordable :-)
I think this may be the dilemma GM and others are in. Given that it's a must-have, how much can Google and Apple charge the manufacturers for a license? $2000 per car? 5000? More? I dont think you can necessarily criticize GM's decision (and making a public announcement that all other car manufacturers will read) without knowing the upstream costs.
There aren't really any licensing fees for Android Auto. Apple charged a few dozen dollars for the right to produce a car with the integration, rather than a license as such. There's integration costs and hardware, so it's not free, but generally it's cheaper than the alternative.
Android automotive, the system GM is discussing here, is more expensive in every way than Android Auto. The reason they're switching is that Android Auto/carplay don't give GM enough additional monetization options for customers.
Is it possible Apple/Google initially charged a nominal fee when the technology was brand new, and now that it has widespread acceptance and is mandatory for many car purchasers, they turned the screws and are now charging an exorbitant price?
It's possible, but it wouldn't lead to this kind of action. Automakers already have a way to deal with expensive features that are critical to a large segment of the customer base. They limit it to higher trims or select models, depending on the cost constraints. That's what GM does with ADAS for example.
They're eliminating phone projection entirely here, which means they think the feature is incompatible with their business model.
What is the economic incentive for Google and Apple not to do this? They've convinced much of the public that it's a necessary feature (moreso than SiriumXM, for example, which also starts free then costs a lot), and better than what the manufacturers can develop internally, so why allow the manufacturers to integrate it for such a low price?
I don’t know but my best guess is in the low hundreds given the Vline sells for $679. Just installed one in a 2008 Lexus with a resistive touch screen and ancient interface, now I’ve got CarPlay.
It's basically the feature to a huge number of consumers. Various numbers I've seen place not having it as a dealbreaker for somewhere between 15% to 80% of buyers, especially the younger ones. It's more important than virtually any other feature you can name.
Wild how different people’s expectations can be. I’ve never even owned a car with any of these systems, yet they’re dealbreakers for others. Not saying they’re good or bad, just remarking on how something one person has never even thought about could be an absolute requirement for someone else!
It's surprisingly common. A lot of standard features (reclining seats, AC, large fuel tanks, back seats, large trunks, fuel efficiency) aren't important to all buyers, but they're important to some buyers. Over time they creep into the standard feature set as manufacturers design new models because the economies of scale from additional customers and a simpler production line outweigh the additional costs.
Once you get used to CarPlay it is hard to go back. Your apps are right there and synced without effort. Whatever music/podcasting app is there. Your choice of navigation/maps. It is just incredibly convenient and frictionless. The interface is simple and easy to navigate and when implemented correctly is incredibly responsive.
It’s definitely about expectations. I suspect that a lot of people, once they’ve used CarPlay or (presumably) android auto, would find it very difficult to go back to the experience that the typical car manufacturer is shipping.
I’ve never used a car that I was impressed with the built-in navigation or anything else that I might otherwise do on the phone. Aside from Google and Apple just shipping more polished products in general than the teams that seem to be building infotainment systems, the specific phone integration also makes a lot of stuff easier. Yes, I can use voice to ask Siri to do something. But I can also just use my phone to type in an address or whatever else. I cannot do that with Chevy’s built-in system. I also frankly don’t want to pay Chevy or any other car manufacturer a subscription fee for up-to-date maps or traffic that my phone has already.
The number I’ve seen is that CarPlay specifically is in the top ~2 prios for 79% of new car shoppers in the US. I think there’s probably enough mass here, and GM doesn’t have the niche EV/SW cachet that Rivian and Tesla have despite lacking CarPlay so I don’t think this will go well for them.
Unless you are Tesla, I just don't think you can do software well enough to forgo Apple or Google's auto stacks. And people will argue that Tesla isn't that great at it either, but it definitely does it better than all of the other auto manufacturers (disclaimer: I've heard, I don't own a Tesla).
Tesla is pretty good about updating its software at least, which is why I called it out. They even do infotainment hardware upgrades, I don't think anyone other car manufacturer is doing that right now (again, disclaimer: I own a BMW i4, not a Tesla, but I did my research before buying).
It’s not only that, but your phone already has all your data. Calendar appointments, addresses of contacts, music, podcasts, etc.
Do replicate this, you’d either need to sync all of that to your car, or migrate to Google’s ecosystem… maybe both.
With the track record of automakers and data privacy, I don’t know who would knowingly do that. It also seems like a giant pain when nearly every other car doesn’t ask the buyer to make this kind of choice.
Yeah exactly. My wife's Volvo runs Android as its entertainment OS, and I still choose to use Android Auto. Because my phone has my music, has the music player I like to use, etc. The car has none of these things. There is no scenario where the car's software is going to be a superior experience to plugging in your smartphone, IMO.
Yes, it's basically just an I/O device. When your phone is disconnected from it, there's no data left in the car except whatever is needed for wireless pairing (if you use wireless pairing) in the future. With wired CarPlay, it retains as much as a dumb touch screen display would.
They will 100% reverse this decision. Surprising it made it past engineering strategy & leadership at a company as large as GM and that they would even float this publicly without the details... but this will be walked back.
How large companies can make it so far and still have such insane decision-making (management by instinct?) is so wild to behold.
I think that'll only happen when and if the corresponding drop in sales offsets increases in revenue from the subscription services owners will be forced to use. When they announced this originally for EVs it was clear the underlying motivation was to convert owners from a one-time source of income into an ongoing stream by forcing them into a subscription model for features they would get from CarPlay/Android Auto.
Also, doing the communication would require cooperation from Google and Apple. Who have their competing systems, and don't want to cooperate with every car makers who wants to build their own system.
I just got a car with Android auto for the first time, after owning an old car for quite a long time.
It's an incredible step up in user experience.
I can't possibly imagine the rationale for doing this being anything more than mismanagement.
The only reason I can think of is that GM wants the user data that Android auto or Apple carplay collect, and they're willing to provide a worse user experience to collect it.
That's exactly why. They want to sell as much of the users data as possible and steal another source of ad revenue (Google maps is already advertising businesses as I use the direction feature...oh look a Wendy's coming up...it's never enough).
I have a Tesla. Fancy big screen, but one of the first things I did was stick an ugly phone mount right next to it. My phone has everything I need, which are mainly reliable maps and audio. And I’m certainly not paying for another data plan to use the same apps on my car when they work fine on my phone.
The only active-production GM vehicle I've had my eyes on in recent years is a c8 Corvette, so this news makes it a lot easier to justify a purchase in the previous-year models that still had CarPlay/Auto. What a strange choice.
Carplay is absolutely a requirement for me for any purchase. Mmmm maybe Barra knows something special about typical GM purchasers, or maybe she is just loony tunes nuts.
> In place of phone projection, GM is working to update its current Android-powered infotainment implementation with a Google Gemini-powered assistant and an assortment of other custom apps, built both in-house and with partners.
I guess I'll add that to the ever-growing list of reasons why I'll never buy a GM vehicle manufactured in the current century.
My car has no screens and neither will my next one. I can't cut the tech giants out of my life altogether but I'm reducing my reliance on them, not increasing their use cases where I don't need to. I'm not inviting them into my driving, my purchases, my music listening, my reading, or any other part of my life. Good for GM.
In the US that is going to restrict you to old used cars. Cars made after 2018 require a backup camera so there is virtually no other way to support the law.
My current car is from 2003 and I'm happy with it. I'm fine with a backup camera screen, as long as I don't need Google/Apple in the mix and the controls (radio, climate, etc.) are not screen-based.
GMC probably doesn’t care about your opinion on what they put in new cars if you’ve conceded you aren’t going to buy one.
But I’d suggest to you that if GMC is not supporting Apple/Android projection it’s not because they want to support something simpler and more open. It’s because they want to own the whole system.
Who do you trust more to build quality software and not rent seek in that situation?
But I don’t want to be forced to sign into a Google Account to use my vehicle. GM’s pivot to Android Automotive has forced Google Play and its complete walled garden into the vehicle at the bare metal.
Google won. Apple loses. At the end of the day, Android users will just use the native AAOS and all the native built in Play crap, while Apple users get screwed.
Monetize the data and charge a recurring subscription. My guess would be they will try the latter first and if that is not profitable enough start selling user data, and if that doesn’t work, in car ads.
