The old cliche about automotive writers is that they used to complain when a car wasn’t a brown, manual, diesel station wagon. That’s the old cliche. The new one is that we won’t stop kvetching about the lack of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Honestly, yeah, accurate. If a car doesn’t have CarPlay, it’s hard for me to imagine owning it.
Lately, there are only three major carmakers that have shunned CarPlay, and all have done so for electric cars. The first is Tesla, which has long had its own, fairly robust user interface (UI). Rivian, following in Tesla’s footsteps, has long integrated a lot of the features one might get from CarPlay or Android Auto. General Motors started with its electric cars, but is planning to roll out the, uh, absence of CarPlay across the board as it resists outside forces creeping into its infotainment.
People famously do not like this and want CarPlay for their vehicles. While automakers may have some reasonable complaints, including handing over power over their own cars to a company like Apple, they’re also ignoring what consumers use. CarPlay and Android Auto are simply the easiest and most predictable experiences for using your phone in your car. With Google getting Supercharger data, it only makes sense to allow Apple to integrate CarPlay, right?
It’s also well-timed, given that Tesla sales have been weaker this year, leading the company to try all sorts of new programs, including renting its cars out directly. What’s amusing here, at least to me, is that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has had a longstanding beef with Apple and has insisted Tesla didn’t need the product, as Bloomberg points out in its reporting:
Adding CarPlay would mark a stunning reversal for Tesla and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who long ignored pleas to implement the popular feature. Musk has criticized Apple for years, particularly its App Store policies, and was angered by the company’s poaching of his engineers when it set out to build its own car.
Pride goeth before a fall, so perhaps Tesla is willing to swallow some in order to move some more cars. From the report, it sounds like this would work in a separate screen and not integrate with other features of the car, like FSD or Autopilot. So this is a baby step towards giving consumers what they want.
This should, I hope, be a wake-up call to other automakers hoping to kick Apple out of their cars. If you can make a truly seamless experience that’s awesome, but no one has yet, and even super-tech-forward Tesla is reportedly considering just giving in to CarPlay. The last non-CarPlay-equipped GM product I had was not intuitive, and even something as simple as navigating through a podcast was unnecessarily hard.
Top photo: Tesla
If a vehicle doesn’t have a wireless Android Auto connection to my phone available, it’s not an option.
I enjoy listening to podcasts on my commute. They are set up to download to my phone automatically. If I’m listening to one in the morning when I am getting ready, I can pause it, get in the vehicle and it picks up where I left off.
That said, even they added Android Auto support, I’m not going near a Tesla.
Pretty much nothing that musk would do would give me a reason to ever buy a Tesla CarPlay or not no way in hell I’m getting a Nazi Mobile. That said I also will NOT buy a car without CarPlay, but it’s not for the technology. It’s for the consistency. I’ve got a fleet; Chevy, Ford even a 91 Mazda Miata, and they all have CarPlay and I can go in any car in the fleet and get my contacts, my apps, my music, my Waze. it follows me. it’s consistent. It’s reliable.
Honestly I do not miss CarPlay while using Tesla’s own UI. I wouldn’t trust GM to do the same…
Never used CarPlay or Android Auto. Then again one car is way too old and the other is a Tesla.
I just remember the days before Android Auto was the default for every car maker, having to go find my rental car, discover the automaker didn’t support Android Auto. Then going and having to download that automaker’s shitty, half-assed app. An extra-special level hell in an airport rental center’s multi-story garage/cell reception dungeon.
Or even after said automaker supposedly started supporting Auto, discovering that they only did so for certain models.
Or in the several-year overlap between when they did, and when the older models aged out of rental fleets.
My own record for last rental car without Android Auto/Car Play support was an Infiniti that I picked up at DCA… in 2021.
My bigger issue is having to pay a subscription for maps w/traffic my phone already provides.
If an OEM can do it for free, then IDGAF if it’s not CarPlay/AndroidAuto. If an OEM is going to charge me $/mo for maps, they can eat a dick.
I currently lease a Blazer EV and have been sent a few customer satisfaction surveys and in every one I make it clear that I love leasing the car but would never buy one because I don’t want a monthly subscription for maps after the included one expires.
I have a car with Android Automotive OS running the infotainment, and it’s almost OK. If it had Apple Music (which is now my music subscription of choice – fuck Spotify’s AI insanity all the way back to hell), I’d never turn on CarPlay. But it doesn’t, so CarPlay rules the screens. If I had to use the older maker’s infotainment, I’d cry.
Amazing how a trillion smackers will soften one’s stance on the issue
I use CarPlay, I think it’s fine, but the idea of not considering a car if it didn’t have CarPlay is so funny to to me,
>the idea of not considering a car if it didn’t have CarPlay is so funny to to me,
Same. I don’t own anything new enough for CarPlay or Android Auto to be options, and I don’t consider the choice of infotainment in a car as in any way relevant to whether I’d want to buy it or not. It’s almost depressing that this is what enthusiasts have come to.
I must have missed the Pit Stop roll-out/mission statement, as this is the third piece today (the first being the doors-y Focus, the second the naming of the Escape)…What’s the MO for this: is it intended to signify just a quickie?