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
“This should, I hope, be a wake-up call to other automakers hoping to kick Apple out of their cars.”
I don’t think anyone else is thinking along these lines. When GM announced plans to kick Apple out a couple of years ago, some industry pundits predicted other automakers would follow. But they didn’t–and they won’t now. The only thing we’re seeing a rejection of the super-intrusive CarPlay Ultra.
How come Apple doesn’t come out with a CarPlay interface for the phone screen? Google has had this figured out for years. That way people can have a simplified interface and it doesn’t matter if the car has carplay or not. As long as the car has bluetooth you’re not missing out.
Android auto on the phone is really nice when using it for a psudo infotainment screen while riding motorcycles/bicycles.
I’m sure Apple will get this sometime in the next couple years and they’ll rave about how “revolutionary” it is.
-This is from a long time iPhone user, but sometimes you’ve just gotta call a spade a spade…
Didn’t Google kill that? I mostly found it annoying anyway.
It’s still available in the Play store as a standalone app.
Interesting, I could swear I read that they’d killed it in typical Google fashion.
Wait, so is this implying they’re going to add a completely different screen to run Carplay? Or are they just going to give you a phone mount to tack your iphone next to the giant center screen?
My read on it is that they’ll go splitscreen with Carplay controlling media and the normal Tesla stack controlling everything else. On the 12″ Uconnect in Rams, it’s terrible because there’s nothing to brace your hand while you try to click an icon in the middle of the screen that would normally be near a bezel.
Ah, yes, this makes sense.
Hot take: centre console screens are all too small. They should be at least 16″ diagonally.
I work with 2 27″ 4K monitors. Moar is better.
I also use two big screens at work, but I don’t tend to do any CAD or excel in my car. If the map is too big it’s harder to take in from a single glance, and all I need for music is a little bar showing what’s playing. The 7″ screen in my Mazda3 does an excellent job of displaying everything I need at a size and location that’s easily readable.
This is the beginning of the end of the myth that automakers can get tech company valuations rather than commodity manufacturing company valuations by creating software-defined vehicles (SDVs) with proprietary ecosystems and walled gardens to lock in users. If Musk cannot pull that off with his remaining groupies, nobody can.
This is nothing like the brown wagon thing. This is like if Apple said that the browser is so integral to the operating system that only Safari will work on iOS.
If I recall correctly, Tesla didn’t need Android Auto or Carplay because you were able to use your phone’s wifi and log into the built in software – Spotify, Netflix, Youtube, etc. Sometime in 2018, I think, Tesla didn’t allow access unless you have Premium connectivity which is a subscription service.
and to GM’s credit, they’re not making you “pay” until after 8 years… and if you use your phones built in wifi for connection, you can do whatever you want. But people gunna complain about it no matter what.
TODAY it’s 8 years. Next week it could be 1 year or 6 months. Plus, you still have use different programs (with different interfaces and features) and allow the car to grab your data and send it to GM (which is the real reason for doing this). GM figures to make big $$$ off of your personal data.
Plus, you get their pace of innovation and updates. With no competition – since you can’t just project your phone – I’m sure they’ll work *real hard* and spend a lot of time and money keeping up. Well, they might in *new* vehicles, but what incentive do they have to update your old one (unless they find a way to extract more data).
they’ll work hard if it gets you to stop yapping…
just joking BTW.
Maybe if you buy an EV you get 8 years, but if you buy a $100k blackwing you only get 6 months free
Okay, I was confused by this because my truck’s free trial ended after like 3 months. If it’s different on the EVs that would explain it.
If you can make a truly seamless experience that’s awesome, that’s awesome, but no one has yet…
“The old cliche about automotive writers is that they used to complain when a car wasn’t a brown, manual, diesel station wagon.”
Not to brag, but I’m probably the only Autopian who actually owned a brown, manual, Diesel (*and* RWD) station wagon.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1984-volvo-245-diesel-the-rwd-diesel-stick-shift-brown-station-wagon-mythical-beast-of-the-internet/
Nice – and nice of it to gut-punch you. Ouch! My best friend had one better though when we shared an apartment post college, he had a reddish brown ’85 745TD with a stick! Hand-me-down from his folks. That thing was awesome until the motor died the usual low compression death they are known for. It never punched him though. Those VW diesels sound great either way, but the turbo is a WHOLE lot quicker. The 240 diesel was certainly adequate, but no rocket ship to saw the least. “Stately” is a good summation.
I use CarPlay in my Crosley Speedster.
Okay, actually I just mount my phone using a marching band phone holder clamped to the steering column. But the maps and the GPS speedometer are helpful. If I wear noise-cancelling earbuds I can almost hear the jazz music over the wind noise and old car sounds at 45mph.
I use Google Maps in my Spitfire. Phone laying on the passenger seat. Good enough. Not much chance of hearing anything though!
Last year I believe the Tesla Model Y was the best selling car in the whole world. So I think that fewer people care about this than what the perpetually online think.
You can all reply with “well I would not buy a car without AirPlay” but I am completely confident when I say that car companies are going to move towards GM and Tesla on this.
AirPlay = Modern day manual transmissions
Insane(ly bad) take, but we’ll see.
I don’t care a out Airplay… but I do care about CarPlay.
Excuse me for the typo. I think I was an autocorrect victim. Or maybe not.
In 2024 the best-selling car in the world was the CarPlay-compatible Toyota RAV4.
Tesla is not a car company, it is a company that will become worth a googolplex dollars by making robots (it will somehow have a total monopoly on robots) for losers to fuck while they wait for the rockets to −81 °F average temp Mars.
Sorry, the Model Y was second in 2024 but first in 2023.
Tesla made up like 3% of new car sales in the US for 2024, so that is an absurdly ignorant take. Since almost all of that other 97% does have carplay, I think people do care. Or the fact that literally every survey says they do. Or my own experience working in car dealerships as to your experience which appears to be primarily up your own ass. You don’t even know what it’s called.
Will more automakers get rid of it? Possibly. But they’re doing it because they can’t steal enough data from people using carplay, not lack of demand.
Again, sorry for the typo. I think I was autocorrected. I know what it is called because I use it.
Also… You are exactly correct why they will get rid of it. They want to “steal” your data instead of Apple doing it. That is exactly why every car company except for niche or desperate ones will only offer it in the near future.
I got an Android Auto compatible head unit designed specifically for VWs, made by a Chinese company literally called noname. I love it, one of the best mods I’ve done to the car. Wasn’t too hard, plugged right into the factory wiring harness and all my steering wheel buttons still work. If I were buying a new car it would take an impressive system for me to give that up.
I did the same RCD330 in my MK6 Golf. Super easy 15min swap with the original head unit. Having CarPlay/Android Auto along with a backup camera made my 13yo car feel modern. Note the backup camera install was a PITA but worth it.
Ah yes so you had to upgrade your backup camera too? Ive done it before on another VW and it was a huge pain, second time around was a little better. I don’t mind the guide lines it displays now, my Sportwagen didn’t have that before.
I did this for my F150 and haaaate it. You can only hook up 2 phones before the system freaks out. If you do a third phone, because sometimes employees need to drive it, you have to factory reset the whole unit. It’s really a scratch off ticket with the Chinese head units
The one I put in my Volvo V70 was pretty meh too. But I only have the one phone, and that part worked great. CarPlay connectivity kind of sucked, and so did all the music players I tried. The one car I had with factory AA/Carplay, my GTI, the AA worked great, CarPlay sucked, but I had an Android phone then. Which I miss, bigly. Both the phone and the GTI, actually.
I just don’t care about this enough to care. My need for connectivity stops with being able to pair my phone to make a phone call properly hands-free, and I want to be able to plug in a thumbdrive for music. I never stream from my phone, too much of a PITA to get music on and off an iPhone.
2 of our newer cars have carplay and I put a double din with carplay in my 25 year old truck, it’s great to not have to think about how do I use maps on this car vs that, Waze comes up and if I’m at home it asks if I’m going to work or vice versa(70% of the time I am), my playlists and podcasts are all there, drive mode turns on so I don’t get alerts, if I need to call or text someone I just ask Siri to, and it works identically in the 6.5″ double din, or the bigger screens in the newer cars.
It really is great to have and one of the reasons we leased a Prologue instead of a Blazer or Equinox. If all you have is Teslas then that’s a fairly similar experience, but if it’s a multi-car/multi-brand household then having 1 less thing to remember that’s different is really cool. Now if they could all standardize on wiper stalk and shifter configurations we’d be really set.(my wife gets in our Mitsubishi and turns on the wiper for reverse cause that’s where the shifter is in her Honda)
I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a fairly routine occurrence for me when we had a mix of column shifter and floor shifter vehicles. That muscle memory is real.
I have five cars with four COMPLETELY different user interfaces. And then I drive different rentals for work all the time. The confusion is real.
At least my two BMWs are 95% identical inside. The only real difference is the 1-series lacks the upper vent air temp dial and the ability to do cruise in 1 AND 5mph increments that my same year 3-series has. And no Bluetooth, because the cheapskate Yankee who ordered the thing new decided $250 for that was a bridge too far on a nearly $40K car. Have most of what I need for the retrofit though. Only been five years, those ’round tuits’ are hard to come by.
At this point, I think “they” is mostly GM and Tesla. Basically everyone else has agreed that the wipers belong on the right side of the steering wheel, at least in the US. Now, if there could be an industry consensus on whether up or down is On…
I had a rental ICE Blazer for a week and did the opposite, multiple times.
My new car has Android Automotive built-in and it still doesn’t compare to Android Auto.
I drive a Tesla Model 3. The lack of Android Auto / Apple CarPlay is one of my biggest complaints. When I bought the car (in 2018), Android Auto / Apple CarPlay was still in it’s infancy, but now that it is pretty ubiquitous, I do miss it. I could get around it by paying for Tesla’s “Premium Connectivity”, which actually is pretty good, but I’m too cheap to pay the $10/month for it. My wife’s Jeep Grand Cherokee has it, and I love how my phone is mirrored on the screen automatically every time I get in it to drive.
I’m also a Model 3 owner. I don’t mind paying for premium connectivity because using live traffic data for navigation can save a lot of time avoiding congestion. I also like being able to switch between a map and satellite view to find alternate paths in and out of parking lots. I had Android Auto in my previous car and I don’t miss it.
The only way I would switch back to Android Auto is if it was better at planning EV road trips than Tesla. That would require a lot of data regarding battery charge levels and power consumption levels to be shared. The car would also need to start preconditioning the batteries for DC fast charging when Android Auto called for it.
Android Auto does both of those things with Fords fwiw
You don’t need premium connectivity to get live traffic data for navigation. My car does this all the time without premium connectivity. I would like to have the satellite view, but it’s not a deal breaker for me.
Re: EV road trip planning, that is a great feature that Tesla does extremely well. Fortunately I don’t have to use that very much, as I seldom charge anywhere but home. What I would use Android Auto for is primarily for listening to music / podcasts. Without premium connectivity, I can stream, but any changes have to be done through the phone, not the screen. That’s my main want.
Matt, what is a “pit stop”?
The only time I use CarPlay is for navigation. Otherwise, Bluetooth handles all my needs. But, you like what you like.
Didn’t I just read of a car manufacturer tossing the apple sauce? You can’t allow a supplier of options to control your product. Maybe allow an after market option if apple pays a fee but no way allowed apple to tell you what to do. Frankly I don’t see why an entertainment screen is even on the radar when evaluating a car
I suggest an Autopian challenge. Get one of these young kids to live in and drive a car that only has an AM/FM radio, maybe a cassette deck for 30 days. And take away their phones and provide a phone booth.
It doesn’t even cross my mind to check if a car has CarPlay or Android Auto when I look at it. Mind you, I still have a vehicle that has a cassette player / CD player combo – and I like it.
We can hang! I can tell you’re good people.
I have a cassette player in the dash and a 6-disc changer in the trunk. Livin’ large up in here.
Am I a young kid at 22? Probably not, but I’ve been dailying a car with only an AM/FM radio (and a broken CD player) for WAY over 30 days now!
My hero.
I have a 57 year old car without a radio, power windows, a/c, and a manual trans, and guess what? I also like having CarPlay in my daily driver..
People are allowed to enjoy the modern conveniences that come with systems like CarPlay and Android Auto. It’s just simply a nice and easy to use interface for music, maps, and calls. There are lots of things not to like about modern cars, but this is not one of them.
It doesn’t make you more of a car guy just because you don’t get why people like these things.
I’m not a young person, what I Can say is I was a WAY worse driver when I didn’t have a smart phone/Car Play, mainly because I’m navigationally challenged.
I wasted to much time, missed job opportunities/upset family and friends because I am incredibly dyslexic with directions, and it’s far worse if I’m stressed.
Modern smart phones and navigation apps have made my life significantly better, I can accept I’ll always be Magellan, and let GPS get me where I need to be, and on time to boot. For instance, I have twice been to Italy and driven without issue thanks to using Waze on my phone, having to try and navigate signs in a different language alone would have left me hopelessly lost.
Finally, I hate terrestrial radio, and carrying around tapes/cassettes. Give me streaming or give me death!
Oh and to your phone booth comment, I don’t remember anyone’s phone numbers, not even my Kids or Significant Others, or parents, and rarely have cash, let alone change. So a phone booth would only be useful for changing into my superhero costume.
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.
Oh you are just months away of paying for a subscription on every one of your cars.
This amazes me. I have my own convictions but if my company offered a day off with pay for Hitler’s birthday, I am not a fan, I would gladly take it. What do you think you are accomplishing by not buying a Tesla? Elon doesn’t give a shit he is the richest man in the world. He is about to get paid a trillion dollars a year. And he doesn’t give a shit about you not buying a Tesla,you are only deciding to destroy the environment and admit it 3 years ago you were praising this man. You won’t hurt him just the people working for him and destroying the environment. What happened to logical thinking?
WTF are you talking about? Me not buying a crap Tesla is destroying the environment? ( for the record I’ve only had disdain for muskrat from day one) . Your seem to think that Nazi fuck is the only option for displaced emission vehicles.
Fortunately there are plenty of alternatives to heir musk’s crap cars. Logically I’ll invest in transportation choices based on what I feel is important for my use case. A consistent user experience is important to me with my choice of apps and services. Good miles/kwh is important to me, a good warranty and service is important to me, rowing my own gears and dropping the top for a fun drive is important to me, and not giving a penny to an overt Facist fuck is important to me.
And though I don’t need to justify anything, we’ve got a bolt ev in the garage, a plug in escape hybrid, a hybrid maverick and a Miata with a mighty 1.6 l / 5 speed.
Don’t be an asshole next time you try to guilt someone.
Elon?
Musk isn’t about to get paid a trillion dollars a year. He could be awarded 1 trillion in stock over a decade if Tesla hits 12 different performance metrics.
There is zero reason to buy a Tesla today – better options from other automakers.
Logic tells me that if someone hates me, or thinks that I should be a second class citizen because of the colour of my skin, I’m not going to give them a big pile of my own money.
Many of us praised Elon, until he revealed himself as fully and proudly racist.
You obviously don’t have a problem with that.
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.
You like paying for Premium Connectivity subscription when your phone already has the wifi connection?
Can already totally use Bluetooth to the Tesla screen or WiFi hot spot teslas data from your phone.
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.
Or just use the car to drive,turn on the radio and use your phones GPS. FOR thousands of years every person on the planet did without I’m sure you can do a week.
I know better than to engage, but here we go…
There are a few flaws in the logic in your comment in regards to rental cars. First, when driving a rental car you’re almost always in an unfamiliar vehicle in an unfamiliar area driving to an unfamiliar location. Not a great combination when coupled with sup-par navigation.
Second, by the time you get to your rental car you’re near the end of a travel day and you’re probably not at your sharpest. This isn’t a great time to have to need to divide your attention between a sub-optimal navigation (or an unfamiliar user interface, but that’s a different topic) and the actual act of driving. This isn’t even accounting for areas where the simple act of looking at a cell phone while driving is illegal, which is something police look for in tourist areas where this applies.
Yeah, we got by for years but that isn’t a very good excuse when there are better alternatives.
As far as actually buying a car; I’m fine with using a janky phone mount and using my phone as a screen in my 28 year old truck. I’m not so OK with the idea of doing the same thing with a 2026 vehicle that I’m considering buying new off the lot. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have different expectations there…
I’ll add my own non-constructive comment. There were rental cars before gps and cell phones and we got where we were going. They had things called paper maps – they handed them out at the rental counter.
On the other hand, I understand some people are navigationaly challenged. I found this out in college when I was in the car and handed my girlfriend a Thomas Guide (Google it), pointed to where we were and then to where we were going, and told her to give me directions. It never occurred to me that someone wouldn’t know how to read a map. (Highschool girlfriend and I drove all over the Southwest with paper maps and AAA tourbooks – never, ever got lost)
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.
in 8 years…
The average vehicle on American roads is over 12 years old, so the vast majority would be beyond that included 8 year subscription and would need to pay GM monthly. Or they could just include Carplay.
You literally have a monthly subscription FOR THE WHOLE CAR.
True, but I’ll gladly pay $200/mo to lease a car for the rest of my life if I can keep getting a good deal like that. But I won’t pay $20-30/mo for an internet connection when my phone does a much better job already.
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
Everyone has their price.
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?