A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit.
And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her, very high up on the list.
I thought the whole "integration" thing was bullshit in the first place, but a proprietary GM system?
This marks a return to the days of massively overpriced AM radios. The problem now is the way these systems are physically molded into the car. Back in the day you could put a good radio in. Good luck with that now.
All we really needed for the last 15 years was a recess in every dashboard in which to put our already-giant phones, with a power and audio dock. I can't deny that CarPlay works relatively decently in my experience, but it's not really necessary.
Even worse is the removal of auxiliary jacks from car stereos, another huge regression. So people can't even get a Bluetooth adapter that plugs into it and supplant this GM nonsense.
There is no end to the mania for screwing the consumer. Subscription car features... WTF. Keep your old cars, people.
There are plenty of aftermarket head units for specific cars.
It's not that hard for the manufacturers to make another plastic part.
You shouldn't have to though, now that there is this dual communication standard.
It's getting very hard, since lots of modern cars don't have space behind the dash for a head unit, since their infotainment screen is now not commonly attached to the amp.
If your car has space for a head unit, and a fascia is available, and a steering wheel controls adapter is available, and a backup camera adapter (sometimes eight needed for the cars with "birdseye" view systems), and a climate control adapter, and sometimes a navigation system adapter, you might be able to seamlessly install a headunit. It just might cost a lot.
A hefty bit of reverse re-engineering and quite some pain in the neck. Also you'll do everyone a favour if you vote with your dollar for a car that has dedicated controls for AC and such.
I can't speak directly for these aftermarket infotainment replacements but implementations of aftermarket ECUs for example record CAN bus traffic to build a database of the various node IDs, messages, and values.
I personally love CarPlay. A requirement for my next vehicle is wireless CarPlay, and I will not even begin to consider it if it does not have that. Some people want ventilated seats or a V8. I want CarPlay. I think this is a very silly move by GM that they will quickly reverse.
After having wireless CarPlay, not sure I can ever go back. It’s really nice to get in the car and just go, and everything from my phone is automatically on the dash and controllable with the car’s native controls.
The last thing I want is for my car to be another device with its own subscription, accounts, applications, configuration, etc.
It's a bit of a pain if two people share the car. Even worse if two people share more than one car. There never seems to be an option to force use a specific phone when more than one is possible. They all seem sticky to a phone and it always seems to be the other one.
I guess a good thing about carplay is that when traveling with someone else, they can use their phone to update things like maps, and we're not completely locked out of it until we come to a stop.
I really liked wireless CarPlay when testing the Enyaq and wondered about the multi user situation. Already today Bluetooth always seems to get exactly the wrong phone. In our current setup we just have a phone holder with plug in which we shove the phone. Then it is done. It takes longer to pull the phone out of the pocket than to connect it.
The only downside to CarPlay is that the battery stays at 100% charge. I wish I could limit that to 80%. Especially if we take long drives this degrades the battery unnecessarily.
> The only downside to CarPlay is that the battery stays at 100% charge. I wish I could limit that to 80%. Especially if we take long drives this degrades the battery unnecessarily.
I think that fast charging is just as bad, if not worse.
The batteries used in phones degrade quickest below 20% and above 80% of charge. This is already at room temperature. When the batteries or phone is hot the degradation at those state of charge (SoC) is even worse. In the car when using CarPlay the phone can get really warm, especially if it is in the sunlight which tends to happen easily. When left in the shade it gets hot due to restricted airflow.
Therefore I would like to limit the SoC on my phone to not excessively degrade the battery. I very rarely, if ever, need more than 80% of the design capacity of my iPhone anyway. So I prefer it to last longer.
100% isn't over-charging. It's just not the GP's preferred spot on the battery energy (hours of charge) vs battery lifetime (days/years) curve for daily use.
I do wish phones would provide more control here. I would also take 80% charge many (but not all) days in exchange for my battery life after a year staying higher.
lmgtfy: Its the extremes (0% and 100%) that degrades LiIon the quickest, if you want the longest life ideally you'd keep it 30-70% the whole time, ymmv (and also thresholds).
And it is a pity manufacturers don't support you in doing stop-charging-at-x if you wanted, e.g. a simple thing for software to do, but impossible without rooting on Android.
Its been a feature since at least the S9. Source: Had to 'fix' my girlfriend's phone only charging to 85%. Was a mystery how that setting got randomly enabled, really.
I can't recall for certain if my old S7 had that option but I don't think it did.
Although that's not really a downside of CarPlay itself, and you can also solve that with the Optimized Battery Charging feature, in iOS 13 or later. So just turn that on.
I have it turned on and it helps when charging during the night. It will charge until 80% and then charge until 100% for just in time when it thinks I need it.
But then when I get in my car it will just stay charged at 100% all the time.
My wife and I share a VW Tiguan and this is a constant annoyance. To switch devices you have to go out of CarPlay -> Settings -> Swipe left to the second screen of controls -> Mobile Device Settings -> Select device.
And since the device it initially chooses to connect to sometimes takes 30 seconds or so to be fully connected (during which time you can't make any selections in this menu), you have to sit and wait until it connects the device you don't want to be connected before you can switch to the one you do want. And then you wait about 30 seconds for the correct device to connect.
I have a much older car from 2007 so no Android Auto or Apple Carplay for me but I thought I was supposed to sit there after I start my car for at least half a minute?
Maybe not needed for newer cars?
I start the car and wait for the dashcam to chime. I start driving once it chimes. I have an older Aukey, not hard wired, so it takes about half a minute for it to chime which I thought was perfect timing.
Assuming temps over -20°C and a car newer than 30 years, I think you’re fine to drive away as soon as the engine is stable after starting. That’s probably well under 5 seconds and, unless you’re trying to do an old LeMans race start, isn’t something that I’d consciously wait for.
Because it's an old Kia and there's three menus to click thorough and one confirmation screen. I'd guess 15 is a little long, but on average it takes at least 10 seconds.
Right, this is my main problem with Bluetooth too. It’s much better if you can just plug a cable into the phone you want to use and have it just work (and keep the phone charged too).
You can’t quite do that with any car I’ve been in. CarPlay is close; it would be great if that became an open standard with standard connectors.
We've done this in numerous rental cars. Many variations of the same problem -- it picks the phone it picks. We've had to resort to deleting one phone from the car (and the phone's bluetooth) to get it back on the other phone.
It's inconceivable how the pairings are so bad and there isn't just a button for each phone connected that just works. Even when switching does work, all it takes is one blip and it hops over the other phone.
Again, this is on multiple cars on long road trips where we have at least two people to work on it and literally hours to figure it out. We generally settle on a single phone per car now, because it just isn't worth it.
I ruled cars out of my last purchase that didn’t have CarPlay. I didn’t realize wireless was available now. Having to hook it up is the one major pain. Wireless CarPlay will definitely be a requirement on the next purchase.
If I want to, sure. Otherwise the data port you plug in to for your wired CarPlay is usually a really slow charger. I prefer to use my 12v charger. So I got a MagSafe charger and a wireless CarPlay adapter.
I love CarPlay but I’ve given up on wireless. The idea seems nice, but in practice I have two issues.
First CarPlay just takes a fair amount of power so you’re going to notice it’s effect on battery life.
Second is the audio playback lag. I can’t stand it. It feels like seconds (though maybe it’s not that bad). The interface is ok but hitting pause or play or next track takes noticeable time to happen.
I’ve only ever tried it in my car. Maybe it’s fine in other vehicles. But it’s useless to me. It’s extremely responsive when connected by cable, so I just ended up going back to plugging in.
Wireless CarPlay in my 2022 Kia EV is way less enjoyable than wired CarPlay in my 2005 Toyota with an aftermarket Sony head unit with CarPlay support. Latency is much, much lower in the Toyota and there's never any trouble with switching between my iPhone and my wife's. Whoever's is plugged in wins—the end. As opposed to the Kia where it's always a crapshoot and plagued by endless Bluetooth connectivity issues.
Recommendations? I purchased a device that lets me watch video in the head unit (runs Android and uses CarPlay protocol), and adds wireless CarPlay. However, it's shocking at how slow it is at going into CarPlay mode.
I bought this 2-3 years ago https://cplay2air.com and it has always worked wonderfully. It takes around 5 seconds to connect, which is fine for me since the entertaining system of my car it’s slow to startup anyway (totalling ~10 seconds from turning the key to carplay)
What adapter do you use? My car has a USB A port that accepts a regular iPhone charging cable - takes all of five seconds to connect as I'm getting in the car.
Just rented a car with wireless Android Auto, and while it was convenient when it worked, it occasionally dropped the connection and I had to manually restart it (and sometimes it would refuse to connect). On one day where I was on a road trip, this happened several times.
Also, when I wanted to turn it off temporarily, there's no easy way to do so on either the phone or car. Gotta turn the car off or dive deep into infotainment settings. It looks like neither the auto manufacturers nor Google have thought this through.
The first and only time I tried Android Auto, I asked my wife to look up directions to a place on my phone. It kept saying not to use the phone while driving, and effectively blocked it.
I mean, I get the spirit, but the experience was terrible.
I was using Waze a couple days ago while connected to CarPlay, but at a dead stop with the car in Park. The route selection screen on the phone wouldn't let me choose a particular route (HOV route) but it also wouldn't say why. It just either didn't respond to the input or else the route label flashed but didn't actually activate. The CarPlay screen only included the non-HOV versions of the routes, so I just plain couldn't pick the route I wanted.
I unplugged the phone for two seconds, picked the HOV route, and then plugged it back in, but I was infuriated by it.
This is not a knock on CarPlay, but rather Waze's UX decisions. It requires GPS access to function, it can tell if I'm stopped or not.
I have a BMW and my Apple CarPlay kept doing this to me where it would disconnect and then take like 30+ seconds to reconnect itself. When I looked for support, the stuff I read was unclear whether it was a CarPlay issue or an issue with the BMW software, but eventually it did fix itself and I rarely have an issue with it anymore (and when I do, it's more of a "blip" than a full disconnect).
I’m guessing that Google is willing to do a revenue share with GM from the data. And apple doesn’t do that. So some dork at GM figured they can increase revenue with their own special system.
GM has a history of stupid decisions trying to get service revenue from cars. I remember on Star and it was so dumb that they wanted me to lay $40/month for concierge service or something.
They still have onStar and push it despite all reason. I drove a 2023 chevy bolt recently, and couldn’t figure out how to get the nav software to render a map.
All the buttons in the UI just initiated phone calls with someone (something?), so I hung up and switched to carplay.
It is a shame that the onboard nav is busted. My old BMW EV has extremely good range predictions, etc., and my phone does not even attempt such things.
I’m not switching to Google’s ecosystem, so I guess I’ll just never buy a GM moving forward.
GM is expecting $20-25 billion in annual subscription revenue by 2030. Dropping CarPlay and Android Auto will definitely lose them many sales. They are betting the lost sales will be less than the new subscription revenue.
I’ve got an idea for GM cars: lock passengers inside after every trip unless they pay $5. Instant revenue. I can’t believe they haven’t considered this.
I genuinely wonder how they justify that figure. They could maybe justify a subscription if they offered a significant service, but they are by definition going to deliver a worse experience than CarPlay/Android Auto - simply due to it not being your own smartphone.
Why would anyone buy an expensive car which is designed to last a decade while it has essential pre-installed features locked behind a subscription? If they want recurring revenue that badly, they should just lease it out.
The figure is utterly ridiculous. They truly expect to generate a revenue stream 2x the size of Spotify or AirPods? Apple as a whole only makes 21B a year from all services, and they run everything from cloud storage, to synchronization, to an App Store with a wild profit margin from fees.
Of course, all American auto makers have wildly unrealistic plans for electric vehicle adoption in the next 5 years, too -- i think one of them is predicting $600B of revenue from EVs before 2030, when they currently only make a few million a year. Their finance departments must have some good drugs in the water coolers.
What's more ludicrous is that they expect to generate a revenue stream 1/6th the size of their entire automotive enterprise. You'll pay $300/mo for a car payment, and $40/mo for OnStar Audio, and $10/mo will be earned from selling your data and showing ads on your nav system.
> Apple as a whole only makes 21B a year from all services, and they run everything from cloud storage, to synchronization, to an App Store with a wild profit margin from fees.
Correct on "wild profit margin", but your numbers are wrong according to FY22 10-K filing[1]:
Every feature on the car will be a subscription... Heated Seats, Fast Charging, Nav, everything
Of course they will be "free" for the first 3-5 years of ownership, the free is non-transferable to a new owner... and you will be able to get the GM+ All Access Plan to "unlock your car's full potential for only $500 a year".....
This is not a GM thing, this is the dream of all Auto Makers..
You may "buy" the car, but you are not "buying" the software that runs the car...
One of the benefits of "economy" cars. More reliable than the high-end models and they can't pull this crap because it would lose them money as their customer base can't afford it.
This is why I'm really skeptical of mandating EVs without consumer protection because this seems to be the point where automakers are seeing dollar signs and can force buyers into higher price brackets.
I think attempting to solve a problem that is created by government regulations by creating more government regulations is crazy...
There should be no EV mandate, then there would not need to be consumer protections as the market would do what is does best and allow manufacturers to compete on the merits of the vehicles not by the government choosing what we should be allowed to drive.
I think there are already too many regulations on the manufacture of cars.
Federally, all of them. I dont think it is a role for the federal government. The only plausible authority it the continued in proper use of the commerce clause to justify all federal action.
At the state level I think the only regulations should be those around direct safety concerns (like air bags, lights, etc). Efficiency or other non-safety related regulations should be disallowed. Further safety regulations should be limited safe operations for other drivers sharing the road, not passenger protection (outside of regulations on truth in advertising, product defect)... passenger protection should be a market dynamic, coupled with greater tort reform to be able to hold liable manufacturers for their marketing claims.
Yeah I think they’re fever dreaming at those recurring revenue projections. Ditching the phone integrations will have them selecting for buyers who don’t care about the Infotainment Experience (ugh), either because they just want the basics, or they can’t afford to be picky or whatever. Then they imagine that these buyers—who didn’t care enough about the big screen in the dash to include it in their buying decision—will pay hundreds of dollars each year to rent an off-brand version of those same features.
Someone over there has fond memories of OnStar, and is desperate to relive their glory days.
You say fever dream, I say business consultant getting paid big bucks to present and run focus groups for an idea that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Seriously though, car company made infotainment systems are the biggest reason they shouldn’t be trusted with more life or death software like self driving. They’re all atrocious.
GM previously attempted to force an additional upfront 3 year OnStar purchase on top of the vehicle purchase on some Buick/GMC/Cadillacs. They walked it mostly back, but they still rolled that stupid-ass idea out.
This sounds a little like designing their cars to only work with a proprietary formulation of gasoline and “expecting” to automatically capture all the revenue that third party gas stations are making right now.
Consumers aren’t stupid enough to think they should be paying subscription fees to GM for infotainment features when they have other, often free, options.
I think this makes a ton of business sense. They're only doing this on EV's, which have to be charged, and are likely concerned your car infotainment system is going to become a platform people buy things on they don't want to miss out on. Tesla has done it and because of this they have the best infotainment system in the industry. Frankly from what I can tell as well this is just editorialization, I don't think GM considers it a blunder and it seems like the smart move in my opinion (although it would have been smarter to start 10 years ago like Tesla did).
Do I think there a plausible business case for subscription infotainment systems? Sure. Do I think there's a plausible business case for subscription infotainment systems that includes ditching Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so as to force people into buying a GM subscription? Well, no, not really.
Tesla got away with not supporting CarPlay because they were one of the very few options available if you wanted an electric car. Rivian got away with it (for now, at least) because they were your only option if you wanted a high-end electric truck. Their customers were willing to sacrifice CarPlay because they had no real choice. Yes, Tesla's UI is nice-ish. That doesn't mean Tesla drivers don't want CarPlay support. Tons of them do, and it comes up regularly on online forums.
If you look at infotainment systems like BMW's latest iDrive iterations and Mercedes-Benz's MBUX, it's quite clear that they've improved a great deal in the past few years, lack of physical buttons aside. I'd hope that GM manages to do the same. Things have gotten better and the alternative to using CarPlay is no longer living with a nightmarish hellscape of a UI put together by sadistic designers --or maybe just traumatized ones, tormented by someone who forced them to ship terrible infotainment systems for years.
Despite that, consumers still love CarPlay and/or Android Auto and expect it to be available on their cars, with limited exceptions. Most people get in their cars, connect directly to CarPlay/Android Auto, and get on with their drive. When they have to use the native infotainment system, they do so with less frustration. But how many people do you think are just using a Bluetooth connection for their phone instead of CarPlay when it's right there? The answer is likely very, very few.
GM is betting that they'll get its customers to accept not having it like Tesla and Rivian customers have to. That's a hell of a gamble when everyone else will be shipping their own expanded line of EV models at the same time and price points as GM.
Not to be that guy but I don't think this is the case at all; cars cost ~25k and last a lot longer than your phone. Further your car will still work with your phone, although it may require a bit more setup when you first buy the car to install the apps you want. The big hurdle I see is that they'll have to develop an infotainment system that's on feature parity with your phone, which will be quite difficult and will take years; it's taken a decade for Tesla's system to get where it is today and convincing Netflix and other developers to get on was difficult
A lot of dealerships make more money on service than on sales. Extra money from subscriptions aren’t nothing when looked at like that. Average car service costs are what, 500-700/year over a long span of years?
EVs are turning the service business on their head. It looks like the only real service on the Bolt is tire rotations and a cabin air filter change for example.
I have a Nissan LEAF. In 8.5 years, my expenses have included replacing wiper blades twice, cabin air filter twice, filling the washer fluid bottle several times and I’ve looked at the tires and brakes, rotating tires once.
It’s been crazy nice. (As the family wrench-turner, even my wife’s CR-V, which is generally low maintenance, has felt like an inconvenient pig for maintenance demands by comparison.)
The pads are about 2/3 worn on the rear (very small pads) and 1/2 worn on the front. Of course, they'll eventually need changing, but regen braking takes a large amount of the deceleration energy.
Wheel bearings on modern cars are incredibly long-lived. I don't think I've changed one in over 30 years on our family cars.
> Wheel bearings on modern cars are incredibly long-lived. I don't think I've changed one in over 30 years on our family cars.
Depends on the car. I had a POS Chevy uplander and had to replace them 3 times. Angry because my Mazda was the same age, same milage and on its original set so i asked the GM mechanic why..
He told me the design. I'm going to guess the Uplander has the cheapest ones available?
But like you, I thought the same thing.. is "bearings" really a thing these days and apparently it is??
I'm never going to buy another "domestic" car again, and this whole "infotainment" mess we see here reinforces my decision.
Regenerative braking is very, very good at slowing the vehicle without brake pad involvement, so the brake pads are actually not used that much, unless you actively apply brakes with sudden/aggressive stops.
Regen breaking.. similar to how manual transmission cars can transfer some stopping power from the brakes to the engine.. regen breaking changes the electric motor into a generator and this consumes power slowing the car down.
These actions cause the brakes to last a LOT longer. I've never driven an EV but the manual transmission cars i have had needed far fewer brake jobs.
I have never heard of someone needing to change wheel bearings in my 30+ years being alive in the US. And my family has driving 5 or 6 cars to 250k+ miles.
They may well be more or less production limited on the EVs (not saying that they are, pointing at the possibility).
If it actually works good people might not care in the medium term. Generally the problem people have with the automaker systems is that they sucked, not that they weren't CarPlay.
Yea except now that CarPlay exists, my definition of “not sucks” includes working flawlessly with my iPhone. Obviously apple ensured that the only way this could succeed is through CarPlay, but that’s not my fight, it’s GMs.
> Generally the problem people have with the automaker systems is that they sucked, not that they weren't CarPlay.
I think that's part of it, but definitely not the entire story. People have a lot of their life on their phone, so the tighter the integration between their phone and other products, the more appealing the experience with that product is. No matter how good the automaker system is, if it's not basically your phone with a different screen, it's going to feel like an awkward disconnect, especially when there are plenty of alternative cars that do offer that seamless experience.
> Generally the problem people have with the automaker systems is that they sucked, not that they weren't CarPlay.
I’m with vineyardmike. The problem was they sucked before CarPlay.
Now that I’ve had a taste of controlling everything my way with my apps based on my preferences in a way I’m used to, I’m not going back.
The best you could offer is perfect integration with my phone and the apps I use. But that will never happen, and at that point I might as well use CarPlay anyway.
Cars need their own system for fallback but it’s a cost center. Don’t try to make it your primary selling point, you can’t win.
I agree it's totally perplexing. GM doesn't have a moat, all of their vehicles have competition.
Could this just be a bluff/negotiation tactic or something?
It seems so perplexing to remove these features, rather than giving the option for Android auto and car play along with their own android platform. If their own system has better native functionality, people will see this as a selling point. If not, they're free to ignore it.
Cars are not TVs. It's a major purchase that somebody will be using for years, so people will pay attention to this kind of detail. Surely they know this?
> If their own system has better native functionality, people will see this as a selling point. If not, they're free to ignore it.
This implicitly assumes that the manufacturer's direct cost of integrating/supporting such features, and indirect opportunity costs of not deploying an alternative replacement, are both effectively $0.
They are probably trying to emulate Teslas product strategy
Tesla doesn't offer android or iPhone carplay. Instead they try to offer a software experience superior to those. It does Spotify, gps, etc but also manages the car itself.
Depending on what the user is doing it makes sense. If the user mostly wanted their phone for music and directions, you can build that stuff in house and have it turn out okay. If the user wants carplay for much more than that, then it's not good.
My Tesla's lack of Android Auto is one of its biggest drawbacks. Even for navigation it is bad, as I'm forced to use the inferior Tesla map app (which unlike say Waze can't compute directions considering carpool lanes). You also end up with a lack of synchronized directions history to your phone.
IMO, the only upside to the customer is avoiding plugging a phone in. The phone experience is otherwise generally better across the board.
(On a latter note, I consider the Tesla UI good for a car, but bad overall. Climate app also generally sucks).
GM had decades to make a high quality in-car entertainment system on par with Teslas and failed. CarPlay and Android Auto was supposed to save us from that.
Yes, from what I’ve seen, Ford sells their vehicles at cost and uses that line of business as a funnel to generates profits from via financing.
Some higher trim models have a decent margin, but many lower trims are sold at a loss, resulting in essentially no profit from manufacturing.
Moreover, EVs are shaping up to be a financial disaster for carmakers. Tesla is essentially the only company to turn a profit on EVs, with the likes of Ford etc. hemorrhaging billions every year, with no end in sight. EVs simply aren’t shaping up to be a viable business without supplemental revenue streams.
Tesla has premium/luxury pricing and the clout. I'm not sure if your "average Joe" brand of car can make EVs work in their current state. There's a limit how much someone will pay for a Toyota or a Ford, less so for a Tesla or BMW.
The idea that Tesla has high margin because their final assembly is not as perfect as BMW is complete nonsense. They have high margin because of advanced manufacturing, vertical integration, cheap battery supply and so on.
Also, the evidence for Tesla having much worse quality (the reports) shows that they are only marginally worse then everybody else. Nowwhere near far enough to make a 30% margin difference.
Simple. Money. OnStar costs between $25-50 per month. Say the car lasts 15 years, that's $4500-$9000 over the life of the car, and this is all at an extremely high profit margin.
Even if some people won't buy the car if it doesn't have Carplay, it's worth it because of how profitable selling services is, because people don't do the mental math on the cost.
It makes sense because they can create and roll out their own system. Hell, make it subscription-based, with a premium tier. They don't give a fuck, people will still buy their big ass SUVs and pick-up trucks.
How does it make sense to keep making cars bigger and bigger? It doesn't for us, but sure as shit does for them.
Probably their own app store, inline with Google Play. And also forcing you to login on their gear, so your paid apps are available, and thus they can better track you / monetize you.
No, not really. Manufacturers make about 5%. Dealers make about 1-2%. People assume the margins are much higher because it's an expensive product, so there's a big gap between perception and reality.
Whatever the profit margin of an individual car is, the car manufacturing business is not a high profit margin business. GM/Toyota/Honda/Ford show 5%, to maybe 10% profit margins.
They would definitely benefit from convincing people to pay for 50%+ profit margin software as a service subscriptions.
The most sold EV brand in the US with about 2/3 of market share doesn't allow CarPlay either.
Now don't get me wrong, I want my Apple Carplay too. I wouldn't want to buy a car without it.
But the argument that "as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes" I just don't see happen in real life today. Most EV buyers chose a Tesla. No CarPlay or Android Auto in that one.
GM is keeping Android Auto and Apppe Car Play in their ICE vehicles.
Comparing their decision to remove it from their future EVs and buyer decisions with Tesla is a better comparison than comparing it with 95.2% of the other market which will still retain it.
I think Tesla is pretty far ahead of its competition today people are ok to overlook the lack of apple carplay. but when others do catch up (if, say, Ford EV somehow become as good as Teslas) then i suspect ppl won't be so forgiving.
There are at least two major underlying markets at play here: manufacturer-dealer and dealer-consumer.
Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics research paints a colorful picture of market dynamics from 2007-2019[3] where post-GFC increase in domestic competition and the rising cost of manufacturing forced dealers to "innovate" as a way of offsetting new car sales margin decline, which set the stage for 2019-2022[4] where manufacturers largely internalized an outsized supply chain squeeze while dealers gouged the shit out of consumers. So when you say "high-margin", I think you're looking in the wrong bucket.
Then there's GM Financial segment sitting on a $65.322B retail finance receivables portfolio[5] of which 27.2% are sub-680 FICO consumers, and carrying $96.854B of debt[6]...nevermind rising interest rates, increasing layoffs, and a looming credit crunch. Remarks like:
>> In 2021, GM Financial redeemed $1.5 billion in aggregate principal amount of 5.20% senior notes due in 2023. The redemption resulted in a $105 million loss on the early extinguishment of debt.
...buried in page 76 of the fine print suggests internal bleeding damage control.
> How does this business decision make sense?
It doesn't make sense because you're thinking about it from the perspective of consumer optionality based on today's trend, not as a publicly traded business balls deep in competition looking forward.
Considering GM's top 2 selling vehicles are trucks[7] (Silverado = 33.8% of 2022 Chevy units sold; Sierra = 46.7% of 2022 GMC units sold)---and speculating on the retention quality of consumers who would readily classify CarPlay integration as "not negotiable", choosing to overweight an accessory feature that X competitors may also offer over other characteristics/intangibles salient to GM products---I begin to question both the net value prop and opportunity costs being wholesale handed over to Apple.
At least Android Auto is a shitshow. Does not do screen sharing and you can only use apps approved by Google. I don't listen to music on my phone and i use a different navigation SW. And on top of that, Android Auto requires permissions to everything, refusing to start if permissions are not granted.
I really see no useful case for Android Auto and investing money in it during car development is a waste of money and developer time IMHO.
No car manufacturer is going to allow an infotainment system with apps that aren’t heavily vetted. There is too much of a liability and some things are completely illegal to have in view of the driver like video.
Even older cars are careful, like my last car that would not even allow you to pair your phone to radio over Bluetooth while the car was not in park.
A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit.
And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her, very high up on the list.
What are they putting in the water over there GM?