[jedberg]

And most of that revenue surprises me. My car has a Garmin system built in (Honda). I never use it. I just connect my smartphone with CarPlay and use Waze (which will be even easier in September when it will show on the main touchscreen).

So in my case, I paid money to Honda who in turn paid it to Garmin for something I'll never use, just so they can say it "comes with Navigation".

I wonder how long that will last before no one cares if a car comes with navigation.

I've already seen high end cars being sold without navigation, and just marketed as "smartphone ready". I suspect in a few years either all the cars will be sold that way, or they will all be self driving and get their navigation elsewhere.

[dsfyu404ed]

You won't see that until "smartphone ready" means a box truck can tell your phone it's 12ft tall and to please not send it down any roads with under-height structures less than that.

Automakers want to control the quality of the user experience. They can do that better by partnering with a company that specializes in that sort of thing.