[MBCook]

Since then GM has dropped CarPlay. Rivian has appeared following Tesla and refusing to support it. And I thought there were some other existing manufacturer who was either getting rid of it or thinking about it.

Basically despite the popularity the market seems to be moving against it slowly. And the more those cars succeed the more other auto makers will be willing to follow.

[bhhaskin]

It's not that the market is moving away, but more like car companies realized if they want to sell monthly subscriptions in the future, they need to own the software.

[bitmasher9]

The car companies need to stay in their lanes on this one. You’re risking selling a >$40k piece of hardware that requires professional service every six months in order to sell me $240/yr in software subscriptions.

[xp84]

This is part of a broader trend I see in all consumer markets: especially in markets with just a few large important players: the companies start making very unpopular moves in the hopes that their competitors will realize the massive profit potential and follow them out of greed rather than try to steal customers by being the good guys.

Examples: self-ordering kiosks at restaurants, every change made at every airline in the last 15 years, bandwidth caps at ISPs, “resort fees” at every hotel, tipping for car services, etc.

They know that since there aren’t many options, it doesn’t matter if customers all hate it, as long as they have no choice. The automakers (at least in their fantasies) smell blood in the water for the idea of CarPlay/Android Auto, and want to kill it if they can.

[monitorlizard]

Aviation is an incredibly low-margin business - airlines are less trying to earn "massive profits" and more just trying to continue to operate year over year

[xp84]

Fair enough, it would be more accurate to simply say significant increases in the bottom line. Certainly possible that it simply moves from massively negative to less negative, like American Airlines. It still makes a big difference to them all the same.

[orthogonal_cube]

$240/yr in software subscriptions but likely far more than that by selling the extra metadata they can extract from the service

[bhhaskin]

its likely not the metadata, since they already have access and sell that, but then they can sell ads on maps like Google does.

[murderfs]

I don't understand why people are so deluded about the value of metadata about them. It's not that valuable, you're not that important.

[WorldMaker]

I think one of the things at issue here is that "professional service every six months" with EVs has gone from two oil changes, a tune-up, and a tire rotation to "maybe just a tire rotation". Most people don't do tire rotations that regularly, and any garage can do a tire rotation who needs to go to the dealership for that. They might be hoping that they can use some of that $240/yr to make dealers a little bit happier about selling EVs.

Which does sort of get slightly to the heart of some recent things that the dealer model in the US has always been sometimes antagonistic to consumers, EVs make that worse, and it may be time for brand new dealer regulation. (Though that alone won't address the subscription fees because car companies will want recurring revenue with or without dealers.)

[0xffff2]

> two oil changes, a tune-up, and a tire rotation

What is this, the 60s? Modern gas cars are so computer controlled that the concept of a "tune-up" effectively no longer exists, and they go 10,000 miles between oil changes so most people don't even average a single oil change every 6 months. EVs are even lower maintenance, but the difference isn't nearly as big as you're implying.

[WorldMaker]

I think that is still in agreement to my point. Even ICE maintenance is no longer the same schedule (and cost patterns) as it was when the dealership model was invented. EVs push it to a "crisis mode", but it has been a building misaligned incentives problem for decades.

[bitmasher9]

Additionally self driving vehicles are promising to reduce the total number of collisions, and collision associated repair is a significant portion of all auto mechanic activity.

[JumpCrisscross]

I turned down buying a Rivian for exactly this reason, but it seems plenty of consumers don’t care.

Curious if anyone has been able to calculate the sales and profits surrendered by the likes of GM and Rivian due to this switch. (My guess is it’s low.)

[my_username_is_]

This is crazy to me because the primary value proposition of Rivian's Connect+, as I see it, is enabling the hotspot while you're in the car and being able to monitor Gear Guard while you're away from the car. These are entirely separate from supporting CarPlay/Android Auto.

If Rivian et al. truly want to sell a premium product, their software needs to be premium. And frankly it's just not there. The other day I was trying to listen to an upcoming album that has a few singles released. On my phone I can do that no problem. On the Rivian Spotify app, the album just didn't show up. It wasn't possible to play those songs in order without searching for the songs one by one. There are a ton of things that I love about my R1T, but as more time passes, the gap between what they offer and what other manufacturers offer becomes more and more apparent

[shellfishgene]

I'm sure that's a big reason. But I think they also may be afraid that, if CarPlay/AndroidAuto really becomes such a must have that they can't sell cars without, Apple and Google with start charging them huge fees.

[jghn]

I'm in this camp: I will not buy a car without CarPlay. And I put so few miles on my car that while I'd like a new one, if the vendors make this impossible then no one gets my money.

[nozzlegear]

Same here. I have a Chevy that supports wireless CarPlay and I refuse to buy a car that doesn't have it. We're looking at replacing it soon, and we're going to go with a Subaru in no small part because it supports CarPlay.

[Induane]

Are there vehicles that support it in a way that isn't buggy? I have a few friends with it and I don't think I've been on a single ride with them without a glitch. Freezing interface, spontaneously jumping to regular Bluetooth, music playing but no actual volume, plugging into usb power causing some kind of mode-shift that makes the screen hang or briefly cease to work, all kinds of nonsense. Also kind of weirdly bad interface I feel (very subjective opinion there, obviously that's not a "fact").

I've only had Android Auto in my own vehicles, and while it hasn't been as buggy, it feels slow. I never use it anymore.

[hamburglar]

I own a Ford and a BMW, both with CarPlay. The BMW is flawless. The Ford just refuses to connect about 10% of the time and requires the infotainment system to be rebooted. It also occasionally connects but leaves audio coming out of the phone speaker. So yes, implementations vary.

[happymellon]

I have a Ford that after 13 years is reaching the point where I'm considering replacing it.

Their homemade infotainment system prior to CarPlay was awful, and has an overflow error which hits me about once every 6 months which requires pulling the fuse to hard reset it. As far as I can tell they keep adding new songs to a stack, and never flush it so at some point you'll reach the end of a song and it won't play any more. Once you reached that you can only use the phone function, attempts to use music result in you getting your Bluetooth connection terminated.

[Mogzol]

Regarding Android Auto being slow, it could just be due to your phone. It has to stream the whole interface as video to the car's infotainment system over USB (or Wi-Fi on newer models), then handle taps and stuff that it receives back, if you're using an old or budget android phone then that can be pretty laggy.

[Induane]

I have the Nothing Phone 3a now, before that, I had all flagship pixels. 0 were not slow. I always figured it had to do with the infotainment centers implementation of the protocols or simply their hardware.

It was always stable for me, just sluggish.

If I had to pick I'd take sluggish over constantly buggy of course. So props there.

The infotainment setup on my Tesla though is golden with only the occasional quirk. After using that, Carplay and Android Auto feel very regressive. A guy I work with has an R2 so I got to tinker with it and I figured it would be comparable but it actually kinda sucked.

[jghn]

I have a mid-aughts VW and have never had any of these issues. So I suppose you can count mid-aughts VWs.

[nerdsniper]

Haven’t had issues with Hondas or Toyotas since the 2020ish models at least

[Induane]

It's funny you mention Toyota, my Dad's 2022 Civic Hybrid is the one I get to witness being buggy garbage pretty much non-stop with CarPlay. Lord don't plug it into the USB port that does data if you're already on wireless Carplay. You might be done until you pull over. I also love the way using speech to reply to a text often resumes the wrong song (seemingly just starts a random song midway through, and multiple times the Joe Rogan Podcast which dad doesn't listen to and is not subscribed to - when this happens it always starts at the same point in the intro).

I don't actually know if the Toyota infotainment setup is to blame though. Since I've never encountered a reasonably stable, glitch free Carplay experience in the last 5 years, I've always just figured "that must be how CarPlay is". I have never owned an iPhone so I only get the cliffnotes version of the experience. But since it's got a 0% track record in that limited viewing, I'm either unlucky, emit magical anti-apple em waves, or am possessed by the soul of Steve Jobs favourite black shirt.

I don't know if the sensitivity to Siri can be turned down, again not an iPhone guy myself, but it bugs me how often we will be talking and suddenly the audio stops and Siri says "I don't know how to help you with that" or something similar. Sometimes we just don't talk so that we don't constantly have Siri interrupting Hardcore History.

[garretraziel]

Just a small note: Civic is Honda, not Toyota.

[Induane]

Haha yea - my dad always had a Prius prior to his civic hybrid. Easily mixed up! Well at least for my dumbass.

[neogodless]

Which cars specifically?

I haven't seen a broad range, but Mazda seems very fast and reliable.

Chevrolet (prior to recent models that drop it) and Honda do it well.

[Induane]

It is pretty terrible on my Bolt but it's a 2019 so maybe it's just an age thing.

[whateveracct]

my mazda cx-5 has had no issues. it's an extension of my phone at this point.

fun car to drive too. zoom zoom :)

[Induane]

Ooo they do look badass. Really pretty shape.

[Reason077]

> ”Rivian … following Tesla and refusing to support it.”

Actually, Tesla is apparently planning to add CarPlay support via a software update.

It hasn’t happened yet, as apparently it’s been waiting on a new feature from Apple which will allow navigation data to be shared/synced between CarPlay and the car’s self-driving system.

This Route Sharing feature was announced at WWDC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwG0I8UGjg&t=771s

[_fizz_buzz_]

Tesla might actually support car play soonish: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-13/tesla-is-...

[jnaina]

Same here. CarPlay is in the top 10 features for my next Car. Even for my older 911 which I bought second hand, the first investment was a Pioneer head unit with CarPlay.

[artisinal]

In my opinion, anything older than a 996 shouldn’t have an infotainment screen. Looks very out of place. Just use a phone mount for navigation or use audio navigation through a period correct radio.

[criddell]

There doesn’t have to be a big screen.

Porsche sells head units with car play for their cars going back to the 1960’s. I think they look great.

https://vehicle-accessories.porsche.com/prod/pag/Vehicle/Acc...

[jnaina]

It's a 997. it had the original OEM double din stereo with the Nav. Porsche offered the PCCM CarPlay upgrade, but decided the Pioneer unit was much better.

[artisinal]

Nice one. Yes on the 997 a CarPlay screen will not look out of place!

[trinix912]

I agree. I find it tacky when people buy old BMWs and Mercedeses just to throw the original (often mint condition) radio unit out and put in a cheap carplay display.

Like you have this 30 year old car with a pristine wooden trim where all components align nicely in design and you decide to ruin it for the convenience of having notifications in your face while driving? A phone holder looks much less invasive.

[chris222]

Tesla might support it.

https://www.teslarati.com/apple-developing-missing-link-tesl...

[SirMaster]

GM has not dropped CarPlay. I just checked out some 2026 GM vehicles (Chevy) and they list CarPlay.

[neogodless]

GM 100% dropped it in their EVs and announced moving away from it.

https://www.theverge.com/transportation/804562/gm-apple-carp...

[SirMaster]

OK, but EVs are a fraction of their cars... And the OP didn't say EVs, so I was confused.

[adamcstephens]

It may be for MY 2027. I know the new Bolt drops it.

[dhosek]

Right now it’s only dropped in GM’s EVs. Of course when this causes a drop in EV sales, they’ll use that as an excuse to kill off their EV lines.

[MBCook]

They’ll attribute that to something else and claim dropping CarPlay was a huge success and do it in gas models.

[robrain]

Most likely they’ll do both, with a straight face.

[phoghed]

Blazer EV dropped it and sold like shit lol

[Spooky23]

Tesla and I think Rivian goes deep into the computer as a control surface. They save $10 not having a handle for the glovebox or whatever.

GM just wants to extract a pound of flesh. All are companies making dumb decisions by ignoring what customers want.

It will cost them customers. My company buys like 10k cars a year and we make CarPlay a requirement. We see it as a safety and productivity issue. We want employees using maps to navigate and avoid hazards, but don’t want them operating our vehicles unsafely.

Personally, it would be a long shot for me to buy any GM product due to high depreciation. The CarPlay/Android Auto thing disqualifies them.