It’s a terrible time to be in the software department of a major automaker, as some of these organizations continue to demonstrate an inability to do the basics. The basics, in this case, are incredibly, almost overwhelmingly complex. More than 1,000 of GM’s software engineers just got the terrible notice that their services will no longer be needed. It’s possible they won’t be the only ones.
The car market in the United States has been defined by increasing inventory, which is not quite matched by increasing buyers. That’s finally starting to turn around, but the 2025 models are coming! The 2025 models are coming!
Unsurprisingly, this coincided with a drop in profits for dealers through the first half of 2024.
Full Disclosure: I am Baja Blasted after Monterey Car Week and am writing this from a hotel bed in Los Angeles I’m scarcely able to lift myself out of. Let’s Dump!
‘Legacy Automakers’ And The Software Problem
The term ‘Legacy Automakers’ feels like something Tesla stans made up to describe companies like Volkswagen and General Motors. It was meant to imply that these organizations lacked the high-tech, Silicon Valley-style agility of startup car companies (even though these startup car companies were initially made up of engineers largely from ‘Legacy Automakers.’)
When it comes to software, however, the stans maybe have a point. The approach needed to build new cars (shove a lot of engineers into the problem) doesn’t seem to work when it comes to coding software, whereas the Silicon Valley approach of leaner teams seems to be more effective.
Volkswagen learned this the hard way, ultimately agreeing to spend about $5 billion with its competitor Rivian in a bid to gain access to that company’s software (in spite of having its own giant software arm, CARIAD). When it happened I wrote:
Volkswagen, like most automakers, realized a few years ago that what Tesla was doing was shifting the desirability of cars purely from their stats/comfort/style (hardware) to their added electronic abilities (software). This is how we get the industry term Software-Defined Vehicles or SDV.
At the time, VW did what a big company is going to do and created a company called Cariad (originally Car.Software, which, lol). The company staffed it up with thousands of engineers to build a software platform for all Škodas and SEATs and Porsches and Bentleys and everything else.
Believe it or not, the move-slowly-and-don’t-break-things approach of VW didn’t work.
I mention all of this because what happened to Volkswagen seems to have infected General Motors as well. From CNBC:
General Motors is laying off more than 1,000 salaried employees globally in its software and services division following a review to streamline the unit’s operations, CNBC has learned.
The layoffs, including roughly 600 jobs at GM’s tech campus near Detroit, come less than six months after leadership changes overseeing the operations, including former Apple executive Mike Abbott leaving the automaker due to health reasons.
“As we build GM’s future, we must simplify for speed and excellence, make bold choices, and prioritize the investments that will have the greatest impact,” a GM spokesman said in an emailed statement. “As a result, we’re reducing certain teams within the Software and Services organization. We are grateful to those who helped establish a strong foundation that positions GM to lead moving forward.”
That is a lot of layoffs.
The departure of Mike Abbott for health reasons was a big surprise, though it’s not clear how related this was. GM eventually replaced Abbott with two more ex-Apple folks this summer: Baris Cetinok and Dave Richardson. Both of those leaders are based out of GM’s Mountain View Technical Center in California and most of the layoffs seem to be outside California (though the Warren Tech Center is way way bigger than the CA operation, so it might be just proportional).
It’s bigger than geography, however. GM’s software and services division had grand ambitions and, to date, has successfully accomplished very few of them. The company earned a lot of skepticism when it said it was eschewing CarPlay and Android Auto in some of its new vehicles, a move followed up by a series of massive software-induced blinders including delaying its Silverado over software issues. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Chevy Blazer EV won MotorTrend’s “SUV of the Year” and then sales of the Blazer EV and most of its EVs had to be stopped over more software problems.
This is somewhat existential for GM as it tries to double its revenue in an increasingly complex market. Two of the company’s big strategies to get there were: Cruise and subscription software (like OnStar). With Cruise, GM seems to have let the Silicon Valley team do what it wanted, which ended in disaster. The approach to software/subscriptions seems to have been the opposite, with a neverending series of Apple and Microsoft execs coming into a more traditional culture and failing.
There has to be some happy medium between the two and I’m guessing this is GM’s approach, but it’s yet another warning to big automakers that this is way harder than it looks.
Have We Have Reached Peak Inventory?
Here’s a fun graphic:
Product shortages related to the pandemic (and the short-sighted-yet-profitable decision by automakers to cut semiconductors) are over, with carmakers suddenly finding themselves with a little more supply than demand can bear. Will lower interest rates help juice demand to eat some of this inventory? Possibly.
In the interim, it looks like we’re finally reaching a little balance. This graphic comes from S&P Global Mobility and you can see advertised new cars are starting to retreat a little bit. We’re still way up year-over-year, but inventory couldn’t keep going up forever.
The 2025 Model Year Cars Are Already Here
This graphic, again from S&P Global, shows another reason why we might be leveling off a bit: Production of 2024 MY cars is switching over to 2025 MY, some folks are waiting it out, factories are switching over, and all the usual summer model-year transition stuff.
Time flies like an arrow (fruit flies like a banana) and we’re almost in freakin’ 2025. When did that happen? Why is time moving so fast?
By halfway through the year, dealers managed to move most of their 2023 inventory and now the 2025 models are arriving. This means that you might start getting good deals on 2024 vehicles, just FYI.
Dealerships See A 33% Decline In Profit: Report
A new report from a couple of advisory/training firms in the industry (Presidio Group and NCM Associates) is out, and it shows that dealership profits have dropped so far this year.
What’s going on? Dealerships made a ton of money during the pandemic and are still up relative to where they were in 2018, but not all dealerships have adjusted to all this inventory. Here’s the explanation via Automotive News:
“We’re surprised that the typical dealership hasn’t adjusted its spending and variable costs as quickly and appropriately as it should have given the decline in profitability over the last two years,” George Karolis, president of Presidio Group, said in a statement. “This is a time when dealers must be nimble and adjust quickly to the industry’s changing circumstances, and many of them have not.”
Variable gross profit at the average dealership has plunged 32 percent since 2022. Meanwhile, total personnel expense fell by just 6 percent in the same period, according to the report.
This doesn’t surprise me, though there are also some basic minimums to running a car dealership in terms of staffing.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s Boise’s own “Built to Spill” with “Distopian Dream Girl.” This was suggested by Apple Music as part of my “Get Up Mix” and I never thought of this as a pump-y song, but it kinda is.
The Big Question
How much do you care about software in your new car?
I’m sorry these software engineers and recognize that there is far more software manufacturers needthan UI, but I can’t help but hope this is a step away from the trend of dumping Android Auto and CarPlay in favor of worse in-house options.
It’s probably not, but I can hope.
It’s much more likely some VP who calls IT daily when he can’t log into his email or use the network printer thought they absolutely can do better than AA or CarPlay and with less people than they already have, hence layoffs and a fat bonus for him.
The software doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to work and continue to work WITHOUT a SUBSCRIPTIONS.
Now if in 6 years there is a worthwhile update, I’d pay to get that.
Well my Chevy Blazer EV already lost the Onstar connectivity twice after following their steps to fix it, it will last a few days and then is gone again, cant remote start or do anything with my phone. Good luck GM
So the company that was going to replace AA/Apple Carplay on all of their EVs has laid off the people who can actually engineer a replacement system? Good call GM.
I have Android Auto in my Corvair. I built a magnetic holder that pops into the dashtop ashtray to position my Android phone in my line of sight. It does navigation, podcasts, streaming music, and even integrates with my Bluetooth air/fuel meter and distributor. It can’t move the vents though.
I have Android Auto in my MGB. It’s an actual AA unit that connects to my phone and is magnetized to the dash. Eat shit GM.
That’s what I’ve done in several cars now. I even added a cheap BT aux-in adapter to my Subaru which should allow a direct BT connection to the head unit but won’t pair with my phone. Even the tiny amount of connectivity promised (no AA or CP) cannot be delivered by this OEM piece.
And again, these are the same folks that think they can make a better UI/UX experience than Apple.
At some point, manufacturers should recognize that cars are not a disposable good. Instead of optimizing software on hardware that will inevitably be obsolete within five years (if not already by the time it rolls off the factory), they should focus on the analog experience of driving the car – will the car drive “well” in ten years, fifteen years, long after whatever software support exists (if it exists) ends.
The average car is 12.6 year old. How relevant is twelve year old infotainment today?
My car is 15 years old – 11 under my ownership.
The COMAND system was outdated the day it was installed at the factory.
The only thing it has done these past several years is manage the clock and the music & nav audio which is streamed through an aftermarket bluetooth adapter.
A brick in the dashboard would be more useful.
“A brick in the dashboard would be more useful.”
and likely more entertaining.
We have a 2008 Cadillac STS with an 8″ touchscreen. The navigation is DVD based, but the DVD doesn’t work anymore, so that’s useless. I can’t replace the screen without losing the memory settings for the seats and a few other things. It has bluetooth phone, but no bluetooth audio because that didn’t exist yet. I can’t set the clock because it’s set automatically off the GPS, but the signal it used is obsolete, so the only way to fix it is to burn a DVD to update the firmware, but did I mention the DVD player is broken.
I have a 2006 Miata that I put an aftermarket double din head unit it. Works great. Wireless Android Auto, HD Radio, Bluetooth phone, great sound, and I didn’t lose any factory functions.
Added a CarPlay head unit to my NB. Works great, but no hard Controls. And the car doesn’t have steering wheel controls. I just added some bumps of sugru Next to the volume controls on the touchscreen, so maybe I’ll be able to find them. But Forget about changing radio stations or skipping songs or anything like that.
The very nice thing with my NC is that it didn’t come with steering controls, but I bought a used wheel for $100 and swapped it. That’s all it took to have steering wheel radio controls and cruise control. Yeah, I hated having captive touch buttons for volume control on the radio until I did the swap.
ain’t gonna make the e-suite talking like that.
(Not directed towards you specifically)
How not foresightful are people to think that these jobs are going to continue?
With all the rapid advances in tech, we are all going to be the “service” economy. The writing had been on the wall for a decade.
I’ll probably be dead by then, but in 15 years, who is going to need a human? Not us humans, unless we get short shifted on whipped cream.
There won’t be a company on Earth that is gonna want a human to take a week to calculate angles or drag coefficient.
Um, none of the 5 cars we have on the road even have a touch screen. 3 have cassette decks. Maybe I’ll have something to add 10 years from now
If talking about the software the keeps the car running, that’s super important.
If we’re talking the software the tracks me and won’t play MP3s without the proper tags or hides the heated seat icon when the backup camera is on, that I could probably do ok without.
Android Auto/Carplay is a good compromise, just make the head unit compatible, everyone’s already got a phone that is constantly updated.
Few of the legacy automakers seems willing or able to do over the air updates, and that’s where Tesla/Rivian are really ahead. For the GMs of the world, once they sold the car, there’s no point in adding features for free after the fact, so why bother.
GM’s even got the same software as the Hummer underneath the Equinox but they hide it, so not only are they not adding features, they’re actively hiding features.
Ford’s at least adding new gauges to the Mustang, not sure that’s very critical though, but at least it’s something.
That is due more to the dealership model of the legacies. Dealers want to get your ass into the service center as much as possible to manufacture problems that they can solve for $125/hr labor charges.
125 dollars an hour?! That’s cheap!
For a software industry example of this, look at MS vs Apple. Apple was larger and was once the dominant personal computer manufacturer. MS was a little software company from New Mexico. Apple sells hardware and software in a closed ecosystem. MS sells software only and is now dominant in that marketplace. Software where the auto vendors see an opportunity to survive. Building commodity hardware is a zero-sum game unless they can move the metal. Right now they are at a crossroads IMO.
My hot take is any (er, every, from the looks of it) manufacturer that’s trying to reinvent what is fundamentally a transportation device onto some sort of “software defined vehicle” is grossly missing the mark.
Fundamentally, there are basically two kinds of vehicle users – those who use a car to get from point A to point B, to whom a car is basically an appliance that should just get that job done as efficiently as possible, and those who use a car for sake of the driving itself, to whom the visceral experience is the true value of the car. These are the folks to whom things like manual transmissions, steering feel and exhaust notes really matter.
There is always some small chunk of any population that marches to the beat of their own drum and will really get onto the various software services the manufacturers are trying to bake into the new/next generation of cars, but is this chunk really going to be significant enough to push this vehicle users dichotomy into a new realm?
I can think of only one use case that will possibly make that happen: when/if they finally manage to pull off completely autonomous driving – though at that point those consumers won’t actually be buying cars. They’ll simply pay a third party provider for transportation services (and all the in-vehicle subscription stuff will be trashed to provide a cheaper transportation service offering).
In short, the current software obsession is self defeating.
Now all you manufacturers, dump the “software defined vehicle” and subscription crap, and get off my lawn.
I suggest there is a third kind of vehicle user that is maybe the largest segment. People who use vehicles for show/status/prestige/lifestyle.
Maybe you lump them in with the “point A to point B” crowd since that is proabbly in line with their driving habits. But they are really making buying choices based on how it will make them appear. The coolness factor.
It’s why I see 15 yo BMWs purchased off the buy here pay here lot instead of cheaper, newer, more reliable Chevys and or Hyundais. Why 99% of people buy Wranglers at all. And the only reason anyone buys a Jaguar (they think they still exude luxury).
Those people want technology because it’s cool (to them at least). I think it’s a huge consumer population which is why manufactures would target them.
Not my bag but I recognize that they are out there.
Fair point. You’re probably on to something there.
Looking at the many Chinese cars illustrated here by Tyco, I think the bling and attention-seeking crowd is a market for the exterior led display equipped cars. They support the OTA and add on ‘feature’ market very well.
The smaller segment of the population who like the driving experience may be SOL or will have to pony up the bux to get that experience in the future. Just my opinion of course, but to many people the car is an appliance that is a pain to acquire (dealers), and costs too much to purchase and maintain. has a limited lifespan compared to the other major expense in their life, the house.
I can see the transitory ownership model eventually becoming popular BC of these issues.
As to the SW folks getting laid off. Feel for them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – a huge part of why I love the Polestar is its native Android Auto integration. It’s simple, it’s intuitive, it almost always works or is quickly fixed by an on-the-fly reset that doesn’t mess with any driving functions of the car, and it’s far faster and more polished than nearly any legacy system I’ve used.
It gets out of it’s own way, and I don’t have to trust my manufacturer to maintain it/not break it (for the most part). Win-win.
Agreed –
Manufacturers would be better off doing what they do well – which is building transportation devices – and outsourcing the software for navigation, climate controls, entertainment & communication to companies that specialize in that.
Companies appear doomed to repeat the lessons of the Mythical Man-Month, a seminal work in Computer Science published almost 50 years ago!
“Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later“. Anyone who has worked at both startups and larger companies knows that the larger companies are slower. Now, that might be desirable depending on what you’re building but not always.
In that vein, I’m guessing legacy OEMs are having trouble because their processes are tuned more for delivering safety-critical stuff like transmission control, ABS, etc. Delivering user-facing software is a totally different beast.
^This-ity^this^this^ with a side-order of second-system effect for Cruise.
Also, software engineering for embedded devices is very, very different from software development for websites and calls for rarefied design, planning and communication skills both in the engineers and in management.
The thing with automotive software is that at the end of the day you’re only going to notice it if it’s bad. That’s why Carplay and Android Auto are generally all people want – it’s good enough and basically seamless, and nobody actually adjusts anything that requires going into a sub menu more than once.
Every marketing exec ever: but what if we made our own special one?
For an EV I’d say software is the most important/differentiating factor.
Ford sucks at software too. Our MachE’s software updates are infuriating sometimes. Every update lately has cleared various settings (1 pedal driving, alarm and lighting settings, charge time and percentage limits) and there’s now an update that is randomly causing the 12v system to hang.
Meaning you can’t unlock the doors or open the windows with the fob, and since the 12v battery is under the frunk, you can’t get to it to disconnect it to reset the modules.
I replied with a comment about stuff like this below like why the hell do things like doors and trunks need power to open? Also as you said you need to disconnect the battery to reset it which is also why the hell does something need to be reset to open a damn door? Really makes you wonder like why have these manufacturers pushed for stuff like this? Who asked for this?
I don’t know what it’s so hard for all the companies to figure hey – we had a great couple of years during the pandemic for a variety of reasons, but we’ve bled most of the country dry of money and we can’t duplicate those profits during ‘normal’ times.
Don’t point this out to the manufacturers and dealers, with how they work and think we may ACTUALLY end up with a new virus grown in one of their labs in an attempt to recreate those profits.
Considering they can’t move from building cars to programming tablets, I’m not worried about them making the jump to biotech.
Nope. Line always needs to go up.
If the line goes up 5% today, you need to promise it will go up 10% next year.
“Will lower interest rates help juice demand to eat some of this inventory? Possibly.”
Lower prices would be better.
“GM Just Laid Off More Than 1,000 Software Engineers”
So does this mean buttons, knobs, switches and levers are making a comeback?
As most buyers just look at monthly payment, a lower interest rate would be cheaper.
Hate to see that many folks laid off, hope they can take their skills elsewhere.
Is the positive that GM will rollout Apple CarPlay now?
Legacy automakers: ‘You know what we suck at? Software.’
‘You know what we should do? Make software defined vehicles.’
‘Why? Because we can save money on recalls. How? By cutting the budget for hardware when our hardware is already failing a ton which necessitates expensive recalls.’
So to answer your question of
The answer is a lot, I want minimal software involvement whenever possible.
As long as Bluetooth works and vehicle settings are reasonably easy to access I couldn’t possibly care less about software in my vehicle.
Car Play is possibly the most overrated automotive “feature” this century.
There is a lot of software totally unrelated to infotainment. Good stuff like traction control and ABS.
That would be firmware.
A very simplistic way of putting it is that software is the stuff you see, firmware is the stuff you don’t.
I write software for a living: hard, firm and soft essentially only relate to the ease of updating mistakes.
Explain that to someone who makes real-time hard systems that can kill if the update bricks the device being updated. Another example is the update that takes down the network, banking system Air Traffic Control System and so on. I used to write software for these kinds of systems.
Yes, but they did those systems the right way – those are basically independent subsystems that were created, enhanced over the years and perfected over time with upgrades going into only the next generation/model year vehicle. They don’t (or at least shouldn’t) need OTA updates. And if there was a significant enough issue to warrant a recall, a trip to the dealership could take care of it.
A cellular equipped vehicle with the car telling the manufacturer anything and everything I’m doing with the car just isn’t something I’m comfortable with. Just look at what GM got into trouble for doing with customer info.
It isn’t Big Brother we need to worry about – it’s Big Corporation. That’s the one thing George Orwell got wrong with 1984.
Once some MBA figures out that they can update the ECU, BCM, or any other subsystem and save a few bux on OTA updating the thing they’ll be on it like stink on shit.
I don’t know about that…
My car does not have CarPlay but my wife’s does and she swears by it.
If you are the type of person (I’ll call them power-commuters) that needs Waze and Maps to function in normal driving and can’t find your way around your own neighborhood without help, CarPlay is a great thing.
Although I’ll admit my wife has an over-reliance on talk to text functions of using CarPlay that I wish she would pay more attention to driving but for a lot of people it can keep their hands on the wheel and off the phone.
I don’t mean to imply that CarPlay is some magical future tech that will change the world but I do think it’s better than “most overrated feature this century.”
As always, somewhere in the middle.
My statement is only made because of the near reverence it seems to be held in here compared to most automotive tech.
Typical commenter:
Lifesaving safety systems? Pass. Give me a car with no electronics.
Frivolous phone mirroring that’s neither as good as a phone or a native system? Yeah that’s what I need.
/drake meme
I don’t use navigation every day, but I’ve also never struggled to use the built in system in my cars.
An Android Auto user here, but you’re wrong. It’s better than a phone when driving – it’s on the main screen, which is bigger and centrally located – and it’s better than the native system – I’ve got maps without having to pay for the upgrade that includes them.
It’s not your use case, but for the functions that I use – basically maps and controlling Spotify – it does a superb job.
Your opinion is certainly the majority one, but the lost functionality of the phone becoming a brick when connected to Car Play outweighs all for me.
The fact that I can’t look at or respond to messages even when stopped at a red light is absolutely deal breaking.
You can absolutely use your phone normally and remain connected to the car.
At least you can on Android Auto, I’ve never really used Apple Carplay
I own one vehicle with Car Play and this is not possible.
Once I realized there was no way around it, I’ve never connected to Car Play in mine or any other vehicle again. So it’s possible my info is out of date, but it’s also clear to me that there’s no upside, because I do just fine with a regular Bluetooth connection and built in nav.
I have had carplay on several cars since 2018. It absolutely does not brick my phone while I’m driving. Not sure what setting you had but I can look at my texts at stoplights if I need to (usually to avoid having my texts read out loud when my wife and I are coordinating about our kids).
Check your settings. If that is a CarPlay limitation then OOF that’s a pretty serious issue, not a problem on Android. At least not on the 5-6 different cars I’ve used it on.
But, you can, easily. At least you can on Android Auto. It’ll even read ’em out if you want it to, and you can respond with voice to text.
Nevermind, didn’t see your response below.
Everyone responding to me about Android, that’s great, but irrelevant to me and my original complaint.
Mostly because you mention CP/AA being “the most overrated feature” in history but actually the version of it you are experiencing seems either broken or very outdated.
It’s like saying all shoes are overatted but you’ve only ever worn 1 flip-flop that had half the sole missing
If you actually read my comment I said nothing about Android.
I’ve never used it, I’ve never owned an Android, I have nothing whatsoever to comment on about its performance or usability.
If people can show me how I’m using Car Play incorrectly, I’m willing to revise my statement. But I spent a month trying to use it in my truck and either I am much less competent at operating the system than 99% of the world, or what I want is not possible from the system.
Looking at Apple’s website it says that it will give you notifications, read the messages, and allow responses – though it prefers voice-to-text.
Now, no personal experience because I don’t use the system so I can’t speak with any authority on what CarPlay can do. But it looks like it’ll do it.
See my reply to Jack below. If the issue has been corrected since I’ve last tried it, it will make many of my comments in this thread moot.
Not sure why you can’t. That was changed in CarPlay several releases ago. You can use the phone normally now while connected to CarPlay.
I will try using it again in my truck this afternoon and report back.
I am willing to admit my opinion may be out of date and revise/retract accordingly.
Well this reply is buried in comments, but I will eat some crow here. Some time since the last time I attempted to use Car Play they corrected my biggest pet peeve about bricking the screen.
So I will fully retract my criticism about the “most overrated tech” and give credit to everyone in the thread who corrected me.
I still don’t think I’ll use it that much because the upsides aren’t really there for me compared to the native software, but at least the downsides aren’t either.
Banned!
yeah, my phone works just the same. Maybe its an android thing.
I think this is where your experience differs from mine:
“Frivolous phone mirroring that’s neither as good as a phone or a native system”
Straight up, very few native systems have worked as smoothly or effectively as AA or car play for me. I don’t even ask much from them – bluetooth pairing, navigation, and spotify, typically is about it. But the vast majority of the time, I’ve had issues with dropped connections, pairing, refusing to switch devices, software hangs, glitches, crashes, random lag, or other software based issues, it’s been with native systems.
The thing is, I’ve also never “struggled” to use them–it’s just that when you use it two to three times a day on average, any issues that are there start to become pretty annoying pretty fast. Some are better than others, yes, but having something that works every time for every device on every car is…genuinely useful.
Just wondering, have you ever needed or tried to use other apps outside of nav and music?
To me it’s the fact that I can pull a lot from my phone and use while driving and I don’t have to get another subscription from the auto manufacturer or use the phone separated from the car system.
I have found the Zoom and MS Teams apps great when I need to take a meeting at work while on the road. I’ve already mentioned Waze. And the maps apps all get automatic updates and you don’t have to pay extra for them outside of your data plan.
The interface is much more simple but that isn’t necessarily better, it’s just more comfortable if you’re used to your phone but is also less powerful than a built in system since it is simplified in CarPlay.
I understand both sides but to me the issue is that CarPlay allows me to use what I’ve already paid for and am using daily in the car. Built-in systems are turning into ways for the manufacturers to squeeze every last cent out of me trying to make me pay twice for what I already have paid for.
Yeah, NAV systems work just fine even if I don’t want to sit in the car typing out the address on their clunky keyboards. But I don’t like paying ~$2,500 more for the car to get the package with NAV in it when I’ve already got a superior product on my phone.
It is possible, maybe even likely, that my cars were all built in the time frame of maximum utility of manufacturer systems and before subscription money grabs (all between 2013 and 2020) and that clouds my opinions of the relative value of Car Play.
I’ve lived in the same city for more than 2 decades now and know my way around, but my city’s traffic situation can dramatically alter the routes you take and make a normally 20 minute commute from my office to home turn into 1 hour. I’ve started mapping my route on CarPlay with google maps before I go ANYWHERE that requires highway driving due to the traffic hellscape here. My wife stubbornly does not do this and she ends up stuck in traffic a lot more than me.
I think you’re touching on another minor advantage here.
I can’t pre-plan my routes in my car’s system. I have to physically be in the car.
It is nice to be able to build playlists, plan routes or select some Podcasts for future listening during lunch or sitting on the sofa in the evening. I’d prefer to not have to sit in the car fumbling around with their system that is only ever considered how we use them in the car.
CarPlay = your cell phone capability projected into the car.
The cell phone provider pretty much knows everything about you – what the car companies want to do is cut out the phone provider and get their grubby little hands on all of your juicy consumer info for themselves.
I agree maps, music and talk & text are great features to have available while in a car, but I’m not paying the car company for them when I’ve already got that capability with my phone. There’s really no need to duplicate that functionality.
I disagree. Without writing paragraphs, AA/CarPlay give you direct access to your phone like it was built in. The automotive sector just flat out wasn’t doing that (and very possibly couldn’t do that without Apple/Google’s help). Not only are those systems typically easier to use than built-in systems, you’re not paying to update the car’s software (if that’s even an option), such as getting updated maps.
I get that there’s probably some counter arguments about screens becoming the central feature in a car and how the automakers are going too far, but I wouldn’t commit all of those sins to AA/CarPlay.
I’ll go a step further and say the uniformity of AA/CarPlay actually partly addresses the more general concerns about screens being distracting.
How much do I care about software in my car? None. Since we seem to be discussing something beyond fuel mapping, i do not care at all about Software. In fact, in many cases (see GM getting sued for selling data) I am very actively opposed to it. As cars get more techy today, my tastes get more firmly set in continuing to drive things decades old at this point. Bluetooth radios are great. Thats about the end of my interest in software defined vehicles.
Could not agree more.
Apple Carplay/Android auto…… Don’t care. I’ll take a vent phone holder (or build in a gravity phone holder if you want to be fancy) and call it a day. Giving us a Double-DIN radio slot would also be great but I know that’s asking for the moon at this point.
The less software in the car (beyond the vital stuff) the better. Having to turn off all the nannies because we’re traveling into the city gets old real fast. And having your car beep at you constantly and/or hit the brakes every so often absolutely does not make the driving experience more safe.
Double DIN no longer being an option for a vehicle might be a great way to draw a line for me. If I can’t through some aftermarket garbage radio at it, then its far too integrated for me.
I’m with you but they’re getting REAL hard to find these days (cars with standard radio sizes that is).
Also agree with this. If we are talking software standpoint of just controlling fuel injection and timing and such that can be a godsend vs the old way with a timing light or adjusting a carb. But cars nowadays have software to control every bit of a car like does the car really need a body control computer to adjust temps or fan speeds vs an old school dial? Does it really need a computer for opening and closing windows or locking and unlocking doors?
I wouldn’t buy a new car that didn’t have Android Auto. It (and Carplay) are the new standard and moving from vehicle to vehicle is so easy.
This is why a buddy of mine recently took delivery of a Honda Prologue rather than the Lyric he had his eye set on.
Same, after having a car with AA it would be annoying to go back to one without it.
“We don’t need no stinkin’ CarPlay or Android Auto! We can do it better in house!”
*a few weeks later*
“Here’s your severance packages – Good Luck!”
Typical GM
“Aaaand here’s my bonus!”
I’m still looking for news about the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Well, it’s not like this an an Automotive themed website or anything….. 😉
(Frankly I am disappointed that there wasn’t even a mention of it here! )
They were all too busy eating at Spago and checking out the cars at Monterrey.
It would appear so! 🙁
What news? it’s the same tired old cars acting a fool on public roads, same as every year.
Yeah. Who wants to see Auburn Speedsters, Citroen 2CV6s, Honda Actv Kei trucks mixed in with rare Vipers, artistic Volkswagens, and and classic muscle cars.
It’s a bad time to be in software, period.
I had my first job interview in 7 months last week – for a technician role, not really even software.
Baris Cetinok and Dave Richardson: MOVE. THEM. TO. DETROIT. or GTFO.