Apple announced two new partners for its next-generation CarPlay platform this week — Porsche and Aston Martin. The latter, a storied but historically technology-challenged (remember the Lagonda?) sports car brand that would greatly benefit from using someone else’s software, makes sense. But Porsche? That was more than a bit of a surprise to me — especially given the company’s storied reputation for engineering its own solutions and recently announced Android-based Macan. But I believe Porsche knows something much of the industry isn’t yet ready to accept: That Apple’s software can create far more value for Porsche’s cars than Porsche could ever create on its own. Other automakers should start living in this reality instead of chasing the fantasy that they’re software companies, if only we’d give them 10 or 20 years to figure it out.
The rise of CarPlay and Android Auto
First, let’s set some historical context — I think it’s essential for this discussion. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are roughly contemporaneous, with Auto launching on Hyundai, GM, and Honda beginning in 2015. CarPlay technically predated this, launching on the Ferrari FF in 2014 (yes, CarPlay debuted on a Ferrari), but it too saw wide adoption start in 2015 with major car manufacturers. Slowly but surely, even notoriously recalcitrant luxury marks like BMW and Mercedes came on board with these projected smartphone interfaces — almost assuredly because their customers demanded it, lest they jump ship to someone else who would give them what they wanted. Today, it’s difficult to find a new car (at least, in North America or Western Europe) without support for CarPlay and Android Auto that isn’t a Tesla or Rivian.
CarPlay and Android Auto always amounted to an exchange of value for automakers. Google and Apple would learn a lot about how people behave when interacting with in-vehicle infotainment systems (touchpoints, navigation routing, voice commands, and more). At the same time, carmakers would receive bleeding-edge connectivity and integration with popular mapping and audio services. This was a nominally equitable arrangement, especially given how far behind many OEMs were on their in-vehicle software in the mid-2010s. Projection’s only major downside, for users, was the lag, which especially when connected in the more convenient wireless fashion, is palpable.
That some manufacturers like GM are now rebuffing their tech titan partners isn’t surprising; projected modes were always a trade-off, one whose business impact was foreseeable. It would be much harder to convince customers to pay for things (e.g., a mobile data connection, mapping, streaming) they once received for free via these projected interfaces, and taking something away from people — even something they’d possibly be content without — always goes down badly. Put another way: Google and Apple had their feet in the door (connectors in the USB port?), and it would be hard to kick them out.
By 2018, though, most OEMs had signed on to the smartphone projection compromise, seeing no better solution (and a real risk of lost sales if they didn’t hop on the bandwagon). This gets us to the present day.
A new era: Projection rejection
Today, automakers face a choice: Forge ahead with projection integration and forego some maybe-there, maybe-not revenue, or take a page from GM’s (wildly unpopular) book and create their own walled garden ecosystem, albeit one built on top of Google’s Android OS for cars. But from the consumer perspective, this choice feels exceedingly arbitrary.
Broadly speaking, smartphone integration in the car isn’t any less desirable today than it was eight years ago when CarPlay and Android Auto launched (unless you drive a Tesla or a Rivian). Smartphones remain ubiquitous and become more capable with each passing year. And while the rate of innovation has stagnated, the average age of the smartphone in someone’s pocket is far lower than the car they drive. There is no reason to believe that will change in the coming decade. The technology we carry will, for the foreseeable future, be more capable than the technology that carries us. This is at the core of the in-car projection issue, and it’s a fight the carmakers can’t win. But some seem intent on fighting anyway.
GM’s Android Automotive-based software debuted on the Hummer EV. Source: GMC
GM’s decision to drop CarPlay is saying out loud what many carmakers are quietly thinking: “We should never have let these tech companies into our software stack. Tesla had the right idea all along.” In broad strokes, there’s an excellent argument to be made here, because software defined vehicle (SDV) architecture like Tesla’s is plainly the wave of the future. But the argument GM is making now — that developing an SDV platform is an excellent opportunity to kick Google and Apple off its cars, ripping off the proverbial “band-aid”— is being made far too late and with far too little conviction. The only way forward is for carmakers to take a “best of both worlds” approach: SDV architecture that is highly integrated with projected user interfaces.
The Tesla mirage
I am no Tesla apologist, and I think Tesla gets far too much credit for some things. But it gets far too little credit in the media for birthing revolutionary software technology that leapfrogged an entire industry (i.e., the world’s first software-defined vehicles).
Even without Android Auto or CarPlay, Tesla is still generally recognized as the world leader in vehicle software — rightly so. No one has ever really caught up, and it’s been over a decade. Rivian is always a step or two behind and the rest of the industry is a distant third. Still, everyone wants to be Tesla. This much is evident when you look at GM’s software strategy in its Ultium vehicles, Mercedes-Benz’s MB OS, or even the ongoing slow-motion train wreck that is Volkswagen’s Cariad division. There’s a race to be the “next” Tesla of car software, and it appears that… no one is winning. Or even driving on the course.
But using a platform like Android Automotive to build a closed SDV ecosystem like Tesla’s and hoping to replicate its success is, to put it bluntly, incredibly arrogant. These carmakers are chasing a mirage. Tesla is far more than an SDV platform; it’s a lifestyle brand, a charging network, an app developer, and a lightning-in-a-bottle marketing engine with an incredible first-mover advantage. Much as Samsung was never the “next” iPhone, but the counterpoint to the iPhone, other carmakers must become the counterpoint to Tesla in this new SDV world — not try to become it. And that means embracing technology partnerships (i.e., projection interfaces), not eschewing them.
The Faustian bargain (of the century)
Apple builds the world’s most loved consumer software. And it’s aggressively courting manufacturers to put that software on their vehicles. It feels like this should be a no-brainer, and for some companies, it clearly is. That campaign is yielding tangible results, with brands like Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar-Land Rover, Audi, Porsche, Ford, Volvo, Honda, and the Nissan-Renault Alliance on board as partners for the next generation of CarPlay. We don’t know to what degree these manufacturers will embrace that software (for example, if they’ll use Apple’s full instrument cluster overlay). Still, if the mockups released as part of the Porsche and Aston Martin announcements this week are any indicator, it seems clear that Apple is the guiding hand in this relationship. And that’s how it should be.
Legacy carmakers have proven utterly incapable of designing performant, usable software. They have proven incapable of iterating that software in a timely manner. They have proven incapable of developing it without significant bugs. And they have proven incapable of delivering value above and beyond that which a company like Apple (or Google) does via its ecosystem — and they almost certainly will never develop such capability.
As much as the vision of a software-defined vehicle future holds great promise, that promise will only be successfully realized by companies that partner broadly to integrate those platforms with outside technology partners. Tesla is a one-off — and an incredible one at that — but it shouldn’t serve as the model. The sooner carmakers realize this and stop chasing phantom revenue for subscriptions that nobody wants, the sooner we can all stop avoiding otherwise decent cars ruined by terrible, self-inflicted software faults.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.
In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
Advertisement – scroll for more content
While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!
Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
Got news? Let us know! Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.
GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
Advertisement – scroll for more content
Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.