General Motors (now GM), the American car manufacturer that owns brands such as Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC in the United States, will stop CarPlay (and also Android auto) in its vehicles from this year to launch its own operating system which would come from Google according to Reuters.
The auto giant’s brands will stop offering support in their vehicles for CarPlay starting with the Chevrolet Blazer which will be launched this summer. However, GM will continue to offer CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility on its combustion modelswhich, on the other hand, they intend to completely replace with electric vehicles in 2035. Also, this will not affect the models already sold that have support, these users will be able to continue enjoying the operating systems compatible mobiles in their cars.
The operating system that GM would prepare would be very similar to CarPlay or Android Auto, where the main applications offered are multimedia and audio plus, of course, navigation applications for which they would offer 8 years of Google Maps and Google Assistant at no additional cost. That’s what the operating system has to do with Google.
This decision to discontinue CarPlay support is marked by GM’s recognition strategy.manage much more data on the use of the vehicle and thus be able to promote subscriptions to other services. It could also be related to the sale of data to third parties (such as insurers) but it would have to be seen how they achieve this stage with the anonymization of customers or what they could be used for.
This sets a precedent, and pThis could encourage more automotive brands to take this step. Remember that a minority of the brands that today integrate CarPlay in their vehicles have agreed (for the moment) to enter the new generation of CarPlay where it occupies all the screens and manages the entire car. This makes manufacturers lose personalization on the one hand and vehicle management capacity on the other, thus losing very valuable data for their business.
However Ford’s CEO in an interview with The Wall Street Journal commented otherwise. According to his testimony, 70% of his users are also Apple customers and it would not make sense to take away this ability. Ford would focus on integrating an operating system that the user already wants and knows and knows how to interact with while ensuring vehicle safety, range and productivity.
The direction of the automotive world in terms of integration with other platforms seems somewhat uncertain, but what is clear is that users will win one way or another. We have to wait and see what happens eventually.
