General Motors (GM from now on), the American automobile company that owns brands such as Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC in the United States, will discontinue CarPlay (and also Android auto) in its vehicles starting this year to launch its own operating system that would come from Google according to Reuters.
The brands of the automobile giant will stop offering support in their vehicles for CarPlay starting with the Chevrolet Blazer that 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 by electric vehicles in 2035. In addition, this will not affect the models already sold that do have support, these users will be able to continue enjoying the compatible mobile operating systems in their cars.
The operating system that GM would be preparing would be very similar to CarPlay or Android Auto, where the main apps offered are multimedia and audio plus, of course, navigation apps for which they would offer 8 years of Google Maps and Google Assistant at no extra cost. It is what the OS has to do with Google.
This move to discontinue CarPlay support is marked by GM’s strategy to recognise.ger much more data on the use of the vehicle and thus be able to encourage subscriptions to other services. It could also be related to the sale of data to third parties (such as insurers) but it would be necessary to see how they achieve this step with the anonymization of customers or what they could be used for.
This creates a precedent, and pIt could encourage more car brands to make this move. Let’s remember that a minority of the brands that today incorporate CarPlay in their vehicles have agreed (for now) 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, losing very valuable data for their business.
Nevertheless Ford’s CEO in an interview with the Wall Street Journal has commented the opposite. According to his testimony, 70% of his users are also Apple customers and it would not make sense to take away this capability. Ford would focus on incorporating an Operating System that the user wants and already knows and knows how to interact with while they provide the safety, autonomy and productivity of the vehicle.
The direction of the automotive world in terms of its 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 finally happens.