Of all the technology-related topics we cover around here, and there are a lot these days, none are as divisive as Apple CarPlay. Yes, really. Even in the era of widespread fearmongering over imagined “electric vehicle mandates” and the backlash over increasingly autonomous vehicles, nothing gets people riled up quite as much as questions over the future of their favorite smartphone projection systems.
Drivers everywhere have come to depend on Apple CarPlay (and its counterpart, Android Auto) after almost two decades of subpar in-car software experiences. But increasingly, many automakers have something else in mind: they don’t want to cede things like software revenue, data and the user experience to outside tech companies, creating a world where they’re simply hardware manufacturers for Big Tech.
Avoiding that outcome means developing in-car software as good as Apple’s or Google’s, and then convincing buyers that they actually pulled this off.
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That could prove extremely difficult to do. Many car owners are deeply embedded in Apple or Google’s software ecosystems, and they want to just plug in their phones (or pair them wirelessly) and have access to all the maps, podcasts, contacts, messaging and other features they depend on, all without having to give it much thought. That’s been the big benefit to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto: they just work, period. And now, some automakers are asking drivers to simply trust what they can do instead.
Nowhere is this pivot more obvious than in the still-small world of electric pickup trucks. Want a truck that doesn’t run on gasoline, but still offers Apple CarPlay and Android Auto? Here are your options, as of this writing:
Ford F-150 Lightning
Chevrolet Silverado EV, in Work Truck (WT) trim only
GMC Hummer EV Pickup
That’s it. Seriously.
The Rivian R1T doesn’t offer CarPlay because Rivian, perhaps infamously now, wants to be a software powerhouse that’s fully in control of its ecosystem and user experience. The same has always been true of Tesla, the auto industry’s original software pioneer. And while some tuners have added aftermarket workarounds for CarPlay in Tesla’s EVs, the Cybertruck doesn’t offer it from the factory and likely never will.
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Then, perhaps most controversially, we have the General Motors EVs. GM announced last year that its future EVs will not have CarPlay or Android Auto; it’s working instead to make Google-based native systems that also offer subscription software features on its own terms. That decision began with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV, so while the Hummer EV truck and Silverado EV WT are curiously grandfathered in (as is the Cadillac Lyriq), all subsequent EVs will not have those systems. That means you can count out the Chevrolet Silverado EV in other trims and the GMC Sierra EV. Since it’s GM we’re talking about, we know more trims on those and other electric trucks are surely coming, but buying them means going without CarPlay and Android Auto.
And let’s be real: of the three trucks listed above that do offer those systems, only one—the F-150 Lightning—is what you might call a serious, mainstream choice. We’ve seen some excellent deals on the Silverado WT, but at the end of the day it is a stripped-down commercial truck with very few frills. And the 9,000-pound Hummer EV truck is so big and so expensive that its appeal is extremely limited.
(I’ll toss out some alternatives that may be worth looking at if not having CarPlay really is a dealbreaker for your next truck: the hybrid options fare better here, like the F-150 Hybrid and new Toyota Tacoma and Tundra. Those do offer those systems.)
I bring this up for two reasons: one, because we at InsideEVs got an email from a gentleman who was very close to buying a GM electric truck, but decided not to out of software frustrations. And two, because CarPlay is back in the news following an appearance by GM’s software chief Baris Cetinok on The Verge’s popular Decoder podcast. In that interview with Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel, Cetinok—who came to GM before that decision was made—continues to defend moving on from the smartphone projection systems.
Cetinok brings up some very reasonable points as to why GM doesn’t want to lean on CarPlay and the like forever, and they have to do with creating the “most deeply integrated experience that you can create with the vehicle.” From that interview:
We are not shipping devices with just monitors; we’re not a monitor company. We’re building beautifully designed, complete thoughts and complete convictions. We say, “This car is designed to do the following things awesomely.” This is Silverado, this is what it stands for and this is what it does. Let’s get to it.
When you want to create something so seamless, it’s hard to think about getting into a car and going, “Okay, so I’m doing highway trailering, but let me flip to a totally different user interface to pick my podcast. By the way, it’s a single app-obsessed interface — it’s still hard to believe. So I pick my podcast, flip back to trailering. Oh, now I can also do Super Cruise trailering. Let me manage that. Then, wait, we’re now getting into potentially Level 3, Level 4 autonomy levels that should be deeply integrated with talking to the map where the lanes lie. But wait a minute, the map that I’m using doesn’t really talk to my car.”
We’ve talked to Cetinok here before when he was running point on getting GM’s software headaches fixed after the Blazer EV’s stop-sale last year. He’s an incredibly sharp guy, coming to the General after a career spent at places like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and cryptocurrency brokerage firm FalconX. I do think he’s right about a lot of what he says here. Besides the fact that I don’t find Apple CarPlay to be terribly useful myself, I think it’s maddening to switch between the smartphone projection system and the car’s main menu where you need to operate things like charging settings, battery preconditioning, plug-finding or features like Super Cruise, as he describes above. If EVs in particular are more and more like smartphones on wheels, how are the automakers supposed to do everything they want to do while being beholden to the whims of Apple?
But that’s only one part of the equation here. The other is a problem of perception and education. And that’s where I increasingly think GM is making a mistake by just not offering these systems in its future cares—and more importantly, because this is GM we’re talking about, its trucks.
The average car on American roads is now about 13 years old. Cars are better built than ever and more expensive than ever to boot, so it stands to reason that people are keeping them longer. But that also means your average car owner has little experience with cutting-edge in-car software systems; to them, CarPlay was a godsend because it got them out of the junk infotainment systems they’d deal with otherwise. Rejecting cars without CarPlay or Android Auto out of hand is a knee-jerk response that they’re within their rights to have after years of headaches.
I don’t think the average consumer thinks of cars as computers on wheels yet; they just want something that will get them around with little thought and, ideally, with as few subscription fees as possible. And what guarantee does GM have that its dealerships are actually going to take the time to educate people about complex new software features?
I don’t mean to condescend about the “average” car owner. I’m just saying there’s a big gulf between what automakers want to do with technology and where most people are right now. But if companies like GM want to go for a more tech-savvy consumer, then that consumer is also going to raise questions about how their personal data is being used. Apple is hardly a good actor all the time, but it’s better than most on that front. And GM is already in legal hot water over how it collected and shared driver data with insurance companies. When we hear from EV buyers, that concern comes up more than you might think.
I don’t know what the answer here is except to say that it’s hard to tell the consumer they’re wrong about something after they’ve gotten so used to doing things a certain way. Maybe it’s to try and do some mix of both native systems and ones that work closely with CarPlay, like Ford and Porsche are doing. And as with everything else in the EV world, education is key where it’s currently lacking.
But if an automaker really wants to do this, it needs to accept that this decision is going to turn buyers to other brands—and that’s happening right now, whether they like it or not.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
