I believe that’s called a lease.

You won't even need to own the car. Just pay $800 / mo indefinitely.

Literally happens right now for remote start

I have zero doubt that the car companies will do their best to make it effectively impossible to "own" your own car, in the same way you can no longer truly "buy" software.

It’s awful if the vendor makes it awful. Know that this is deliberate lack of investment and not that it’s impossible. To my knowledge, there’s a few companies doing it right:

Tesla, whose nav is pretty great and responsive

Rivian, who appears to have copied a lot of the Tesla UI elements (and, has lots of former Tesla employees) and the snappiness and great nav is part of that.

Any car using Android automotive (different from Android auto) such as the Polestar lineup. Basically gives you an Android tablet with Google Maps, so nav is great, and it seems to be all held to a certain level of responsiveness.

The built in navigation is a backup to preferred options like Waze, Google Maps, etc. via android/apple auto. You use those in normal situations and fallback to the car's navigation when you have to. It's not really competing with those nav solutions in my opinion.

Navigation does cost money though. Even maintaining a basic map.

I imagine that it serves a purpose to demand a markup given that the car provides such capability.

>Who ever uses those built-in things?

I do. I use it only as a backup or corroborating source of info in situations where the maps are never quite right, but that happens quite frequently.

I spend a LOT of time out of cell-service though.

My 2012 VW Passat’s system was the most responsive and dead-on accurate GPS I’ve ever used in a car or a phone. The only thing that beats it are handheld dedicated GPS units designed for ships and rescue workers.

That said, the maps got out of date and couldn’t be updated without a $200 SD card, which was annoying.

One thing I would love to see is more industry collaborations to make software. The nav system of Honda/Toyota/Ford is never going to be a differentiator on the core product. Chip in resources to get a core platform that each vendor can cosmetically tweak.

Of course, this never happens, because humans. Yet I still dream.

> why automakers continue to refuse to put CarPlay/Android Auto support in their vehicles.

Most aren't refusing, and only GM is attempting to backtrack on support right?

Even some of the fancy pants all technology automakers are putting it in their cars, like Lucid: https://lucidmotors.com/knowledge/vehicles/air/lucid-air-in-...

What cars dont support it?

Toyota want a subscription for AA/CP? For something with a one-time development cost and nothing ongoing after?

Wow.

Hard agree. Maps, I don't care plus I understand, it's an ongoing cost and keeping old maps may actually be dangerous. Carplay, Android Auto behind subscription? Just weird. I'm not even mad, it's that weird. Like BMW buttheaters on subscription level weird.

Another alternative is to store maps on the head unit, and provide a subscription for downloading map updates. That's how all of the cars in my house (Porsche, BMW) work for nav, and it works perfectly fine. Stop paying? Then you get to keep using the last update you downloaded for the rest of time.

I recently purchased a used car, but one of the criteria was to not have all of this subscription/telemetry nonsense. The in dash head unit is new enough to have bluetooth connectivity, but no navigation or anything. It wanted to sync my contacts, but at least gave me the option of not doing that. I'm assuming it was to be used for displaying the caller's name instead of just the number on the display, but anytime someone asks to sync contacts it is a hard no on principle. As you said, just use the phone. Being in the holder I can see it before the in-dash display anyways.

Well presumably they do it to make money. And they definitely arent going to get rid of the screen. Used for backup camera and other stuff. Backup cameras are required by law in the US on new cars.

Due to safety and emissions regulations we just cant have a dead simple car even as a niche option.

It's not in production but I read that Slate, the modular EV startup, is explicitly not putting any screens and letting out your own device on the console. Seems like the obvious way to do it.

I like the approach Slate has taken - basically, bring your own device, then connect to the vehicle with our app. I'm not super confident that Slate will last as a company, and leaving subscription money on the table might be one reason they don't last. But I like this approach and I wish more companies would do it.

https://www.slate.auto/

They used to. It was a $1k option or whatever and now it's moved to subscription.

Probably because the LTV is at least an order of magnitude more than you are estimating.

GM dropped CarPlay support from some of their vehicles. They think subscription revenue is going to be at least $20 billion / year.