If you’ve been turned off by General Motors’ now-infamous decision to eliminate Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its electric cars, here’s some good news for you: Hyundai’s got your back.
The South Korean brand is sticking with the popular phone-mirroring applications, a Hyundai executive told InsideEVs recently. For now, at least.
“Right now, we’re still maintaining Android Auto and Carplay,” Olabisi Boyle, senior vice president of product planning and mobility strategy at Hyundai, said in an interview. “It’s a little bit like EV charging. As we’re moving, give people all the options.”
Boyle is referring to Hyundai’s decision to adopt Tesla’s charging port design and give its customers access to around 17,000 Tesla Supercharger plugs. (That’s something most of the auto industry has done too, I might add, but Hyundai has been particularly speedy about it.) She says during this time of profound change in the auto industry—from familiar gas cars to software-heavy, battery-powered vehicles—it’s key to give consumers options and not try to force them into a technology they’re not ready for.
For Hyundai, that means beefing up its cars’ user interfaces while also delivering the CarPlay and Android Auto people know and love. It also means offering combustion models, hybrids and plug-in hybrids alongside fully electric cars. “Eventually, we’ll all be fully EV,” Boyle said. “But it’s going to take some time, and you don’t want your business to fail in between. So you need to have a strategy that can adapt.”
Unsatisfied with the relatively low-margin business of selling cars, automakers have been trying to act more like tech companies. They’ve got big plans to rake in billions off of software services like games, subscriptions and entertainment features. That’s pushed carmakers to invest more in sleek digital interfaces and it’s led some—like GM—to shun the influence of Apple and Google from their software ecosystems.
GM has caught a lot of flack for its move, since so many Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC drivers like the convenience of using their phone's operating system and have a bad association with historically clunky automotive software. Others, like Tesla and startup Rivian, have never offered CarPlay either.
Hyundai hasn’t gone that far, but it is working on its tech. In the just-unveiled Ioniq 9 three-row SUV, the brand debuted “features on demand,” a platform that lets owners buy upgrades for their vehicle on the go. It’s starting out with special lighting options and custom themes for the SUV’s displays.
Whether automaker software and phone-mirroring features coexist in the future or not, Boyle thinks the auto industry will eventually converge on some kind of standard. Knowing what Hyundai has in the pipeline, she says there may be better alternatives to CarPlay and Android Auto “that people are not even imagining now.” That “might be the future,” she said.
Still, getting people to change their ways would be a battle. “People are so tied to everything,” Boyle said. “So we’re going to give it some time to play out.”
Got a tip about the EV world? Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com
