Want An Electric Truck With Apple CarPlay? You Have Very Few Options.

Of all of the technology-related matters we cowl round right here, and there are loads nowadays, none are as divisive as Apple CarPlay. Sure, actually. Even within the period of widespread fearmongering over imagined “electrical car mandates” and the backlash over more and more autonomous autos, nothing will get individuals riled up fairly as a lot as questions over the way forward for their favourite smartphone projection methods. 

Drivers in every single place have come to depend upon Apple CarPlay (and its counterpart, Android Auto) after virtually twenty years of subpar in-car software program experiences. However more and more, many automakers have one thing else in thoughts: they do not wish to cede issues like software program income, information and the person expertise to outdoors tech corporations, making a world the place they’re merely {hardware} producers for Large Tech.

Avoiding that consequence means growing in-car software program pretty much as good as Apple’s or Google’s, after which convincing consumers that they really pulled this off. 

Photograph by: InsideEVs

That would show extraordinarily tough to do. Many automobile homeowners are deeply embedded in Apple or Google’s software program ecosystems, and so they wish to simply plug of their telephones (or pair them wirelessly) and have entry to all of the maps, podcasts, contacts, messaging and different options they depend upon, all with out having to present it a lot thought. That is been the large profit to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto: they simply work, interval. And now, some automakers are asking drivers to easily belief what they will do as a substitute. 

Nowhere is that this pivot extra apparent than within the still-small world of electrical pickup vans. Desire a truck that does not run on gasoline, however nonetheless provides Apple CarPlay and Android Auto? Listed below are your choices, as of this writing: 

Ford F-150 Lightning
Chevrolet Silverado EV, in Work Truck (WT) trim solely
GMC Hummer EV Pickup 

That is it. Critically. 

The Rivian R1T would not supply CarPlay as a result of Rivian, maybe infamously now, desires to be a software program powerhouse that is totally in charge of its ecosystem and person expertise. The identical has at all times been true of Tesla, the auto trade’s unique software program pioneer. And whereas some tuners have added aftermarket workarounds for CarPlay in Tesla’s EVs, the Cybertruck would not supply it from the manufacturing facility and certain by no means will. 

Photograph by: InsideEVs

Then, maybe most controversially, now we have the Basic Motors EVs. GM introduced final yr that its future EVs is not going to have CarPlay or Android Auto; it is working as a substitute to make Google-based native methods that additionally supply subscription software program options by itself phrases. That call started with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV, so whereas the Hummer EV truck and Silverado EV WT are curiously grandfathered in (as is the Cadillac Lyriq), all subsequent EVs is not going to have these methods. Meaning you may depend out the Chevrolet Silverado EV in different trims and the GMC Sierra EV. Because it’s GM we’re speaking about, we all know extra trims on these and different electrical vans are absolutely coming, however shopping for them means going with out CarPlay and Android Auto. 

And let’s be actual: of the three vans listed above that do supply these methods, just one—the F-150 Lightning—is what you may name a severe, mainstream alternative. We have seen some glorious offers on the Silverado WT, however on the finish of the day it’s a stripped-down business truck with only a few frills. And the 9,000-pound Hummer EV truck is so massive and so costly that its enchantment is extraordinarily restricted. 

(I will toss out some alternate options that could be price taking a look at if not having CarPlay actually is a dealbreaker on your subsequent truck: the hybrid choices fare higher right here, just like the F-150 Hybrid and new Toyota Tacoma and Tundra. These do supply these methods.) 

I convey this up for 2 causes: one, as a result of we at InsideEVs obtained an e-mail from a gentleman who was very shut to purchasing a GM electrical truck, however determined to not out of software program frustrations. And two, as a result of CarPlay is again within the information following an look by GM’s software program chief Baris Cetinok on The Verge’s fashionable Decoder podcast. In that interview with Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel, Cetinok—who got here to GM earlier than that call was made—continues to defend shifting on from the smartphone projection methods. 

Cetinok brings up some very cheap factors as to why GM would not wish to lean on CarPlay and the like ceaselessly, and so they must do with creating the “most deeply built-in expertise that you may create with the car.” From that interview: 

We aren’t delivery units with simply screens; we’re not a monitor firm. We’re constructing superbly designed, full ideas and full convictions. We are saying, “This automobile is designed to do the next issues awesomely.” That is Silverado, that is what it stands for and that is what it does. Let’s get to it. 

If you wish to create one thing so seamless, it’s exhausting to consider getting right into a automobile and going, “Okay, so I’m doing freeway trailering, however let me flip to a very totally different person interface to choose my podcast. By the best way, it’s a single app-obsessed interface — it’s nonetheless exhausting to consider. So I decide my podcast, flip again to trailering. Oh, now I can even do Tremendous Cruise trailering. Let me handle that. Then, wait, we’re now entering into doubtlessly Degree 3, Degree 4 autonomy ranges that needs to be deeply built-in with speaking to the map the place the lanes lie. However wait a minute, the map that I’m utilizing doesn’t actually discuss to my automobile.” 

We have talked to Cetinok right here earlier than when he was operating level on getting GM’s software program complications mounted after the Blazer EV’s stop-sale final yr. He is an extremely sharp man, coming to the Basic after a profession spent at locations like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and cryptocurrency brokerage agency FalconX. I do suppose he is proper about quite a lot of what he says right here. Apart from the truth that I do not discover Apple CarPlay to be terribly helpful myself, I believe it is maddening to change between the smartphone projection system and the automobile’s foremost menu the place that you must function issues like charging settings, battery preconditioning, plug-finding or options like Tremendous Cruise, as he describes above. If EVs specifically are increasingly like smartphones on wheels, how are the automakers imagined to do every thing they wish to do whereas being beholden to the whims of Apple? 

However that is just one a part of the equation right here. The opposite is an issue of notion and schooling. And that is the place I more and more suppose GM is making a mistake by simply not providing these methods in its future cares—and extra importantly, as a result of that is GM we’re speaking about, its vans. 

The typical automobile on American roads is now about 13 years previous. Vehicles are higher constructed than ever and costlier than ever besides, so it stands to cause that individuals are conserving them longer. However that additionally means your common automobile proprietor has little expertise with cutting-edge in-car software program methods; to them, CarPlay was a godsend as a result of it obtained them out of the junk infotainment methods they’d take care of in any other case. Rejecting automobiles with out CarPlay or Android Auto out of hand is a knee-jerk response that they are inside their rights to have after years of complications.

I do not suppose the typical shopper thinks of automobiles as computer systems on wheels but; they simply need one thing that may get them round with little thought and, ideally, with as few subscription charges as potential. And what assure does GM have that its dealerships are literally going to take the time to teach individuals about advanced new software program options? 

I do not imply to condescend in regards to the “common” automobile proprietor. I am simply saying there is a massive gulf between what automakers wish to do with expertise and the place most individuals are proper now. But when corporations like GM wish to go for a extra tech-savvy shopper, then that shopper can be going to boost questions on how their private information is getting used. Apple is hardly a superb actor on a regular basis, but it surely’s higher than most on that entrance. And GM is already in authorized sizzling water over the way it collected and shared driver information with insurance coverage corporations. After we hear from EV consumers, that concern comes up greater than you may suppose.

I do not know what the reply right here is besides to say that it is exhausting to inform the patron they’re improper about one thing after they’ve gotten so used to doing issues a sure method. Possibly it is to try to do some mixture of each native methods and ones that work carefully with CarPlay, like Ford and Porsche are doing. And as with every thing else within the EV world, schooling is essential the place it is at present missing.

But when an automaker actually desires to do that, it wants to simply accept that this determination goes to show consumers to different manufacturers—and that is taking place proper now, whether or not they prefer it or not.

Contact the writer: patrick.george@insideevs.com