This doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole car infotainment industry is so far behind the curve, and updating to respond to legislation just doesn’t seem to be a thing.
They are moving to a model where they get billions of dollars in government hand outs to support third party cars, but are not going to actually reliably allow third party cars to change. (Just like other networks are taking money to support standard payments, but don’t in practice.)
I bought a Chevy Blazer last year, and it’s the best car I’ve ever owned. Great balance of design, gas mileage, comfort, etc.
I was definitely planning to make my next car the EV version of this.
Part of that package is flawless CarPlay integration. It’s simplified the music and navigation experience more than I ever thought possible.
The only reason I wouldn’t demand it on my next car is if something demonstrably and overwhelmingly better came along.
Everything described in the article sounds worse.
Subscription services tied to my car and not my phone?
Needing to maintain navigation routes on my car AND my phone?
Being forced to use only built in apps like Spotify instead of “whatever is on my phone that supports car play”?
Waiting on my car to decide when I can get the newest navigation app or the latest update to Spotify like this is some janky non-Roku smart TV from 2012?
No thanks.
> GM's decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs.
That doesn’t even make sense.
NONE of those things would require an absence of CarPlay, nor would they require the presence of some omnipresent Google / GM replacement.
Those metrics are all collected by the systems using them, with the infotainment simply being one possible UI for display of those metrics.
Sucks. Just when I found a car brand and manufacturer that seemed to be doing things well, and I was excited for the EV version of it, they pull this.
The little changes are going to end up as technical debt they will pay for later. And notice that they haven’t come out with any meaningful refresh of any of their cars, some of which have been on the market quite a while. It’s definitely too soon to suggest they have a good, effective update strategy.
Their dealers must be furious. This is clearly going to harm sales, and they probably expect they're going to trade up-front revenue for subscription. Auto manufacturers famously produce excellent software so I'm sure they'll rake in the money.
I wonder what this will do to their fleet sales. Rental companies probably won't be thrilled about customers turning up their noses at GM vehicles that don't have Carplay. I wouldn't be surprised if they have to start renting them at a discount.
Wow ditching both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to target $20 billion to $25 billion in subscription revenue.
GM showing itself to be actively user hostile with this.
Owners will be paying an extra subscription cost for these apps to be in their car which are already on their phone.
Google Maps subscription free in these GM EVs only for the first 8 years. Then you pay a subscription with recurring billing.
These vehicles are no longer a consideration with this user hostile orientation. I hope this sends GM to bankruptcy round 2 and deters other car manufacturers from this nonsense.
Very shortsighted IMHO. By keeping both they will be broadening the appeal of their cars to a larger segment of the market. All in favor of a subscription model??
"Buyers of GM EVs with the new systems will get access to Google Maps and Google Assistant, a voice command system, at no extra cost for eight years, GM said. GM said the future infotainment systems will offer applications such as Spotify's music service, Audible and other services that many drivers now access via smartphones"
From my past discussions with car executives (that are ~10 years old so grain of salt), I really do think it’s as simple as that recurring infotainment subscription revenue.
The small margin GM gets on its cars is buffered by the revenue splits it gets with Sirius XM and the various call for assistance services. Sirius revenue is on the decline because everyone listens to Spotify on their phone. The GPS revenue stream died with Google Maps on phones. So they have to try to lock in those fees where they can. See also: BMW selling a subscription to unlock features like heated seats.
Now, I think this backfires for GM. I think way more people will not buy new cars if they lack Android Auto or Car Play than they think. I also think that it will be harder to maintain the apps and services than GM thinks. When Ford was doing its partnership with Microsoft 15 years ago (and then they took it in-house because Microsoft Connect or whatever it was called was buggy as hell), I think that made a lot of sense. But it was also expensive to do and so you saw the car companies offload a lot of those details to Apple and Google via a QNX or other middleware layer. Tesla built its own software as sort of a foundational part of the car experience, and I think it has worked well for them. I don’t have the same confidence in GM.
The thing is, if GM just made a $30 a month connected car subscription package to unlock Car Play and 5G assistance or whatever, I think they’d sell tons of it. People would complain but I know that I would pay the money in a second versus trying to pair my phone with a non-Car Play infotainment system. But I bet Apple and Google would insist on 30% of that revenue (at least).
Look out, they're about to screw everyone with a 2017, 2016, or older. They installed 3G-only cell stuff for the "phone home when the air bags pop" infrastructure, and it's being sunset in 2022. There seems to be no way to upgrade the telematics stuff to anything newer.
All of these cars are going to have shit resale value very soon now.
Paging class action lawyers... there's a big juicy target out here just waiting to be seized. Selling cars when you know it has technology that's already dated and won't last long enough? Then not providing a way to remedy it? Gold!
Maybe for the same reason, but not equivalent. We have become relatively ad blind on our digital devices, pushing ads into the car infotainment system is going to make for lots of angry customers. That being said, big-auto is pretty dumb, behind the times, and hasn't figured out how to evolve at the pace they need to. I will not be surprised if some of them try this.
Still, I don't want to have subscriptions for basic auto features like heated seats and how fast the car can go. I don't even like that Tesla makes you pay for access to the full battery, but at least that is a one-time purchase.
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