General Motors and Google are coordinating on a new dashboard for the next generation of electric vehicles, and Apple is getting left out.
GM’s Chief Digital Officer Edward Kummer and Executive Director of Digital Cockpit Experience Mike Hichme told Reuters they are ditching Apple CarPlay as they scale back on phone connectivity and scale up on in-car subscription revenue. The move also includes cutting Google-developed Android Auto. The 2024 Chevrolet Blazer will be the first GM EV to have the new Google dashboard.
“We have a lot of new driver assistance features coming that are more tightly coupled with navigation,” Hichme told Reuters. “We don’t want to design these features in a way that is dependent on a person having a cellphone.”
This could be good news for radio, as it’s always been implanted in cars. On the other hand, Kummer touted, “We do believe there are subscription revenue opportunities for us.” Where does free audio from over-the-air broadcasters fit into that plan?
New EV purchases with the Google dashboard will come with Google Maps and the voice-command Google Assistant for free – but only for eight years. Spotify and Audible are also confirmed to be automatically included in the new dashboard. GM wants $25 billion in annual revenue from subscriptions by 2030.
General Motors and Mercedes Benz were the only two major automakers that declined to share with Congress whether they had plans to keep or remove AM radio from their electric vehicles. GM will continue putting CarPlay and Android Auto in all of its combustion engine vehicles until they’re phased out by 2035.
Regarding the question of what goes on the dashboard, people are forgetting a very serious issue: driver distraction. The more elaborate a display is, the longer the time that the driver’s eyes are on the dashboard when they should be on the road. And it seems that every year, some computer geek is dreaming up more crap to put on the dashboard.
New Jersey has a law under its motor vehicle code prohibiting the installation of a TV set in a vehicle if the driver can see the screen. Shouldn’t this be expanded to prohibit elaborate computer-type displays? While a driver is playing around with apps (like the ones that keep our young kids glued to their smartphones while they are oblivious to their surroundings), he could end up wrapping his car around a tree or utility pole.
Forget the “apps” and just give us a radio with buttons that one can set to the desired stations: AM, FM, Sirius XM, whatever. Keep your eyes on the road where they belong.
So, this leaves one with the question, whose wireless data service will GM be depending upon for cloud connectivity for their built-in dashboard apps? I assume one of the cellular carriers, in which case cell service would be a hidden asset in the vehicle.