I’ve written countless times about GM’s shortsighted move to ditch CarPlay on all its EVs going forward. Meanwhile, other automakers like Ford have doubled down on supporting CarPlay and giving users as many options as possible.
In a new interview this week, Hyundai executive Olabisi Boyle said the automaker is still “maintaining Android Auto and CarPlay” … at least for now.
Boyle, who serves as Hyundai’s senior vice president of product planning and mobility strategy, made the comments during an interview with InsideEVs this week. Boyle said that Hyundai’s focus is to “give people all the options” as the market moves toward the future.
Boyle likens the situation to the evolving EV charging landscape in the United States. Many automakers, including Hyundai, have announced plans to transition from CCS to NACS for charging in the United States, adopting the charging connector developed first by Tesla. In the interim, however, automakers are focused on supplying customers with adapters to use NACS-enabled chargers in addition to CCS.
“Right now, we’re still maintaining Android Auto and CarPlay,” Boyle explained. “It’s a bit like EV charging. As we’re moving, give people all the options.
Another example from Boyle: continuing to offer internal combustion engine cars and hybrids as the transition to EVs continues. “Eventually, we’ll all be fully EV,” Boyle explained to InsideEVs. “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.”
On a longer-term timeline, however, Boyle suggests something better than CarPlay and Android Auto could emerge:
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.
9to5Mac’s Take
While Boyle’s comments are good news for Hyundai owners in the short term, they don’t exude confidence for the long-term future. The Hyundai executive is clearly suggesting that the company views CarPlay as a stop-gap solution as the automaker continues developing its first-party infotainment technology.
On the other hand, GM ditched CarPlay on the promise of eventually building something that rivals Apple’s phone mirroring system. It at least seems like Hyundai knows better than to take that approach.
Also worth pointing out is that Hyundai is not on Apple’s list of automakers that have signed on to support next-gen CarPlay.
My favorite CarPlay accessories
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