I was looking forward to several all-electric vehicles from Rivian, Volvo, and Lucid Air. My excitement was really crushed when I found out that Rivian had sold out to Amazon. Volvo uses Android Automotive. Lucid Air has Alexa (even Ford will be on Android Automotive). My hesitance is deeply engrained due to my distrust of Amazon and Google when it comes to privacy and security. I don’t appreciate companies that actively sell my data to advertisers. I’m sure I’m not alone on MPU saying that I avoid targeted ads and the companies associated with them.
Just want to know others’ thoughts about the obvious trend toward auto manufacturers partnering with Google and Amazon. I feel Apple has really dropped the ball not offering something similar to the auto manufacturers. I just don’t think I can tolerate Alexa in a car; probably won’t be able to avoid cringing every time my voice is sent to Bezos. Any thoughts?
I completely agree with your sentiment. It doesn’t have to be that way though. I just bought a Kia e-Niro electric car that has its own software for the whole system (car setup, entertainment, navigation) in addition to offering Apple car play. Really happy with the setup and the car.
I figure I am 1.2658228e-10 of the global population, with a rapidly approaching use-by date, so it’s unlikely Jeff Bezos cares much about what I say and do.
Well, with the latest news on Apple completely screwing up management of the vulnerability disclosure program I don’t have much faith in Apple. The way that Apple is handling some pretty serious iOS vulnerabilities is pretty scary. I wouldn’t put too much faith in any of these companies right now.
Right now I’m thinking a partnership would have been better than a full on Apple Car. Maybe this is because I love German cars so much. But I understand, Apple loves to design the whole widget.
I drive an EV and it has its own built in voice assistant. I never use it. I plug in my iPhone and use CarPlay and Siri.
We had more of an issue with our smart tv. We don’t want a smart tv, just a monitor for Apple TV. However, the TV that we got has Google Assistant. It used to pop up and pester us to finish setting it up while we were watching. I turned it off in the menus.
I looked at Polestar before I decided on Tesla. Polestar has a full Google integration, which I didn’t want. That said, even Tesla phones home primarily to feed AI for self-driving and have Google integration for maps and traffic. Also, all media and entertainment runs through their portal and is not directly with the services as they don’t allow 3rd party apps.
You will be hard-pressed to find connected cars not using cloud services of the big companies:
the adoption rate of services already used by customers will be high and fast
the setup cost to self build and maintain services is high. Car companies instead focus on building cars
It would be great if you could choose what ecosystem you want to integrate your car in; Apple, Amazon, Google or Microsoft. Everyone will have personal preferences and affiliations.
Alternatively, it would be great if Matter would expand in connected cars as they do for homes. Open source and built on trust and security principles.
My EV is not a Tesla. But I don’t agree with having TV visible from the driver’s seat until we have true automated driving. My guess is that’s going to take segregated roads.
I grudgingly applaud any attempt by car manufacturers to integrate better tech in their cars.
It’s been abysmal for the past eons, so any improvement on that is surely welcome
Having said that I would echo @simonsmark comment that it would be great if you could choose your options.
One of our vehicle’s navigation voices sounds like the hypothetical sister of ED-209 from Robocop. Tells you to turn in much the same tone as ED-209 told someone to put down the weapon he didn’t have and then shot him when he didn’t comply.
