Why Hyundai Is Sticking With CarPlay ‘Proper Now’

For those who’ve been became off by way of Common Motors’ now-infamous determination to eliminate Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its electrical vehicles, right here’s some just right information for you: Hyundai’s were given your again. 

The South Korean emblem is sticking with the usual phone-mirroring programs, a Hyundai govt informed InsideEVs lately. For now, no less than.

“Right now, we’re still maintaining Android Auto and Carplay,” Olabisi Boyle, senior vice chairman of product making plans and mobility technique at Hyundai, stated in an interview. “It’s a little bit like EV charging. As we’re moving, give people all the options.”

Boyle is relating to Hyundai’s determination to adopt Tesla’s charging port design and provides its shoppers get admission to to round 17,000 Tesla Supercharger plugs. (That’s one thing many of the auto trade has accomplished too, I may upload, however Hyundai has been particularly speedy about it.) She says right through this month of profound trade within the auto trade—from common gasoline vehicles to software-heavy, battery-powered automobiles—it’s key to present shoppers choices and now not aim to pressure them right into a generation they’re now not able for. 

For Hyundai, that implies beefing up its vehicles’ consumer interfaces moment additionally handing over the CarPlay and Android Auto public know and love. It additionally manner providing combustion fashions, hybrids and plug-in hybrids along absolutely electrical vehicles. “Eventually, we’ll all be fully EV,” Boyle stated. “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.”

Unhappy with the moderately low-margin trade of marketing vehicles, automakers were looking to act more like tech companies. They’ve were given large plans to rake in billions off of utility services and products like video games, subscriptions and leisure options. That’s driven carmakers to take a position extra in swish virtual interfaces and it’s led some—like GM—to shun the affect of Apple and Google from their utility ecosystems. 

GM has stuck a accumulation of flack for its proceed, since such a lot of Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC drivers like the benefit of the use of their telephone’s working machine and feature a evil affiliation with traditionally clunky automobile utility. Others, like Tesla and startup Rivian, have by no means presented CarPlay both.

Picture by way of: InsideEVs

2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9

Hyundai hasn’t long gone that some distance, however it’s running on its tech. Within the just-unveiled Ioniq 9 three-row SUV, the logo debuted “features on demand,” a platform that shall we house owners purchase upgrades for his or her automobile at the walk. It’s settingup out with particular lights choices and customized subject matters for the SUV’s shows. 

Whether or not automaker utility and phone-mirroring options coexist going forward or now not, Boyle thinks the car trade will sooner or later converge on some more or less same old. Realizing what Hyundai has within the pipeline, she says there could also be higher choices to CarPlay and Android Auto “that people are not even imagining now.” That “might be the future,” she stated.

Nonetheless, getting public to modify their tactics can be a fight. “People are so tied to everything,” Boyle stated. “So we’re going to give it some time to play out.”

Were given a tip concerning the EV global? Touch the writer: tim.levin@insideevs.com