301–310 of 395 posts
It really isn't whether CarPlay or Android is better. The fact that it is a choice that the auto manufacturer would make at all and b) it wouldn't listen to their customer base.
If I was on the GM board or a major shareholder, I would have huge questions about leadership.
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
Is a car high-margin (as in profit)? I wouldn’t think they would be. Or perhaps you were using the term in the sense of a high dollar price point.
See: https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/how-much-profit-do-c...
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
They are probably trying to emulate Teslas product strategy Tesla doesn't offer android or iPhone carplay. Instead they try to offer a software experience superior to those. It does Spotify, gps, etc but also manages the car itself. Depending on what the user is doing it makes sense. If the user mostly wanted their phone for music and directions, you can build that stuff in house and have it turn out okay. If the use…
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
I will literally not buy a car without CarPlay. I am sure I am not alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a Nissan LEAF. In 8.5 years, my expenses have included replacing wiper blades twice, cabin air filter twice, filling the washer fluid bottle several times and I’ve looked at the tires and brakes, rotating tires once. It’s been crazy nice. (As the family wrench-turner, even my wife’s CR-V, which is generally low maintenance, has felt like an inconvenient pig for maintenance demands by comparison.)
I’d probably recommend rotating tires more than once in 8.5 years.
Rotating them around the halfway mark (at ~5 years in my case) accomplishes that. Anything else seems like more work than benefit to me.
Ideally, my car would look like a BT speaker, possibly with a microphone and some controls, to the phone. I don't want a dedicated satnav, I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. The system in my car that integrates with…
I had an old GMC Canyon through college, and the only thing it had was Aux. After college i bought a model 3 when they first came out and I absolutely love the infotainment system. I love that I can play witcher 3 on my Tesla. My bluetooth always connects. I can unlock my car with my app and it never fails me.
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
They are probably trying to emulate Teslas product strategy Tesla doesn't offer android or iPhone carplay. Instead they try to offer a software experience superior to those. It does Spotify, gps, etc but also manages the car itself. Depending on what the user is doing it makes sense. If the user mostly wanted their phone for music and directions, you can build that stuff in house and have it turn out okay. If the use…
IMO, the only upside to the customer is avoiding plugging a phone in. The phone experience is otherwise generally better across the board.
(On a latter note, I consider the Tesla UI good for a car, but bad overall. Climate app also generally sucks).
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
From GM's latest 10-K filing[1], quickly distilling the past 3 years of consolidated income statements down to its Automotive ex. GM Financial stream:
| (US$ Millions) | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Revenue | 143,975 | 113,590 | 108,673 |
| Cost of Sales | 126,892 | 100,544 | 97,539 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Adj Gross Profit | 17,083 | 13,046 | 11,134 |
| Adj Gross Margin | 11.9% | 11.5% | 10.2% |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| SG&A | 10,667 | 8,554 | 7,038 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Adj EBITDA | 6,416 | 4,492 | 4,096 |
| Adj EBITDA % | 7.4% | 7.5% | 6.5% |
| (US$ Millions) | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Revenue | 148,980 | 126,150 | 115,894 |
| Cost of Sales | 134,397 | 114,651 | 112,752 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Adj Gross Profit | 14,583 | 11,499 | 3,142 |
| Adj Gross Margin | 9.8% | 9.1% | 2.7% |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| SG&A | 10,888 | 11,915 | 10,193 |
|-------------------|---------|---------|---------|
| Adj EBITDA | 3,695 | (416) | (7,051) |
| Adj EBITDA % | 2.5% | (3.3%) | (6.1%) |
Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics research paints a colorful picture of market dynamics from 2007-2019[3] where post-GFC increase in domestic competition and the rising cost of manufacturing forced dealers to "innovate" as a way of offsetting new car sales margin decline, which set the stage for 2019-2022[4] where manufacturers largely internalized an outsized supply chain squeeze while dealers gouged the shit out of consumers. So when you say "high-margin", I think you're looking in the wrong bucket.
Then there's GM Financial segment sitting on a $65.322B retail finance receivables portfolio[5] of which 27.2% are sub-680 FICO consumers, and carrying $96.854B of debt[6]...nevermind rising interest rates, increasing layoffs, and a looming credit crunch. Remarks like:
>> In 2021, GM Financial redeemed $1.5 billion in aggregate principal amount of 5.20% senior notes due in 2023. The redemption resulted in a $105 million loss on the early extinguishment of debt.
...buried in page 76 of the fine print suggests internal bleeding damage control.
> How does this business decision make sense?
It doesn't make sense because you're thinking about it from the perspective of consumer optionality based on today's trend, not as a publicly traded business balls deep in competition looking forward.
Considering GM's top 2 selling vehicles are trucks[7] (Silverado = 33.8% of 2022 Chevy units sold; Sierra = 46.7% of 2022 GMC units sold)---and speculating on the retention quality of consumers who would readily classify CarPlay integration as "not negotiable", choosing to overweight an accessory feature that X competitors may also offer over other characteristics/intangibles salient to GM products---I begin to question both the net value prop and opportunity costs being wholesale handed over to Apple.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467858/000146785823...
[2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/37996/00000379962300...
[3] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2022/article/automotive-dealers...
[4] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2023/article/automotive-dealers...
[5] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467858/000146785823...
[6] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467858/000146785823...
[7] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39628015/best-selling-car...
How does this business decision make sense? A car is a high-margin item, so the impact of even a handful of consumers choosing not to buy must be huge, right? Whereas, they would need to "monetize" (ugh) many many more units to turn back that lost profit. And as the shakeup due to EVs begins, even loyal consumers will be considering other makes. My girlfriend bought a car recently. CarPlay was not negotiable for her,…
I think this makes a ton of business sense. They're only doing this on EV's, which have to be charged, and are likely concerned your car infotainment system is going to become a platform people buy things on they don't want to miss out on. Tesla has done it and because of this they have the best infotainment system in the industry. Frankly from what I can tell as well this is just editorialization, I don't think GM c…
Tesla got away with not supporting CarPlay because they were one of the very few options available if you wanted an electric car. Rivian got away with it (for now, at least) because they were your only option if you wanted a high-end electric truck. Their customers were willing to sacrifice CarPlay because they had no real choice. Yes, Tesla's UI is nice-ish. That doesn't mean Tesla drivers don't want CarPlay support. Tons of them do, and it comes up regularly on online forums.
If you look at infotainment systems like BMW's latest iDrive iterations and Mercedes-Benz's MBUX, it's quite clear that they've improved a great deal in the past few years, lack of physical buttons aside. I'd hope that GM manages to do the same. Things have gotten better and the alternative to using CarPlay is no longer living with a nightmarish hellscape of a UI put together by sadistic designers --or maybe just traumatized ones, tormented by someone who forced them to ship terrible infotainment systems for years.
Despite that, consumers still love CarPlay and/or Android Auto and expect it to be available on their cars, with limited exceptions. Most people get in their cars, connect directly to CarPlay/Android Auto, and get on with their drive. When they have to use the native infotainment system, they do so with less frustration. But how many people do you think are just using a Bluetooth connection for their phone instead of CarPlay when it's right there? The answer is likely very, very few.
GM is betting that they'll get its customers to accept not having it like Tesla and Rivian customers have to. That's a hell of a gamble when everyone else will be shipping their own expanded line of EV models at the same time and price points as GM.
Anyone else much prefer just mounting your phone on the dash, instead of a separate carplay system? Bonus points if the mount has wireless charging. This way there’s no new UI to learn, and you never are stuck using a subpar carplay-variant UI (looking at you, Gaia)