Rivian Explains Why CarPlay Debate Will Become 'Completely Obsolete'

[carswell]

And that's why I will not even consider a Rivian.

I wouldn't buy a Rivian because they're almost comically ugly (YMMV). Also, made in the USA, whose products I, like many Canadians, am avoiding as much as possible until there's a regime and attitude change south of the border. No CarPlay only seals the deal.

 

[marte91]

For an EV, I agree that they can build a better overall UX than CarPlay. Speaking from experience, CarPlay does not have enough deep integration to route and estimate charging or provide other EV related info. There is some but it's up to the manufacturer to allow that integration with CarPlay.

Tesla is miles ahead of CarPlay and it would be a downgrade to use it for map routing. I also own a Ford Lightning and the software sucks both on the Ford and CarPlay side of things as an EV. CarPlay is fine for apps but the maps is generally frustrating to use - especially with Siri. Hopefully that changes soon.

I agree 💯percent with you, not all but must people in here complaining about this,
1- don't own Rivian
2- where never even considering getting one.

 

[buddhistMonkey]

"I really believe that the way you interact with apps… will be now completely reshaped into a world where it will become an agentic integration that presents itself into a wholesome user experience to the user," Bensaid explained.

Sounds exactly like what Microsoft is doing with Copilot. Or, rather, sounds like what Microsoft was doing with Copilot, before they realized that everyone hates Copilot and no one wants an agentic OS. Sadly, Rivian, you once had promise, but no more. No CarPlay, no car.

 

[macduke]

What Rivian doesn’t understand is that if they want to grow outside of their niche early adopter fanatic fanbase, they need to appeal to normies. And normies are revolting against AI. I don’t like it, but it has become required to compete in my industry. I am highly familiar with it, and I certainly don’t want it running my car!

I am planning to upgrade to an EV in the next year or two to replace our aging daily driver 15 year old Outback. Was seriously looking at the R2 or R3 for that. Rivian has been at the top of my list for a while now and I figured they would come to their senses as they go more mass market. They have not. I am officially striking them from consideration. Kia has pretty good EVs, they have some of the longest lasting batteries. We really like our Telluride, which I was hoping to upgrade to an R1S further down the line. Guess not, EV9 it is, hopefully by then they give it a facelift because I’m not a big fan of the front end. But Kia is also committed to CarPlay and CarPlay Ultra.

 

[Scoob Redux]

I'm so glad Rivian is standing firm on this. CarPlay results in a degraded experience versus native infotainment. CarPlay is laggy, glitchy, and often clashes with native operations. It's been hell trying to get CarPlay's tentacles out of my Porsche so I can just enjoy the built-in PCM (which is leaps and bounds better than CarPlay).

 

[quietstormSD]

I sort of agree with him. If your car’s default system is great you will think, “CarPlay what?”
Problem with just regular old car play it’s just a clunky app on top of the cars system. It needs to be fully i tegrated into all aspects of the cars system. That is why Apple was attempting to build a car of their own. Apple knows it.

CarPlay is a good stop gap for a crappy car infotainment system. It’s also good for “dumb cars”, but with cars moving into 2030 you want it to be intrpegrated into the whole car.

 

[sartorius]

People who say CarPlay is a must have, are using cars from legacy auto with ****** software, where CarPlay/Android Auto is an actual improvement.

I know, I was one of them.

But for cars with decent software, it feels super clunky and alien.

 

[AgentOSX]

Rivian will not exist in 5-7 years, and CarPlay will.

 

[Anilu7]

When I first bought a Toyota in 2017 it had no CarPlay. When it was totalled in an accident I went to upgrade the model so asked about CarPlay. The rep said that it didn’t have CarPlay but her BlackBerry connected very well. Well I’d switched to iPhone from BlackBerry and I wanted CarPlay. My vehicle finally had it in 2019. I won’t buy a GM, Tesla or any car without it now. Still with Toyota and it works flawlessly.

 

[StevesBobs]

Used to think I really wanted carplay but I like tesla's integrations much more after getting used to them.

Besides, with Apple currently adding ads into maps, I think they're slowly devaluing the ecosystem anyways. I hope they don't keep going in this direction. I don't need more transparency, ads or emojis.

 

[Anilu7]

I'm looking at getting a used EV within the next 6 to 12 months. I very much like the look of the Chevy Blazer EV. I will absolutely never consider actually purchasing it because it does not support CarPlay. Looks like Rivian will be added to the disallow list, though they weren't in my price range anyways.

There is too many specialized apps on my phone that will never be implemented on vehicle OEM system. CarPlay is a hard requirement.

Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai/Kia/Genesis, Mazda all support CarPlay. There could be more. Check those out.

 

[haruhiko]

CarPlay is great as a bandaid to inferior infotainment systems. But it also gives legacy automakers an excuse not to improve their systems at all. That’s why bad UI/UX is still prevalent in the industry. I like CarPlay but it shouldn’t be the first priority. The poor infotainment system would’ve been eliminated by the market (“I wouldn’t have bought the car if there is no CarPlay”).

 

[Thehangmn]

I'm not going to lie, I have a Rivian and I don't feel like CarPlay would add anything. I have also driven a number of rental cars recently and found CarPlay super frustrating at times.
now I also have a toyota, and for the traditional car companies like Toyota, ford, honda, GM etc... I think CarPlay/android auto is a big step up. but for Rivian and Tesla, as long as they support Apple music I have no complaints. their software and design is very good and CarPlay doesn't give me anything that valuable.

 

[Thehangmn]

Already, Rivian owners are increasingly less interested in CarPlay, according to Bensaid. He said that Rivian's internal statistics showed that more than 70% of customers wanted CarPlay when their vehicles first launched around five years ago, but he said a recent survey showed that figure is apparently less than 25% now.

This is exactly what happened for me. I really thought I wanted CarPlay when I got the Rivian... and now I don't care, because the Rivian software is so good that I wouldn't use CarPlay even if the car had the option. CarPlay is a solution to the problem of traditional car OEMs being terrible at UI and software. Rivian doesn't have that problem.

 

[Analog Kid]

He said that Rivian's internal statistics showed that more than 70% of customers wanted CarPlay when their vehicles first launched around five years ago, but he said a recent survey showed that figure is apparently less than 25% now.

Because Apple users are no longer customers. 5 years ago 70% of users wanted something fairly straightforward that you refused to provide. How have sales been?

 

[krewger]

Haha. Don’t worry - all the screens will go black soon enough in a Rivian due to hardware failures.

 

[xDKP]

I’ve just had a rental while travelling for two weeks with Apple CarPlay. Great solution for travelling and changing car. In my everyday driving a Tesla I really don’t miss it at all. On the contrary the Google Maps experience in CarPlay was way worse than my in car navigation in the Tesla.

For the many car makers producing crappy software it’s great though

 

[Arek2217]

If someone would take a statistical approach in my driving, I'm sure they'd see I use CarPlay maybe on 1/10 drives I take, maybe even less. It doesn't mean I rely on built in system. It means I commute daily and don't need to use any digital system for the drive and Bluetooth audio is most likely enough. But when I travel anywhere other than my usuals you'd see I solely rely on CarPlay and would never even consider using the ********* satnav Mercedes has to offer.

 

[Thehangmn]

So this agent AI model is supposed to know exactly what podcast I’m listening to the moment I enter the car?

And how is it supposed to know what I want to play next when even I can’t remember the song title myself without looking through my recently added songs?

Stop trying to turn cars into smartphones and focus on making a good car. No automaker has pulled this off successfully and by the time your AI catches up, smartphones will already be years ahead again.

these are easy. 1. your rivian will know what podcast you're listening to because you sync your phone to it and when you enter the car your phone continues playing the podcast through your Rivian speakers. worst case scenario it will be set to apple music or spotify (if you're one of those guys) and you will have to tap the screen to change it to Bluetooth connection.

2. your recently added songs on spotify or apple music will be on the rivian already. so.... you won't need your phone for any of that.

You could even use the Rivian AI agent... just say "hey Rivian, I just added a song to my apple music library, but can't remember the name can you play the most recently added song?" and I bet it would work. I'll try it tomorrow.

 

[Thehangmn]

This!


Also a question for people, who use the navigation in the car, not CarPlay. How do you plan for trips? Personally I set up favourites in Apple Maps on a computer and then just click the stuff when in the car. How does that work in a Tesla, do you have to manually reenter everything?

No it's way cooler than that. You can put all the places you want to go into the trip planner on the rivian app, and then it will plan your trip for you and automatically add charging stops in (and you can configure which charging networks you are prefer) you can even set the departure time, and set your preferred battery level upon arrival! Once you're happy with it you can name it, and save it... or you tap a button and it sends its to your car. Its also easy to update on the fly. want to add a stop? its a single tap on the screen and you can search for what you want to add. want to remove a stop? thats easy too.
I honestly haven't used apple maps for anything since I got the Rivian.

I will say for the trip planning, at the moment it defaults to the most efficient route, so if you want to take a more scenic route, you would need to add stops that are along the scenic route... which isn't the most efficient way to route a trip, but I imagine that will get fixed at some point.

 

[Thehangmn]

It seems very strange to me that Rivian, who have never been on a firm financial footing, really want this to be a hill to die on. It’s so easily fixed and costs nothing and would only help sway people over.

However, I do think the fact that Tesla does not offer CarPlay, makes worse vehicles, and somehow manages to have some of the best selling vehicles, does validate their argument.

Personally I use CarPlay only rarely, every few months only. And when I do, it’s because I need directions, and these cars have built in navigation anyway.

its not a hill they're dying on... their customers don't even care that they don't have it. Rivan and Tesla don't need it because they know how to do UI and Software. GM, Ford, Toyota, honda, hyundai, these are companies that have historically made garbage software for their cars. it's painful to drive them, so CarPlay is an upgrade. for Tesla, or Rivian its unnecessary and it honestly would make the experience worse. Rivian and Tesla design their UI for their car. Apple wants to force their UI onto the Car. would apple ever accept that on any of their hardware? I think you know the answer.

 

[OGdrknight]

CarPlay is the main reason we didn’t buy a Rivian and got a Hyundai Ioniq 5 XRT instead.

The reason it dropped in their survey is because owners got tired of waiting and bought a 3rd party module that supports CarPlay and Android Auto. My neighbor bought a EVplay ($425) module to make CarPlay work on his Rivian.

 

[HudsonSteele]

Maybe I’m wrong, but it sounds like he’s not comparing apples to apples (no pun intended). First they polled NEW users, then those same users. This doesn’t show the reasons why people AREN’T buying Rivian. The two things keeping me from a Rivian are price, and CarPlay. I have used Tesla’s system and hate it. I love my CarPlay. AND I like that the CarPlay data stays with my phone. And honestly, we all know the only reason for them to keep it proprietary, so they can collect data on you and use it to make money. If a car is going to have a proprietary system in it and make money off of my data, that car better be inexpensive!

 

[Lunarman25]

Rivian will eventually be fully part of the former nazi VW group

 

[bLackjackj]

Bla, bla, bla…yeh, nah Rivian. Bye.👋