Rivian Explains Why CarPlay Debate Will Become 'Completely Obsolete'

[skiguy45]

Only Apple gets to do that!

I'm not for anyone doing that ... just not sure exactly what service you're referring to form Apple.

 

[bluespark]

Is that really the case? I heard that Apple requires (regular) CarPlay to take over the full display. There have been exceptions in the early days of CarPlan (for example, my wife's Jeep has ugly Jeep "frame" around the CarPlay. It is an eyesore I am sure Apple design team is not too happy about.

Yes, it's true. CarPlay need not take over the entire display, and multiple manufacturers add their own interface elements around it, with varying results. Here is a recent example from BMW.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

every vehicle is still going to be different, you still have to figure out where the windshield wipers are, or how to turn on the hazard lights, Car play doesn't solve that problem.

That is quite a stretch.

Activating wipers works pretty much the same in every car - you have two handles and that’s it. It’s almost always the right one. Also there’s a high probability that you would not have to use them most days.

Hazard lights? If I have to use them twice a year that’s a lot.

On the other hand, placing hands free calls, searching for music, or finding directions is something I do every day.

Personally, when I rent cars, hardware differences don’t annoy me nearly as much as having to adapt to a different interface if the car doesn’t support CarPlay (although most do nowadays).

BBC sounds is a podcast app? you won't have the app on screen, but rivian can control the app via the steering wheel controls. you can use buttons for play/pause, skip/rewind 10 seconds etc.. arguably easier than using a screen.
I get that it's nice to use an app, but Rivian is based on Android, so once their user base is large enough, I imagine there is a good case to have BBC port it over. CarPlay isn't free. manufacturers have to spend money and time on the implementation and pay apple to certify it and many users don't care. as you saw in the article, users that thought they wanted it when they bought a rivian don't anymore.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

Or they just resigned themselves to the situation and were , well, I suppose I can live without it.

Rivian is a niche brand with small sales. I assume most people who buy them are already willing to forego CarPlay / don’t care about it.

And those who want CarPlay won’t buy a Rivian.

So they will remain a niche brand until they are bought by someone larger, go under, or figure out a way to grow.

For comparison:

Rivian had a successful 2025 with just over 42,000 vehicle sales.

Tesla in the same year sold over 1,636,000 vehicles.

Mitsubishi, that barely has a presence on the American market, sold just under 95,000 vehicles in the US.

 

[visualseed]

Even if the answer is "AI' the phone lets you choose which AI and use it with your data instead of whatever isloated thing Rivian wants to ship and update.

 

[SimonBelgium]

Why the Rivian stance is so stupid, is that they just ask their own customers. Not the millions of POTENTIAL customers that are not buying certain cars because of missing features.

 

[jimmy_john]

Why the Rivian stance is so stupid, is that they just ask their own customers. Not the millions of POTENTIAL customers that are not buying certain cars because of missing features.

Another way to think of it is that they surveyed people who have actually used their native software, whom previously thought they needed CarPlay.

There were probably a lot of people who refused to buy a Model T because they we’re certain they needed a horse.

To be fair, evaluating a product or platform based on a willingness to try it rather than reactionary tribalism does require a little bit of courage and an open mind. Things that are in short supply these days.

 

[teh_hunterer]

To be fair, evaluating a product or platform based on a willingness to try it rather than reactionary tribalism does require a little bit of courage and an open mind. Things that are in short supply these days.

It's ok, we get that you've got some sort of financial, ideological, or familial interest in Abdul Latif Jameel 🤣.

An open mind, instead of reactionary tribalism, indeed in short supply these days!

 

[AlanBeyond]

Tesla owner here. I'm very disappointed with Tesla's not supporting CarPlay. There are rumors about a future update, but I have already decided that I won't buy another Tesla if it's still without CarPlay.

 

[jimmy_john]

It's ok, we get that you've got some sort of financial, ideological, or familial interest in Abdul Latif Jameel 🤣.

I had no idea who that was but it sure is interesting you had it top of mind.

 

[Nekronos]

I have curated favourites in Google Maps from 15 years ago. Places I visited and liked all there. I can easily forward an AirBnb address to phone nav and it'll navigate to destination. This the point of using the phone navigation on road trips and not having to copy all of relevant info into car's navigation.

This the reason that I'm in the "Carplay or I'm not buying that car" camp.

You don't have to copy anything, I can send points of interest to my car very easily, which I would only do on a longer road trip, aside from that native voice assistant can do it even faster. For me, the strongest points of carplay are so seldom used or thought of its trivial.

I'll take a good built in system like BMW, Tesla, Rivian over carplay anyday because the integration is much more seamless, it looks better and for EVs specifically its optimal - partly why the major EV manufacturers have robost native systems.

 

[537635]

You don't have to copy anything, I can send points of interest to my car very easily, which I would only do on a longer road trip, aside from that native voice assistant can do it even faster. For me, the strongest points of carplay are so seldom used or thought of its trivial.

I'll take a good built in system like BMW, Tesla, Rivian over carplay anyday because the integration is much more seamless, it looks better and for EVs specifically its optimal - partly why the major EV manufacturers have robost native systems.

How does this work anyway? From "share" screen you forward them to car app? For example, you need to navigate to some AirBnb address, which is in your email. How do you send this to the car nav?

 

[SnowCrocodile]

Another way to think of it is that they surveyed people who have actually used their native software, whom previously thought they needed CarPlay.

There were probably a lot of people who refused to buy a Model T because they we’re certain they needed a horse.

To be fair, evaluating a product or platform based on a willingness to try it rather than reactionary tribalism does require a little bit of courage and an open mind. Things that are in short supply these days.

This would be a valid point if Rivian sales were comparable with other automakers.

But, Rivian has a tiny footprint in the market. Even in the EV market. They accounted for about 3% of EV sales in the US in 2025.

This means that 97% of potential EV buyers dismissed Rivian. We don’t know how many of them considered the lack of CarPlay, but it well may be a far larger number than the people who actually bought the brand.

The 3% of buyers who deliberately chose their brand over much bigger competitors clearly didn’t care enough about CarPlay, but using them as a benchmark in these circumstances is silly since the people who picked Rivian over other EV manufacturers are such a minority.

 

[rainwadj]

The survey actually asked questions to current owners about whether they should spend time and resources implementing it.

That would help, I guess. But if the company is speaking out against it, it seems like that would deter some people from responding ("why bother?").

 

[visualseed]

How does this work anyway? From "share" screen you forward them to car app? For example, you need to navigate to some AirBnb address, which is in your email. How do you send this to the car nav?

The problem with the “It’s easy to share with the car” answer is that there’s just enough friction that it rarely happens. I keep everything on my phone... links, addresses, messages, contacts, podcasts, music playlists, etc... When I had my Tesla, before they started offering even limited support for Apple Music, it felt isolating. Resuming a podcast I’d been listening to at the gym was a hassle. If someone sent me an address, it was easier to just open Google or Apple Maps on my phone and use that. Music never fully got set up, and only a handful of locations outside home ever made it onto the car's map, usually for long trips to find chargers. It was the modern equivalent of leaving the VCR blinking 12:00 because we didn’t have time to fiddle with it.

 

[jole]

Good luck starting your own music service and map service. Woof.

Rivian already has Google maps, Apple Music, Audible, and Spotify built-in.

Problem is that (1) none of them functions as well as CarPlay version of the same, (2) there in an endless number of services they do not have built-in.

 

[jole]

The point is that the vast majority of Rivian owners entered the brand thinking they wanted CarPlay, but after using the native system for awhile, no longer care about it.

You have statistics on that?

I hesitated buying Rivian for years due to lack of CarPlay. Now that I do have R1S, I love the car, BUT I still would love to have CarPlay that complements the Rivian's system to allow doing things that Rivian does not allow me to do.

 

[1rottenapple]

One of the biggest pros of CarPlay is that you have the same setup, same voice commands, same exact experience in every vehicle. You carry your vehicle interface with you. It doesn't change when you drive your other family car, rental car, dealership loaner, etc.

No the big pro of carplay for those that own thousands of songs, is to control your music without looking down on your phone and geting ticket and forgoing an apple music or spotify subscription or ad based music.

Ive had spotify before free 3 month trial and I am basically listening to music I already own. There's really no benefit for us who had libraries of CDs we pulled MP3 from. Put that $10/month and buy stocks of something.

So those who claim superiority of tesla and rivian walling off carplay. Sure your right its a nice interface trust me I have a tesla but I don't want to give corporations another $10 or 15 per month that I don't need to. Not thank you! And tesla requires $10 premium connectivity fee ontop of the apple music or spotify of tidal or whatever. If the $25 doesn't bother you its fine its your money.

 

[jz0309]

Another way to think of it is that they surveyed people who have actually used their native software, whom previously thought they needed CarPlay.

There were probably a lot of people who refused to buy a Model T because they we’re certain they needed a horse.

To be fair, evaluating a product or platform based on a willingness to try it rather than reactionary tribalism does require a little bit of courage and an open mind. Things that are in short supply these days.

you know, if Rivian would offer a 14 day return no questions asked for their vehicles, like Apple for their products, then maybe people would have more of an open mind and courage ...

 

[1rottenapple]

you know, if Rivian would offer a 14 day return no questions asked for their vehicles, like Apple for their products, then maybe people would have more of an open mind and courage ...

courage really? lol to courage to spend money and making a corporation profit

I know a lady who was outed as gay when she was 16 in a small town and ended up writing to a the news paper to call people out for their bigotry. And this was in the 70s mind you. That's courage. Buying a damn truck or car... Not sure I'd use courage. I'd use the term fiscally flexible.

 

[jz0309]

courage really? lol to courage to spend money and making a corporation profit

I know a lady who was outed as gay when she was 16 in a small town and ended up writing to a the news paper to call people out for their bigotry. And this was in the 70s mind you. That's courage. Buying a damn truck or car... Not sure I'd use courage. I'd use the term fiscally flexible.

the poster I responded to used the term "courage"

Another way to think of it is that they surveyed people who have actually used their native software, whom previously thought they needed CarPlay.

There were probably a lot of people who refused to buy a Model T because they we’re certain they needed a horse.

To be fair, evaluating a product or platform based on a willingness to try it rather than reactionary tribalism does require a little bit of courage and an open mind. Things that are in short supply these days.

 

[Nekronos]

How does this work anyway? From "share" screen you forward them to car app? For example, you need to navigate to some AirBnb address, which is in your email. How do you send this to the car nav?

You can click on an address in an email or elsewhere, no different than if you hit share to send it in messages or any other app, I select the BMW app and get a pop up option to send to my car without even opening the app. There are multiple ways to do this and other vehicles may vary.

 

[Nekronos]

Rivian already has Google maps, Apple Music, Audible, and Spotify built-in.

Problem is that (1) none of them functions as well as CarPlay version of the same, (2) there in an endless number of services they do not have built-in.

Some find Rivian's and Tesla's native apple music app superior to the carplay version.

And how many apps do you really need accessible via your vehicle's screen? There are still alternatives that work just fine if you find yourself aghast without them but I think people have issues if you can't survive in a vehicle without a few "precious" apps on your vehicle's screen that you absolutely survived without just fine a decade ago.

You pick and choose what's important, people obsess over carplay way too much, we all got on just fine before carplay existed, it's convenient for a few things but largely overrated. It reminds me of when apps started becoming popular, everyone had to start making an app, even if the app experience isn't any better than the website people had been using (some apps still to this day are worse than just using a web browser).

 

[norbinhouston]

We got along fine before the iPhone too. I'm not giving up my iPhone.

 

[Thehangmn]

Rivian is a niche brand with small sales. I assume most people who buy them are already willing to forego CarPlay / don’t care about it.

And those who want CarPlay won’t buy a Rivian.

So they will remain a niche brand until they are bought by someone larger, go under, or figure out a way to grow.

For comparison:

Rivian had a successful 2025 with just over 42,000 vehicle sales.

Tesla in the same year sold over 1,636,000 vehicles.

Mitsubishi, that barely has a presence on the American market, sold just under 95,000 vehicles in the US.

Rivian is a niche brand just like Tesla was in 2016. But R2 is going to be huge. Just like model y was for Tesla. The difference is that Tesla stopped trying after the model y. They don’t have a roadmap for any new models outside of the 2 seater cyber cab.
I loved CarPlay and when I bought my model 3 I initially missed it, but I bought it because the model 3 was a great car. I stopped caring about CarPlay and with the Rivian I don’t even think about car play anymore and wonder why anyone thinks this is news. People will buy Rivians because they are great cars and then forget about CarPlay when they realize that it's superfluous.

Even if the answer is "AI' the phone lets you choose which AI and use it with your data instead of whatever isloated thing Rivian wants to ship and update.

you're thinking too small, give it a year or two and everyone will have their own MCP that will allow them to retain context across any AI agent. and the AI agents will be good enough that you won't know if you're using Claude or Gemini, or ChatGPT. The Rivian also has a brain that processes 1600 TOPs, while your latest iPhone has 35. so whatever your iPhone can do the rivian will be able to do faster.

You have statistics on that?

I hesitated buying Rivian for years due to lack of CarPlay. Now that I do have R1S, I love the car, BUT I still would love to have CarPlay that complements the Rivian's system to allow doing things that Rivian does not allow me to do.

Ok i misquoted the Rivian Data, it isn't that people that already bought the car don't care, it's that new buyers don't care. which is an even worse situation for CarPlay. Does car play have some neat features that i wish Rivian had? sure, maybe... but none of them would dramatically increase my satisfaction with the car or allow me to do something that I can't already do. So tell me why I need it?