That is if you use it to replace the audio functionality, sure. If all your center console/stereo did before was a broken spotify interface, and now has lots of

That is if you use it to replace the audio functionality, sure. If all your center console/stereo did before was a broken spotify interface, and now has lots of functionality, then yes, carplay is much better. As i said, that would constitute really shitty integration for rivian, becuase that isn't what their center console was like. In rivians case you would now have a massive ton of center console functionality and driving display that worked and looked differently from the apps piece (2x differently if they did both carplay and android auto). If you wanted it to look and act right WRT to the rest of the car you would have to do the carplay ultra thing, and write ios apps for your other functionality so that it actually all felt the same. Do the same for android auto, too. Its the same with tesla. Can I just suggest you spend 5 minutes looking at one (you don't have to drive it) and then see if you think replacing 40% of the center console functionality with something that looks and acts very different than the rest of the car would really qualify as "good integration". None of what i referred to as the cost is the literal technical cost of displaying the video stream (Their UI is built in unreal and they have plenty of gpu power, so this part is trivial for sure), but instead, of building out the apps, functionality, and other pieces necessary to make the car software look and act coherently. The reason VW threw money at them, other than wanting a hedge against Tesla, is precisely because VW has shitty software that feels and acts like a mess (my wife's car is a VWAG car, but not a VW), and Rivian doesn't. In VW's case, i'm sure all the pieces are written by different suppliers, so i can forgive them a little bit, but still, it's a mess. It's ironic then to suggest that they didn't do their diligence because you think it's as easy as just displaying the video stream to make it good, when VW is paying rivian for precisely the opposite! It's also interesting to try to discuss this with folks who have strong opinions but don't appear to have ever used one. Overall, the best way i could put it is: Imagine you have an ipad, but you have to use a bunch of apps that are only available in android all the time. So 60% of your ipad screen is taken up by an android emulator that runs all the time. The other 40% of the screen is IOS. The two pieces know nothing about each other. Do you believe this would be a good experience? I don't. Would it suddenly be good if you could make the android emulator full screen? No, that wouldn't change a lot for me, though it would probably be better in the relative sense. It would be good when i didn't have to run the android emulator, and all of my apps felt like they aren't fighting each other or ignoring each other :)