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The car industry A/B tested selling a car with and without CarPlay
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- killingtime74 1mo agoSo like an option....
- ChoosesBarbecue 1mo agoIt would be better if we could see the other variables explicitly listed i.e. are they the same price (or same price for a comparable spec), what do the reviews for both vehicles look like, etc.
- eastbound 1mo agoAnd are the buyers told whether there is carplay. Because you generally assume a car can't not include it, until you step in and realize.
- bombcar 1mo agoWe need a control group where the only difference is the Honda badge. I know a number of people who’d buy a Honda without a second thought but wouldn’t be caught dead in a Chevy.
- tyre 1mo agoI wouldn’t feel embarrassed by association in a Chevy, but I definitely don’t trust American manufacturers to be high value (quality/price) and reliable. They always seem ten years behind with uninspiring designs and horrible MPG.
- prmoustache 1mo agoCalling Chevrolet an American manufacturer is already a stretch if you consider that outside of the very specific US market/bubble/niche Chevrolet is mostly selling chinese made cars globally.
- bornfreddy 1mo agoWere the two cars priced the same? Is public image of both brands the same? I'm not sure this was a good A/B test.
- tristanj 1mo agoThis is an invalid comparison. There were enormous discounts on the Prologue, up to $20,000 off. https://electrek.co/2025/09/23/honda-offering-over-20000-off-prologue-right-now/ https://electrek.co/2025/09/23/honda-offering-over-20000-off...
- StilesCrisis 1mo agoThis is what I came to the comments for. The post didn't mention price a single time. It's not that expensive to retrofit CarPlay into any vehicle, and a 166% delta is hard to explain away with a single feature that can be retrofitted later.
- izacus 1mo ago79% of car buyers explicitly said they won't buy a car without carplay: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/22/apple-carplay-could-be-a-trojan-horse-into-the-automotive-industry.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/22/apple-carplay-could-be-a-tro... So the numbers check out and there's no need for you to find the blame elsewhere.
- judge2020 1mo agoDoesn't excuse the article from making such a comparison without mentioning price. Ask that 79% of car buyers if they would forego carplay for a $10-20k discount.
- drawnwren 1mo agoI would not buy a car without carplay, I would also not pay $20k to have carplay if that were my only option.
- izacus 1mo agoIt's not the consumers only option though.
- lotsofpulp 1mo ago
- hadlock 1mo agoThe japanese branded car outselling the domestic branded version in 2025 shouldn't surprise any millennial. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s getting shuttled around in a GM you almost certainly remember a piece of the interior coming off in your hand, or if you're an elder millennial, writing your name with your fingernail on the UV damaged interior of a late 70s/early 80s GM car that's only 3-5 years old. It's hard to shake that kind of shoddy build quality even decades later. Meanwhile my friends kids are turning 16 and inheriting the honda accord with 250,000 miles I remember getting shuttled to and from soccer practice when I was 12 in the 90s
- pyreko 1mo agoCame here to say this - this is a pretty meh comparison to me, there's too many other factors that are entirely ignored. Price and/or brand alone could easily explain most of not the entire difference. I'm sure there is some impact to not including it, tbh, but as is this article is a giant nothing burger to me.
- mrits 1mo agoI remember my Kia being a joke and held together by duct tape after 2 years while 25 years later one of the hottest brands.
- bdcravens 1mo agoI own an EV6 and I definitely feel like Kia/Hyundia, especially their EVs, is essentially a different company than the one putting out easily hotwired and unreliable cars from just a few years ago.
- CobaltFire 1mo agoAs a counterpoint: Telluride/Palisade causing fires because they cheaped out on the current/torque sensors in the drive motors for the seats. ICCU failures across their current EV platforms. No fix planned last I heard. It hurts me to point this out because I really, REALLY like where their cars are going. Their new van is EXACTLY what we want, and I'd love an Ioniq 5N. But those failures are critical and speak to a very deep engineering culture issue.
- paimapi 1mo agoI test drove a new Subaru Forester a little while ago. I currently drive the 2015 version where the most advanced feature is the visual crash prevention system that brakes for you and a bluetooth sync that barely works and yet I hated the new Subaru so much. I hated the fact that the entire console is now one giant touchscreen, requiring you to look away from the road in order to operate. I hated the huge bulky 'Starlink' hardware hidden in the roof. I hated the fact that the MPG was barely better even with ten years worth of supposed engineering advancement and the Forester was now wider and taller which sucks for being a city car the last 15 years of 'innovation' in cars was a total mistake. call me a luddite but I really don't want my car to be able to be tracked by any satellite at any time. so it's either used cars for me from now or something like the Slate truck with the barest dashboard config (or a kei truck once it's legal in my state)
- tshaddox 1mo agoThe Forester still has the awful infotainment system with the vertical screen, first introduced on the 2020 Outback. I actually like the vertical aspect ratio, and the screen is pretty bright and high resolution, but the underlying software is disastrous. It was slow and buggy and felt outdated when it was introduced 6 years ago! For what it’s worth, the new 2026 Outback has an excellent new infotainment system and tons of physical controls for car settings. But apparently everyone hates it for the external redesign (I think it looks fine). Hopefully that interior will roll out to the rest of the models too.
- fmajid 1mo agoThey are not going back to physical controls out of the goodness of their hearts. Physical controls are a requirement to get a European 5-star safety rating, and possibly in China as well.
- tshaddox 1mo agoI never suggested it was out of the goodness of their hearts. I suspect it’s because it’s what customers want.
- bradfitz 1mo agoI heard that the reason the major car companies started to sour on CarPlay was because Apple started to get increasingly needy with their data collection requirements (as of CarPlay Ultra) and the car companies weren't comfortable (or legally able) to give Apple that much canbus/telemetry data. And I guess Apple was pushing CarPlay Ultra as the only option without classic less-data-snoopy CarPlay?
- majormajor 1mo agoHeh, the version of this I heard from a Porsche tech was that the reason Porsche's supported Carplay (added in 2017 models) but NOT Android Auto for so long (added in 2022 models) was because Apple wasn't snoopy and Google was.
- izacus 1mo agoThat explanation doesn't pass a sniff test if you even try to Google anything about car manufacturer data collection practices.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1mo agoI find that hard to believe. My experience with Apple (as a developer), is that they are absolutely brutal about data collection, and being an Apple developer, means toeing a lot of lines, wrt privacy-related stuff. It seems that every time I submit an update or new app, it gets rejected, because Apple just tightened the bolts a bit further.
- advisedwang 1mo agoYou are assuming Apple is applying the same rigor to themselves as app developers. They are not.
- preg_match 1mo agoYes, it’s the same story on android. Apps are sandboxed and security is a top priority… unless you’re Google, then you get elevated privileges across the board, no permission dialogs, and sandbox escapes with no questions asked.
- captainregex 1mo agoIt’s a partial driver, perhaps even meaningful in some way, but this is hardly an A/B test. Suffice to say lack of CarPlay is costing them in some way but model refreshes, steep price discounts, and other economical considerations are going to win out. Sure, 79% of some sample of car buyers said they wouldn’t buy a car without carplay but putting carplay in an otherwise crappy car isn’t going to magically make people buy that instead. There’s a lot of reasons Chevy is struggling. Blowing their own foot off with this decision can’t have been good for business but it’s certainly been hilarious for the quotes their execs have had to say in public with straight faces so they don’t get whacked for not following the party line. At some point I’m sure there will be a reorg where the opposite will become true.
- tqi 1mo agoThat's... not what an ab test is.
- netsharc 1mo agoAs far as I can tell it's not AI slop, but I wish this author had asked one LLM if his example is A/B testing, because the AI would've told him no, and we wouldn't have to have read this garbage.
- 0xbadcafebee 1mo agoDon't say that too loudly.. People will think you're encouraging use of AI in researching and writing articles, which is apparently a mortal sin. Certain people here would rather read a nonsense post by a human than a logical post by an AI
- rootsudo 1mo agoExactly. Everyone doesn’t know statistics but, it is obvious when someone really doesn’t know.
- bdcravens 1mo agoThey are the same platform, but of course consumers don't buy platforms, they buy brands.
- techgnosis 1mo agoYeah this is no good. If one says Honda and one says Chevy, then it's not apples to apples. It doesn't matter if it's the same car, the vast majority of people don't know that. Comparing sales numbers is meaningless.
- adamtaylor_13 1mo agoAgreed. There is essentially nothing that could convince me to buy a Chevy over a Toyota or Honda. CarPlay be damned: I can install one after market. There is not a single vehicle produced by Ford, GMC, or Chevy that I'm interested in owning.
- matsemann 1mo agoI hate most cars' infotainment. I still absolutely don't want CarPlay or Android Auto to become the default. Should they become the arbiters of what I can and cannot do in my car? Should I be beholden them for features, or which apps they allow in their walled garden? Today I can vote with my money, choosing a car that fits me. If they all become the same, it's a monopoly.
- saagarjha 1mo agoJust don't use CarPlay then?
- matsemann 1mo agoWeird argument. "Just don't use <any big tech necessary to function in society>" doesn't really hold. You can choose now, but what when you must use one of those, because no one cares about the built in system anymore, so it's neglected or even just covering the basics?
- saagarjha 1mo agoI don't see how you are required to use CarPlay to function in society
- chews 1mo agoBoth CarPlay and Android Auto are second screens to your phone... they're just "Airplay" streaming a simpler interface.
- I_dream_of_Geni 1mo agoI hate to say this, but (for every person I've asked) this was a simple "no-brainer". There must have been internal 'political' reasons to avoid Apple. Maybe the managemant hated Tim Cook?? I dunno.
- bdcravens 1mo agoOr licensing costs.
- gruturo 1mo ago> Or licensing costs. Which don't exist. BMW famously tried to blame Apple for trying to charge buyers an annual fee for Carplay and Apple _publicly_ called their shit out. They confirmed they don't charge anything - neither one-off nor recurring. Manufacturers may incur certification costs, there's nothing after that. Just did a couple quick searches and nothing's changed since then AFAIK
- bdcravens 1mo agoAccording to their MFi page, there may be a royalty, as Apple says that information is covered by NDA. (including the authentication coprocessors required for CarPlay) "What is the royalty associated with MFi accessories? This information is only available under NDA. You will be able to review this information once your application for the MFi License has been approved." https://mfi.apple.com/faqs https://mfi.apple.com/faqs
- kalleboo 1mo agoGM wants to sell subscriptions and ads. E.g. they want you to pay for their OnStar subscription to use the Spotify app in their navigation system. They can't do that if you're just looking at CarPlay/Android Auto.
- dismalaf 1mo agoIs it a real A/B test? Honda's reputation is much better than Chevy's overall, regardless of infotainment system.
- theginger 1mo agoThere is very little rational about car buying or branding. In the eye of many consumers a car with 3 wheels and 1 with 4 from the same brand will have more in common than 2 identical cars with different badges.
- bdcravens 1mo agoEven though the Prologue is based on the Blazer platform, most people don't consider that, with the brand carrying more weight. Secondly, EV purchasers have different criteria, like range. After all, the best selling EV brand and model in America has never had CarPlay but has the trust of buyers (and would probably have more if the founder wasn't so polarizing).
- weemonger 1mo ago> if the founder wasn't so polarizing I wanted to nitpick on calling Elon Musk a founder, as Tesla was originally founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in July 2003. But as I did my research, I learnt, that he has now legally the status of a co-founder after a settlement. It is up to the reader to think about that. So to keep my nitpick, I can only say the quoted sentence is missing a "co-" prefix. :p
- another-account 1mo agoyeah he has done it with every purchase
- dostick 1mo agoThis is totally absurd because people don’t buy phone based on car integration they have. They buy car integration that works with their phone. And numbers reflect iPhone vs Android market share.
- VladVladikoff 1mo agoI would pick Honda over Chevy regardless of car play.
- rootsudo 1mo ago“ The car industry accidentally did something I've always wanted to see, which was to release basically the same car under two brands and models, with one major consumer-facing difference. ” They do this all the time.
- wojciii 1mo agoI would rather see a world wide standard for infotainment devices so that the car makers would deliver you a car with a specific hw interface and you could buy a device that would fit any car that supports the standard. This is why we have the EU. We could just decide to do this and everyone that wants to sell us cars would probably just implement this.
- jbeninger 1mo agoI'd be worried the standard wouldn't include my favourite carplay feature, where it plays the same song from my phone on startup no matter how I configure it.
- wojciii 1mo agoIf you decuple the vehicle features from infotainment you get infinite possibilities. You can get anything you want within the HW constraints of the car .. so you could probably get a device to do whatever you want and even multiple vendors supporting CarPlay.
- eagerpace 1mo agoThis is garbage. It’s literally not an A/B test. It’s a well known story that this vehicle sold wayyyy better under a Honda badge and it has nothing to do with CarPlay.
- havaloc 1mo agoSaying you're not going put in a very popular feature (CarPlay) that probably doesn't cost that much to put in is one of the biggest self owns I can think of, especially when saying "we're going to do a better job." Has any OEM done a decent job with navigation, ever, perhaps aside from Tesla. CarPlay is sort of like Apple Pay / Tap to Pay, even Home Depot, Kroger, and now Walmart capitulated. I hope there's fire to the smoke that Tesla will add Carplay, and I suspect if they do, Rivian won't be far behind.
- schmookeeg 1mo agoMy EQS has carplay and android auto, and I am a staunch google maps user. That said, I use the MBUX mapping most of the time. It does a good job -- and not just long drives where I need the EV charger logic -- day to day, it's plenty fine.
- sleight42 1mo agoNo. Tesla's system is not good. It's just fairly homogenous in style with the rest of the UX. Functionally? Extremely disappointing.
- jerlam 1mo agoTesla's system is well-integrated to the car and chargers, but its navigation is terrible. It seems to have marked a street near my home as impassible, so it takes an absurd roundabout route. This problem does not exist on Apple or Google Maps.
- preg_match 1mo agoConsumers are just easily impressed with car infotainment at this point. If the screen takes less than 1s to respond to input and doesn’t drop 30 frames on every animation, they consider it “good”.
- mlinhares 1mo agoI have a 2023 Yukon that i like very much but i'm not going to ever replace it by another Yukon without carplay. By the time its not drivable anymore the kids won't need strollers and I'll likely pick a smaller car with car play. They could have had me trading it in this or next year for the newer model (that does have some nicer things i'd like to have, like the larger infotainment screen) but the lack of carplay and the shitty native google maps and spotify products that come installed on it are are not acceptable for a car that sells for 90K USD. GM decided it had all the cards, looks like they don't.
- teshaq 1mo agoThis is not an A/B test, it’s confirmation bias at best
- bastard_op 1mo agoGM tried for years building their own infotainment system internally and never made one anyone liked until they just integrated android auto/car play finally. It was an admission of defeat in doing so, but made everyone happy. When they announced pulling this back, I laughed, thinking "trying to put the rabbit back in the bag, eh?" Would I buy a car without android auto as an android user? No, end of story. GM can die like other stupid heavy-handed vendors, but sadly they are too big to fail, and will drag down the nation with them.
- ryan_glass 1mo agoI would not buy a car with carplay. I don't want any tech in my car.
- CharlesW 1mo agoThe nice thing about phone projection (Android Auto, CarPlay) is that the tech remains in your phone, in contrast to Android Automotive OS.
- somehnguy 1mo agoThat not an option in modern vehicles. You can either have good tech or bad tech - not no tech.
- HDBaseT 1mo agoI'm yet to see a modern car with "good tech", the options tend to be: - Mediocre tech at best. - Awful tech at worse.
- preg_match 1mo agoThat’s where CarPlay comes in, the tech doesn’t matter. Your phone has good navigation right? Good messages, good music. So just use that. Then it doesn’t really matter how awful the car infotainment is. Even “good” infotainment (tesla) is inferior to CarPlay in many ways, because it’s not your phone. You don’t get your maps app with everything magically synced and working.
- HDBaseT 1mo agoI don't think Apple Carplay nor Android Audo are good technology either though. They both appear as an afterthought and are completely isolated from the car.
- tester756 1mo agoGoogle Maps being displayed on built-in screen is good thing.
- spjt 1mo agoIf I didn't know they were the same car I'd probably take Honda without carplay over a Chevrolet with it.
- TacticalCoder 1mo agoTFA just shows the author is addicted to his phone and nothing else. Many comments here are already explaining why the comparison is not valid. As a consumer in the market for cars (we've got four at home), I'm basically interested in how pleasant/agreeable the car is to drive and how secure it is. I give exactly jack fucking zero shit if it's got Android Auto or Apple Car Play or both or neither. I drive way, way, way more than most on this forum. For example I've been both to Stockholm and Ibiza by car [involving a part with the on a boat in both cases]). And I regularly do long distances (longest was 8am to 10pm non-stop except bio-break and gasoline). I'll cross Germany (I don't live in Germany) in one-go to go to Poland. Stuff like that. Also I spent months a year in a rural area, so car is the only option (closest village to find croissants and baguettes is a 10 minutes drive). And yet I don't care a yota about "phone connectivity" in my car. The rare cases where I really need my phone I can... just use my phone? Like what the heck is hard about that? BTW my main car run QNX for its infotainment/phone system and phonecalls and reading message over Bluetooth works just fine. And it wouldn't be working, it'd be totally fine too. TFA and people agreeing with it says more about people's incestuous relation with their phones than about what the "best option" (mentioned in TFA) is.
- st3fan 1mo agoWe found the Rockstar driver!
- jrmg 1mo agoA lot of skepticism here, but, anecdotally, we bought a Prologue without even test driving a Blazer. I knew they were essentially the same car and that maintenance-wise it probably made more sense to get the Blazer from a GM dealer - but it lacked CarPlay so we didn’t consider it. I can’t imagine we’re the only ones.
- cromka 1mo agoPardon my cynicism, but it's 2026 and people still blatantly confuse correlation with causation.
- running101 1mo agoI would tell the dealer to knock $2k off the price so I can install a car play unit. If I am paying 30-50k on a vehicle having it work with my phone shouldn’t be optional.
- metalman 1mo agoI loath my smart car, but my truck was amenable to bieng hardware hacked, so I modified a 1/4" headset harness and built a phone shelf where the head unit was, and used a power amp with just an impidence matching input gain and a mic and answer button, and could be modified to work with essentialy any amplifier and speakers ever made. Zero extra sofware, tunes, calls. Back to my car, which is an abomination of choices made by people with a level of certitude into human preferance that I did not know existed, or is that what happens when engineering descisions are made by mutual apreciation clubs? It does not matter, my faith in technology has been destroyed, and as someone who can, will be building cars to suit myself. Picking bodys for realy comfy interiors and then grafting in an awd electric power train. I would just buy something, but touch screens for basic standard functions is something I find revolting, If there is a menue, that means one of two things, I am working on a computer or someone is going to bring me something yummy.
- oliwarner 1mo agoMore like ABCD/EFGH testing. So many unaccounted variables, from brand through, marketing, deals and even physical dealerships. Everything else equal, I can believe having CarPlay adds value for some people. Things weren't equal so possibly not as much as the other variables in the room.
- sleight42 1mo agoDon't even get me started about how my 2018 Model 3 has a crappier entertainment system than far cheaper cars. God dammit. I. Want. CarPlay.
- tw04 1mo agoI won’t claim the A/B test is a good one, but I can say I canceled my blazer EV reservation when they announced it wouldn’t support carplay or android auto.
- Suppafly 1mo agoWhere's the data that shows that this is about carplay and not just because Honda has a better reputation or other reasons unrelated to carplay?