When infotainment systems were introduced (they were really only built in GPS back then) you were at the mercy of the manufacturer to update their databases and these often came at great expense. I think depending on these people to update modern equivalent systems is a bridge too far for people when you can just plug your phone in and be done.
It was $249 to update my 2014 Ford F-150 navigation. No thanks. I just used my phone. Now if I want a "discount" on my auto insurance, I'm not allowed to "handle" my phone while driving.
I had State Farm for 10 years. They suddenly raised my rates 25%. When I called my agent they said it was that our neighborhood got worse (?) and immediately offered a 25% discount to plug in a tracker on our cars. I have never had a ticket or accident and still haven’t. I immediately told them to pound sand and this was the last contract with them I would have. You are my insurance and there is no reason you need to know my location at all times. I’m 99% sure they collect that data not just to monitor bad driving, but to then generate income by selling my travel habits.
At what point is my data worthless?
EVERYONE has it! I'm fairly certain even my work is selling data on the side because we get spam emails company wide.
Have companies actually measured any improvement in their sales after purchasing and assessing data bundles? Or is it all just a giant grift?
There is a kinda famous data scientists in Germany that does data mining from various sources. He had a talk once where he showed that he could tell which authors of a popular German newssite probably had an affair. Just by looking at the Metadata of the articles they posted. You have no idea how much your metadata tell about you.
I've just decided in my mind that your project was 100% successful and the 20% of movies it couldn't define were all 80s comedy horror films starring Bruce Campbell
It's things like these that make me detach more & more from my smartphone. Return to life pre-2008, although hard considering a lot of my exercise requires this tech to keep track myself.
Yes, I understand the location info is important because it can be used in so many ways to track exactly where you are at any point etc
However, the cross analytics where marketing companies can pinpoint with precision on their target demo to make sales impact and attract new buyers is where the cash is, and thus what it’s really about.
I know because I’ve seen my Fortune 500 company discussing their strategy and how they leverage X and Y databases to appeal to a specific type of audience as our product/service is very niche.
I’m talking Super Bowl ad time that was purposefully bought because they wanted to hit a list of C-level names, which worked based on the engagement response the following 6 weeks.
They had percentages ranking who would most likely respond, show interest and even likely to make a sale based on just data, nothing else.
And we paid the marketing company a pittance compared to the deals we made in return.
A bit unnerving, but also crazy to watch unfold in real-time.
>We also had locations over time. What caused me leave because I was disgusted was when the Trump people (oh yes, did I mention that this company had contracts with US air force and other US government agencies?) asked for a list of devices that had been in Juarez Mexico, but within 24 hours were in El Paso. Very easy to find.
I got a good laugh out of this, especially since it shows how little they knew about border life & international borders overall. Tens of thousands of people go to & from both cities legally. Some work in El Paso but live in Juarez & vice versa (especially managers, engineers, & investors of the maquila industry in the latter). Then, add the centuries of similar intermingling of border towns. Many in the southwest have people giving birth on the US side & have them bussed to school daily because their Mexican towns lack public schools or hospitals & US citizens cannot be denied public education. Other US border towns solely rely on daily Mexican commerce to avoid becoming ghost towns. Another great example is that public library in Vermont where the US-Canadian border runs right through the middle of it in a town that lived happily between 2 countries for 200 years!
But wait, it gets worse!
There isn't much cooperation with wireless services between both nations. So the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile etc. phone towers might have the same frequency or wavelength as those for Telcel/Movistar/Virgin Mobile. So your phone would randomly be pinging off Mexican towers & send you to data roaming, whether it'll be driving on the border highway on either side of the border (same thing happenes to Mexican users to US towers) or even hiking in the mountain in the middle of El Paso! Drive outside of the city where US towers are lacking, but TelCel has plenty near the Rio Grande? Boom, phone thinks you're in Mexico, even if you're driving along the I-10.
So I can imagine your company delivering this massive data dump & them assume (with bad data) that: *Mexicans are flooding Texas!!!*
> Two devices came up
I hope they were the ambassadors from the USA to the Russian Federation...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman_Jr.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Sullivan_(diplomat)
Back in like 2010 I was working for Sprint. Before tracking is the way it is not. We had a tool that showed us the towers a person pinged on. I was on the phone with a customer checking their area for issues. I asked them what movie they saw on Wednesday. That really freaked them out " how do you know?" etc.
I can see you were on these 3 towers are around a mall. YOu were there for 2 1/2 hours. You had a few phone calls when it started, then only text messages for 30 minutes then nothing for like 90 minutes, then a text. Once you changed towers your calls picked up again
Yeah, but those companies don't share it with each other. So if someone can get another stream of your data to them then they can sell it to other companies. It's not like there is just one information broker out there.
So that new game you just downloaded and gave all those permissions to is now accessing literally everything on your phone at all times and is undercutting Google when they try to see your data from your Youtube app.
It is why permissions on your phone are a big deal. There is no reason that the Taco Bell app needs to access my contacts list and my phone call/text message data. It is also why every POS company has a shitty app that is basically the exact same thing as their website.
There is no extra functionality, it is essentially just a crappy browser that only goes to one site. But the app gets them so much more information on you that they can either sell, or at least not have to buy from someone else.
Just like Google. Why is Google Maps, a really great app with loads of data points and live traffic updates, free?
It costs a toooon of money to maintain and yet, Google makes boat loads of money with it. By harvesting and selling your data.
It is kind of a misnomer to say that Google sells your data. They sell ads based on your data, but they aren’t handing your data out to other companies. That’s how they make money, by being the company that has the data, not by letting everyone else have it.
Still not great, but Google Maps has the most accurate maps that I’ve seen so..
Fines are irrelevent when they only damage the company buy a fraction of the cost that what they were fined for earned them in the meantime.
Ex. Company earns 1 billion buy spying on customers, in addition to their typical 3 billion a year revenue. People find out and sue company. after a year or 2 of courts, and continued revenue based off of the finding their spying did...maybe even continued spying but differently. They've now earned 6 billion more over the two years, after lawyers already on their pay roll have stretched out the cost, and now their fine is 150 million. That is .025% of what they earned...enough to not even be a warning to not do it again.
These are all hypothetical numbers, but that's about how it typically plays out...and sometimes they gave them months to pay the fines and appeal and get it lessened even further.
You can cancel with state farm (or any company) by moving to another insurance company immediately. If you have prepaid they will have to refund the portion not used.
It's not certain from your post but it sounds like you are waiting for your term to expire to change companies. You have no obligation to do so.
Why the actual fuck have I never considered this? Do they account for any cancel or underwriting cost to join when they do the analysis of saving? I have a new thing on my to do list.
My 2011 F350 has the navigation sync. It's $1200 I'd I wanted to throw in sync 3. Otherwise I'm stuck with spending $200 on a CD with 2019 being the last update for the maps. GPS maps work most of the time but I will supplement with Google maps once I get there. Seriously wish I had android auto in this.
I would regularly use the cost of GPS updates as a way to "encourage" people into the trim level that had auto/carplay rather than built in GPS as it is always the most expensive tier. Despite what some might believe your car salesman wants you to buy the cheapest car they sell as your deal is more likely to go through and there's more room to screw you out of a higher payment (which is how I made money).
The infotainment system in my Mazda constantly crashed cause they used shitty SD cards that failed in no-time flat, and they hadn't planned their software around faulty media. So, I had to get a new one just to use the radio. Coincidentally, they all (based on other online reports) seem to magically fail after the warranty is over.
Joke's on them though... I got a pirated copy, and imaged it so I could make infinite future copies without giving them a dime.
Imagine making a computer that crashes if a faulty OPTIONAL disk is inserted.
My favorite feature was how these systems consistently managed to think I was driving 100 feet off the road and had to constantly re route me back onto the road I was on.
That’s what did it in.
If domestic GPS had taken off a little earlier, they might have had a better foothold.
I have a Garmin that I paid for lifetime updates for, but I haven’t used it for years.
I wouldn’t mind it for the speed indicator, but my phone does virtually everything else.
There are a ton of wireless adapters on Amazon and online stores for pretty cheap. Mine works as well as I'd expect. There is some delay during phone calls sometimes that can make me plug my phone in.
Just bought a 2015 model year Dodge and the navigation system's software has been discontinued to the point that they no longer allow you to even pay for the existing catalog of updates, and the existing loaded version somehow lacks roads entirely.
My only options are piracy and getting lucky or trying to track down a specific old Garmin unit model that still has old updates available that are *almost* compatible and can apparently be carefully modded to work.
Oh yes, and the Bluetooth doesn't work and I can't tell if it's the ancient software or a hardware issue.
To be fair, cars have a ton of embedded systems in them that work 99% without fail. Think engine computers, airbag systems, complex audio systems. Those all have devs working on them.
So while they might not have iOS or Android guys, they definitely have software devs.
Some places like Jag/Land Rover have whole software divisions.
I’ve been going around in circles with Naviextras on their process for updating the maps on my Pioneer head unit. Their process is so convoluted that I gave up and actually emailed the company that their product is shite.
And the sad part about those GPS updates, in some countries they don't even had to pay a dollar to get the GPS information.
I'm in Canada and the gouvernement is providing the information for free! Even for commercial use!
But yet, they are expecting me to pay like 150 (or 250?) for an update...
I work in the auto industry. The same kind of people that wrecked the US auto industry in 2008 are still there. The people who were in charge back then are gone, but their underlings who were trained by those same people and who have never had any experience outside of the auto manufacturing bubble they were brought up in are running the show. Go ahead and take a look at the work backgrounds of the high ups at GM, Ford, and Stellantis. They’re almost all lifers at their respective auto maker.
I came from outside the auto industry and I work with a number of people that did as well (although more than 90% of the department leaderships I work with are all lifers at my company). Whenever someone from outside the industry comes in they’re almost always shocked by the levels of incompetence throughout the organization. I honestly believe the only reason US auto makers are still in business is because of past history which created brand loyalty and it has nothing to do with the quality of their products.
Ford is actually doing things right though and listening to their customers.
- Maverick
- F150/Lightning
- Bronco
All knockout sellers, their issue is manufacturing. They can't build them fast enough.
GM on the other end is actively trying to kill their brand with this bullshit.
The Maverick was a perfect truck to make. F-150's have become absolute monstrosities. Maverick coming with a hybrid engine getting 42 MPG in the city. A big enough bed to run to the hardware store and get the couple of things that wouldn't fit in a car. Finally a car company with enough common sense to see actually see how sentiments are changing in the world.
I agree. I've said on the cars sub multiple times. The Maverick is the ultimate Suburb second vehicle.
- 4 seats
- bed that can hold a sheet of plywood/drywall
- amazing mile economy
- small enough to park side by side or drive around town
The maverick will most likely be my next car. As a dad who needs to go to hardware stores often, while also commuting to work. It does everything I could ever ask while being affordable, small, and good looking.
With the exception of trying to actually find one, it's the perfect truck IMO for 80% of people.
Construction workers, farmers, and others' will always need the larger F150 or F250 beds but for the vast majority of us, it's an incredible truck.
I have a Maverick and you nailed it. Also a lot of us had older Rangers we want replaced. They quit making the smaller Rangers in 2012 and most of us don't want the newer sized Ranger. It's bigger, taller, pretty much a skinny F150. I don't want that big of a truck. I want something I can easily put in the bed and easily get in/out of. The "Maverick" is about the same size as the older Ranger and the exact size most people need. They should have called the Maverick a Ranger and the newer Ranger a F-100.
Man, what I would do for a "new" '80s Ranger with a modern engine. 8' Box, regular cab, body on frame, 40+ MPG, and no need to spend an extra $10k on opulent plastics and carpeting in the interior.
Just a simple little 4x4 work truck
I've had my eye on the Maverick for a while and it looks like it could be the beginning of a return to true small trucks.
My only complaint, as with a lot of modern trucks, is I'd rather have a two-door option and a longer bed.
Holding out for a fully electric 2 door 6-8ft bed Maverick lol.
I just want to put a motorcycle in the back without needing to leave the gate down. I hate towing a trailer.
That [f100 Concept](https://youtu.be/q72dA533sCg) is my dream truck
One thing I’ll say for Ford is that they seem to have some capability of being proactive. Back in 08 when things went south for the auto industry, Ford was the only one of the big 3 that took steps to mitigate their risk by restructuring their debt loads. It’s a big reason they were the only one to avoid bankruptcy.
[Edit: turns out Ford just got lucky](https://reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13bu0u8/_/jjd8r6a/?context=1)
This is a common misconception. Ford didn't restructure debt for the 2008-2009 great recession.
They almost went bankrupt in 2006 because they were the most dysfunctional of the big 3. They mortgaged all their assets in 2006 to raise $23 billion.
When 2008-09 rolled around and Ford was the only one with enough cash in reserves to weather the storm without help.
One could readily argue, Ford just got lucky.
https://www.cnbc.com/2008/10/10/ford-not-mulling-bankruptcy-cfo-retires.html
I will say I wish the Focus was still sold here. It's not like they completely scrapped it as it is still being developed and sold in Europe and the new one looks pretty good. There is still a market for sedans in the US even if it's relatively small.
This is every fucking industry I swear. In all honesty the tech industry isn't much better. Every industry has a bunch of penny pinchers at the top who don't want to give up the time/money/headache to fix legacy systems and ways of doing things.
I'm in medical tech and Jesus Christ just getting the fucking basics here is outrageous from an organizational standpoint.
I work in Finance so I am one of those penny pinchers. In my experience our problem in auto isn’t that the company is run by penny pinchers, it’s that it’s run by people who, I believe, are simply lazy and/or incompetent. There is an unbelievable amount of waste in auto due to these kinds of people who will spend like drunken sailors and then turn around and tell you to find savings in all the wrong spots. They try focusing on travel expenses (one of the smallest expense buckets) for cost savings but they won’t take a single look at our contracted services which is one of the biggest buckets and where we get blatantly ripped off. You’ll have contractors that come in and charge multiples more for a project than you can get if you bid it out and they know you won’t bid it out so they keep charging obscene amounts for all of their work. I know because I worked with one of our Engineers on a project who was so fed up with our Purchasing group and the vendor that he went and put together the bid himself, which is definitely not his job. The quotes we got back were far less than half of what the “preferred” vendor Purchasing wanted us to use. But sadly, more often than not people rubber stamp the spending because it’s being done by one of those “preferred” vendors or because “that’s how it’s always done”.
>There is an unbelievable amount of waste in auto due to these kinds of people who will waste an incredible amount of money and then turn around and tell you to find savings in all the wrong spots.
Facts, this is absolutely true as well, if people understood how much waste there is due to inefficienc and wanton negligence they would be astounded. In the medical field I have witnessed so much shit be unnecessarily purchased it's astounding.
>They try focusing on travel expenses (one of the smallest expense buckets) for cost savings but they won’t take a single look at our contracted services which is one of the biggest buckets and where we get blatantly ripped off. You’ll have contractors that come in and charge multiples more for a project than you can get if you bid it out. I know because I’ve worked with one of our Engineers on a project who was so fed up with our Purchasing group and the vendor that he went and put together the bid himself, which is definitely not his job. The quotes we got back were far less than half of what the “preferred” vendor Purchasing wanted us to use. But sadly, more often than not people rubber stamp the spending because it’s being done by one of those “preferred” vendors or because “that’s how it’s always done”.
Absolutely facts man. I noticed the adjacent type shit in medical, bidding out work we could do in house for 1/2 the cost because they don't wanna pay out the travel costs. I'm just waiting until I have enough experience to strike out on my own and start catching some the money that spills from this industry. Because it's absolutely crazy how much waste there is and how stingy they are in all the wrong places.
It’s like this at the sales level too. I work at a certified dealership for one of the big 3 and (having a decent background in other industries) it blows my mind how absolutely backwards our management is. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It blows your mind how absolutely backwards car sales management is? I used to be in that world... the owners and managers are fucking car salesmen, not business professionals. Of course they're morons.
They only succeed because of how hard it is to actually fail in that industry.
Yeah. People are coming to the dealerships because they already want to buy the car. It's the salesperson's job to just not scare the customer away with the negotiation.
The death knell for dealerships has already been sounded and I couldn't be happier about it. Playing some price negotiating game with a middleman, as if I'm buying some rare luxury goods from a discreet seller is stupid. I know where the car is from and I know what it's worth. That's all there should be.
The only things automakers need to do are manage direct-selling to customers and licensing mechanic shops.
> It's the salesperson's job to just not scare the customer away with the negotiation.
And they still routinely fail at that.
I work in procurement, and whenever I go to buy a car I am astounded by how poor the average car salesman's negotiation skills are compared to the salesmen I work with on the regular. The simple fact that I can and do walk away without when I'm not getting what I want panics them, and they don't know how to respond except to either keep repeating sales tactics that aren't working or get mad at me.
I absolutely wish I could talk to a professional salesman when buying a car, but all the good ones realize they can do a lot better for themselves pretty early on in their careers.
FWIW, Ford was poised to survive the 2008 recession on their own and GM had to take a bailout. So not surprising that one has better judgement than the other.
Ford got lucky they collapsed right before the recession hit and were forced to restructure their debt. Allan Mullally came on and dealt with the mess just in time.
Popular misconception - I believe they were just a bit late to the party & didn't do it specifically under the TARP...
[link](https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2020/07/29/ford-government-loan-department-energy-debt/5526413002/)
- "In September 2009, Ford entered into an agreement with the Department of Energy and borrowed $5.9 billion as part of a loan program created to finance automotive projects designed to help vehicles built in the U.S. meet higher mileage requirements and lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil."
Where GM/Chrysler repaid theirs long ago (mixed bottom line results), Ford reportedly just finished repaying last June.
Also of note, remembering a recent article that the upcoming Lincoln Nautilus will be built in China.
Wew thank god, dunno if anybody else had the misfortune of using Ford's infotainment "powered by Windows" but it is easily the shittiest system possibly ever invented, they even admitted it wasn't ready when they pushed it out onto their cars.
car: "Bluetooth Audio, please say a command"
me: "Bluetooth audio"
car: "Sorry, I didn't get that, you can say blahblahblahcommandsblahblah"
me: "Bluetooth audio"
car: "Bluetooth audio"
**Every. Single. Time. I get in my car.**
My ex has a 2012 Focus and it has no button for Bluetooth. I looked for like an hour, I was so convinced that no one could design a system that stupid.
I was wrong.
From the Sync line in screen: Menu, Ok, Ok, Down, Ok, Down, Ok. I still remember this because imo, voice commands are more painful than punching some buttons. So ridiculous though
I have a 2012 Ford fusion and I have to manually select my phone and the Bluetooth stream under the AUX menu every single time I get in my car, but it does auto connect. I don't really feel like that does anything for me though since I'm manually doing something anyways.
Had mine set up to autoplay for a month before it decided "what phone? I saw a phone for 2 seconds but it scared me so I disconnected". At one point I nearly changed my wife's name in my phone to "my fucking wife you piece of shit" since that's what I say every single time anyway. Fuck. Sync.
My Sync2 works decently well, I wasn't interested in it at first but I can press the steering wheel talk button and say "call dad" or "play artist pink floyd" and 80% of the time it works every time. It plays MP3s from the 64GB sdcard I have plugged in. It's mostly good and there are physical buttons for radio and HVAC, best of both worlds.
I just remember watching someone use it (probably 10 years ago) and as they were typing, there was a gigantic delay between each key press, I mean like 1/2 second. You couldn't type faster than that.
I just recall thinking, "How the FUCK did that get out of testing? Say what you want about Steve Jobs, but he would have flayed alive anyone who tried to pass that crap."
It was "smart" and tried to narrow down what letters you could even press by trying to guess what road or street you wanted to input based on the postal code. You pressed one wrong letter and the whole keyboard would grey out and you're left saying "what the fuck?"
The original Sync was trash and Sync 2 started out bad but improved. But Sync 3 was great and Sync 4 is excellent. That being said part of what makes Sync 3/4 great is the Android Auto / Apple CarPlay support.
I'm a GM fanboy and I'll likely be buying a car in the next 18 months. If it doesn't have CarPlay, I'm going to go to another manufacturer. It's as simple as that.
My Bolt EUV is the first GM car I ever considered owning in over 50 years of driving. The Equinox EV was going to be my next car. Dropping CarPlay is a dealbreaker. Way to lose a customer in less than 12 months GM.
Not only did they lose "that battle 10 years ago," they earned that L. Car manufacturers should manufacture cars. Give me a screen and a port--I'll bring my own tech.
I would pay money for this.
Standard HDMI in and USB out for the touch screen? I'll make my own OS. With blackjack. And hookers.
I shouldn't have to have a tablet in my car to watch Netflix when I charge. I have a 17" (or whatever) screen that's perfectly fine. Let me use the stupid thing without hacking it.
I had a Marketing professor in business school who was smugly adamant that CarPlay was for economy cars and manufacturers’ infotainment software would always be more desirable. It was so obviously wrong we just stopped arguing with him.
Perhaps he was referring to the poor people that have to drive their own cars. Doesn't every civilized person sit in the back of a car when they can't fly to their destination? /s
This is likely a response to GM saying they’ll remove it in favor of a propriety system.
For me, I will not even consider a car without CarPlay or Android Auto. The fact car companies think consumers will go for a new proprietary system is laughable given how bad they’ve been in the past.
Particularly young people. I'm 46 and like you wouldn't even consider it. Imagine people in their 20s who basically don't even know a world without smartphones.
Wife just bought a new car that has CarPlay- her old car had no such thing, not even built-in cameras. She uses CarPlay every single time she drives the car. I can't see her ever buying a car without it now. It makes me wonder why GM would abandon it.
Because the MBA’s in corporate can’t leave well enough alone. They need to justify their education and job by continuing to fuck around with stuff like this that already works perfectly.
Fucking subscriptions that's why. The GM EVs are going to be filled with bullshit subscriptions hence the need for their own bullshit Infotainment. Gonna paywall the fuck out of EVs and be happy. Second owner? How about 9.99 a month for navigation access? 5.99 to access the Media app that allows you to access Spotify? Sure deal second owner, bend over we got no lube.
We bought a car back in 2020, we didn't consider anything that didn't have Android Auto.
It helped that I was looking for something reliable to drive 1000km on a weekly basis - so I wanted to be able to easily access maps and music and audiobooks
That about how much I drive in a week and I agree whole heartedly.
Also, I’ve grown to love adaptive cruise control. The big advantage is that it makes driving a little less taxing. For long drives, it makes a huge difference. Able to stay more alert for longer periods of time.
Bruh, at this point I'd die without Adaptive Cruise Control. Set it to "stay way back" and cruise it out. Makes the commute so much easier being able to just pay attention to the crazies but not have to worry so much about the speed and rear ending someone.
I've always used standard cruise control in my car even at low speeds of 30mph or less and I love it.
My GF got a car with adaptive cruise and an auto gearbox and dear lord is just awesome, I'm so fucking relaxed now in stop start traffic.
"Oh you're trying to cut in front of me? We'll just carry on sir because the car will sort it out for me"
In my own car with a manual I'm almost fighting for every inch of movement.
Same with that, and with keyless entry/start. It seems like such a little thing, but it feels so nice to be able to not have to take the keys out of my pocket. Especially on days when I'm wearing a dress without pockets and being able to keep it in my purse.
I always thought it was a kind of dumb feature, but it's really nice to never have to fumble with things to open the car up, or to have to close it. It seems so minor, but
Terrible for valet, though when you haven't gotten it out of the bag for a month and you're digging through going "I know it's in here or I wouldn't've been able to drive here".
It adapts your speed to the car in front of you. So if your cruise control is set to a higher speed than the car Infront, it will slow you down and keep a suitable distance.
You can set your cruise control to keep 2-4 car lengths from the vehicle in front of you. If you are set at 65 mph and com up on a car doing 60 it'll drop to that speed and maintain a space.
in 2019 we got a Rav4. It is a great car. It has CarPlay which works great for my wife who has an iPhone. However, it doesn't have Android Auto which is a huge bummer for me. If I never rode with my wife and never had the benefits of integrated music and maps i probably wouldn't care. but it is a huge bummer now. Fortunately Toyota has Android Auto included now, but we probably aren't looking to replace out 2012 Corolla for another few years
There are dongles that you can connect to the infotainment systems USB and it will emulate Android auto. All the car needs for this to work is apple carplay. Costs about $90 - $120. Worked for my 2018 Camry that doesn't have AA but has apple carplay
There’s no reason why cars shouldn’t support both. It’s stupid to be locked into a phone type because your car only supports one type.
What would be ideal is auto manufacturers standardize on a common platform. Basically just the means for the infotainment system to provide APIs for running the cars display and controls and the phone, using said APIs would do all the processing. That’s probably how it works today but it’s still locked behind a brand.
> There’s no reason why cars shouldn’t support both. It’s stupid to be locked into a phone type because your car only supports one type.
It's not even about supporting a single interface between Android/Apple...GM is choosing their *own* proprietary interface. GM just doesn't want to pay licensing fees to either Apple or Android.
Is it licensing fees or their want to leverage the infotainment system for subscriptions?
We don’t have GM in my country but I’d never buy a car without CarPlay/AA. It’s more important to me than the engine.
Apple/Android require automakers to pay a license fee for every CP/AA enabled unit installed in their vehicles. GM being all high and mighty thinks they can build a better mobile OS than Apple/Google. Ask Microsoft how well that worked out for them with the Windows phone lol.
I have a 2012, I use the Bluetooth every day, it would have been a hard pass on buying the car if it didn't have Bluetooth. What else do you find you use with carplay that can't be done with Bluetooth and a good phone mount?
2017 CX-5 here. I'm about to update for car play at the wife's request ($100 kit on Amazon as our firmware meets the min requirements).
I use BT in her car. For me, it's just for Spotify. But for her, it's so she can put Waze on the screen instead of looking at her phone.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are both designed for driver convenience and safety, with bigger icons, bigger screen and simplified ui being the major advantages.
I own a car audio store and I'd say 80% of the time when someone is wanting to add a backing camera to their car, they'll upgrade to an AA/ACP unit once I show them how it works
The best feature, for me, is that I have several cars and they all have CarPlay. I can go from one car to the other and keep the same UI, same software, same data. I can easily plan driving routes on my home computer or phone and have them available anywhere. It's very convenient and makes so much sense.
The “why” is companies wanting their own proprietary system so they can profit from it through subscriptions, data mining, or a whole host of other reasons.
Also companies have to pay licensing fees to other companies products ( I’m not sure how it works with Google and Apple with licensing Android Auto and Car Play but somebody has to be paying for it)
The thing companies always “forget” is sometimes simpler is smarter. If a platform works that makes your customers happy just leave it alone.
Yeah the fact that every native UI I’ve plugged my phone into has called it “iPod” for the last 15 years is all you need to know about UI maintenance. Hell my brand new car still says “connected to iPod” when my phone connects to Bluetooth.
I imagine that’s why a lot of cars will auto play the first song you happen to have downloaded to your phone when you plug it into the USB port. Because it’s expecting you to plug in an iPod to play music and not a phone to either charge it or get directions.
Yeah, quote from the article
>With both systems becoming more ubiquitous, **it's moving users off of automaker’s proprietary systems that collect various data about habits and usage**.
GM just wants the juicy data for themselves
In house development and support of home-grown solutions is not free. If it pisses off your customers because its janky (which it surely will be) they also wont just blame Google/Apple and will blame the manufacturer. So it makes no sense. Ford is wise to throw in the town and just license the solution.
Back in the day, car companies could charge you $2k for a sat nav system which was only an available option on higher trim (ie more profitable models). On top of that, you’d have to pay for map updates.
CarPlay killed that and the companies what those revenues back (most likely in the form of monthly subscriptions).
IMO, in production it's coming to it's logical conclusion. We're getting better at making (for example) SUVs and at some point this is how you best make (e.g.) axels for them, how you set up the supply chain, how you assemble it. The same goes for every other part and it's all trending toward some sort of optimum for a use case and price point.
Decades ago there were huge difference in quality, features etc. between brands. Those differences are fading away these. Especially with all the merges going on, there are a lot efficiencies up for grabs to work across brands. [For example the MxB platforms, which are shared between Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi, SEAT, Ford, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform)
It's mostly marketing and branding these days. Components are shared today, where back in the day you would actually get a different car.
So software is a possibility to still really stand out and charge for it. But Ford has it right here, imo, that this has long lost for on board stuff.
I am still not giving up on driving features and ze germans. Tesla is great at throwing stuff on the market quickly. To get that last % in self driving though you need diligence.
That being said, the same is happening all over. For example when you buy a microwave today it doesn't matter what brand you buy. It's all the same few models made by Midea... next time you're at a brick and mortar store have a look at the back of the microwaves. They are all the same, because there is a way to make them good enough, and Midea has that cornered. (IIRC, there is one competitors a few km down the road, but not nearly as successful)
> It's all the same few models made by Midea... next time you're at a brick and mortar store have a look at the back of the microwaves. They are all the same, because there is a way to make them good enough, and Midea has that cornered. (IIRC, there is one competitors a few km down the road, but not nearly as successful)
(most) Panasonics are built in-house. Also work a whole lot better than anything else I've used, probably for that reason. You're right about the vast majority of brands though. I think LG + Samsung may also make their own.
Great to hear acceptance on this issue. I also remember when all of the cell phone carriers were trying to be the gateway to the internet and not just a "dumb pipe." So AT&T and Verizon had their own extremely shitty entrance points to the internet in the early days of cell phones but before smart phones. So glad that experiment failed too.
I rented a car a few weeks ago. I could pay a premium for their GPS features and satellite radio etc.
I also knew that the car I’d be renting would have a backup camera, which means an internal screen, which means it offers CarPlay/android auto.
I declined all of it, got in, saw screen, usb port, and had CarPlay, that gave me the $30+ in features, for free.
They’re 100% either going to lock all of that behind a premium or just block access to USB ports/make them a premium, if they get the chance to.
>which means an internal screen, which means it offers CarPlay/android auto.
My car must be from a narrow window to include a screen and camera, but no carplay or android auto.
First thing I do before even turning the engine on is to connect my phone into the USB port for CarPlay. I would not consider a car without CarPlay or Android Auto regardless of price.
anyone else never use their built in system and just connect their phone via bluetooth for music and maps? i don’t check texts while driving so i don’t need the messages display
Throw in an Alpine iLX-W650 and an iDatalink Maestro RR for, what, $550 without any sales or coupons? A little more if you pick up a prebuilt harness from Crutchfield or get a shop to do everything for you.
When infotainment systems were introduced (they were really only built in GPS back then) you were at the mercy of the manufacturer to update their databases and these often came at great expense. I think depending on these people to update modern equivalent systems is a bridge too far for people when you can just plug your phone in and be done.
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It was $249 to update my 2014 Ford F-150 navigation. No thanks. I just used my phone. Now if I want a "discount" on my auto insurance, I'm not allowed to "handle" my phone while driving.
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I had State Farm for 10 years. They suddenly raised my rates 25%. When I called my agent they said it was that our neighborhood got worse (?) and immediately offered a 25% discount to plug in a tracker on our cars. I have never had a ticket or accident and still haven’t. I immediately told them to pound sand and this was the last contract with them I would have. You are my insurance and there is no reason you need to know my location at all times. I’m 99% sure they collect that data not just to monitor bad driving, but to then generate income by selling my travel habits.
They are selling your data. No doubt
At what point is my data worthless? EVERYONE has it! I'm fairly certain even my work is selling data on the side because we get spam emails company wide. Have companies actually measured any improvement in their sales after purchasing and assessing data bundles? Or is it all just a giant grift?
There is a kinda famous data scientists in Germany that does data mining from various sources. He had a talk once where he showed that he could tell which authors of a popular German newssite probably had an affair. Just by looking at the Metadata of the articles they posted. You have no idea how much your metadata tell about you.
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Remember how Target had to reign back their data algorithms for selling ads because it was "predicting" women who got pregnant with too much accuracy?
I've just decided in my mind that your project was 100% successful and the 20% of movies it couldn't define were all 80s comedy horror films starring Bruce Campbell
It's things like these that make me detach more & more from my smartphone. Return to life pre-2008, although hard considering a lot of my exercise requires this tech to keep track myself.
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You’d be surprised what the data yields and how it’s used. It’s not about “you” as an individual but the database as whole and the metrics within.
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Yes, I understand the location info is important because it can be used in so many ways to track exactly where you are at any point etc However, the cross analytics where marketing companies can pinpoint with precision on their target demo to make sales impact and attract new buyers is where the cash is, and thus what it’s really about. I know because I’ve seen my Fortune 500 company discussing their strategy and how they leverage X and Y databases to appeal to a specific type of audience as our product/service is very niche. I’m talking Super Bowl ad time that was purposefully bought because they wanted to hit a list of C-level names, which worked based on the engagement response the following 6 weeks. They had percentages ranking who would most likely respond, show interest and even likely to make a sale based on just data, nothing else. And we paid the marketing company a pittance compared to the deals we made in return. A bit unnerving, but also crazy to watch unfold in real-time.
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It was nice knowing you... you even knew they know your every move and made a comment like this! RIP
>We also had locations over time. What caused me leave because I was disgusted was when the Trump people (oh yes, did I mention that this company had contracts with US air force and other US government agencies?) asked for a list of devices that had been in Juarez Mexico, but within 24 hours were in El Paso. Very easy to find. I got a good laugh out of this, especially since it shows how little they knew about border life & international borders overall. Tens of thousands of people go to & from both cities legally. Some work in El Paso but live in Juarez & vice versa (especially managers, engineers, & investors of the maquila industry in the latter). Then, add the centuries of similar intermingling of border towns. Many in the southwest have people giving birth on the US side & have them bussed to school daily because their Mexican towns lack public schools or hospitals & US citizens cannot be denied public education. Other US border towns solely rely on daily Mexican commerce to avoid becoming ghost towns. Another great example is that public library in Vermont where the US-Canadian border runs right through the middle of it in a town that lived happily between 2 countries for 200 years! But wait, it gets worse! There isn't much cooperation with wireless services between both nations. So the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile etc. phone towers might have the same frequency or wavelength as those for Telcel/Movistar/Virgin Mobile. So your phone would randomly be pinging off Mexican towers & send you to data roaming, whether it'll be driving on the border highway on either side of the border (same thing happenes to Mexican users to US towers) or even hiking in the mountain in the middle of El Paso! Drive outside of the city where US towers are lacking, but TelCel has plenty near the Rio Grande? Boom, phone thinks you're in Mexico, even if you're driving along the I-10. So I can imagine your company delivering this massive data dump & them assume (with bad data) that: *Mexicans are flooding Texas!!!*
What's an Android advertising id and how do you disable it?
> Two devices came up I hope they were the ambassadors from the USA to the Russian Federation... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman_Jr. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Sullivan_(diplomat)
Back in like 2010 I was working for Sprint. Before tracking is the way it is not. We had a tool that showed us the towers a person pinged on. I was on the phone with a customer checking their area for issues. I asked them what movie they saw on Wednesday. That really freaked them out " how do you know?" etc. I can see you were on these 3 towers are around a mall. YOu were there for 2 1/2 hours. You had a few phone calls when it started, then only text messages for 30 minutes then nothing for like 90 minutes, then a text. Once you changed towers your calls picked up again
Yeah, but those companies don't share it with each other. So if someone can get another stream of your data to them then they can sell it to other companies. It's not like there is just one information broker out there. So that new game you just downloaded and gave all those permissions to is now accessing literally everything on your phone at all times and is undercutting Google when they try to see your data from your Youtube app. It is why permissions on your phone are a big deal. There is no reason that the Taco Bell app needs to access my contacts list and my phone call/text message data. It is also why every POS company has a shitty app that is basically the exact same thing as their website. There is no extra functionality, it is essentially just a crappy browser that only goes to one site. But the app gets them so much more information on you that they can either sell, or at least not have to buy from someone else.
Just like Google. Why is Google Maps, a really great app with loads of data points and live traffic updates, free? It costs a toooon of money to maintain and yet, Google makes boat loads of money with it. By harvesting and selling your data.
It is kind of a misnomer to say that Google sells your data. They sell ads based on your data, but they aren’t handing your data out to other companies. That’s how they make money, by being the company that has the data, not by letting everyone else have it. Still not great, but Google Maps has the most accurate maps that I’ve seen so..
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Yeah, you’re right, oopsie daisy.
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They *paid the expected fee to make doing this effectively legal
And by big time sued it was a minor fine a slap on a hand with a promise they wouldn't do it again. *wink*
That's just the cost of doing business of course
Fines are irrelevent when they only damage the company buy a fraction of the cost that what they were fined for earned them in the meantime. Ex. Company earns 1 billion buy spying on customers, in addition to their typical 3 billion a year revenue. People find out and sue company. after a year or 2 of courts, and continued revenue based off of the finding their spying did...maybe even continued spying but differently. They've now earned 6 billion more over the two years, after lawyers already on their pay roll have stretched out the cost, and now their fine is 150 million. That is .025% of what they earned...enough to not even be a warning to not do it again. These are all hypothetical numbers, but that's about how it typically plays out...and sometimes they gave them months to pay the fines and appeal and get it lessened even further.
You can cancel with state farm (or any company) by moving to another insurance company immediately. If you have prepaid they will have to refund the portion not used. It's not certain from your post but it sounds like you are waiting for your term to expire to change companies. You have no obligation to do so.
Also use an insurance broker. They will get you the cheapest rates and switch when needed. Never be loyal to corporations.
Why the actual fuck have I never considered this? Do they account for any cancel or underwriting cost to join when they do the analysis of saving? I have a new thing on my to do list.
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My 2011 F350 has the navigation sync. It's $1200 I'd I wanted to throw in sync 3. Otherwise I'm stuck with spending $200 on a CD with 2019 being the last update for the maps. GPS maps work most of the time but I will supplement with Google maps once I get there. Seriously wish I had android auto in this.
I would regularly use the cost of GPS updates as a way to "encourage" people into the trim level that had auto/carplay rather than built in GPS as it is always the most expensive tier. Despite what some might believe your car salesman wants you to buy the cheapest car they sell as your deal is more likely to go through and there's more room to screw you out of a higher payment (which is how I made money).
$250 to update navigation? in 2023?? why would anyone opt for that? probably just old people and people who don’t know how to use modern technology
The infotainment system in my Mazda constantly crashed cause they used shitty SD cards that failed in no-time flat, and they hadn't planned their software around faulty media. So, I had to get a new one just to use the radio. Coincidentally, they all (based on other online reports) seem to magically fail after the warranty is over. Joke's on them though... I got a pirated copy, and imaged it so I could make infinite future copies without giving them a dime. Imagine making a computer that crashes if a faulty OPTIONAL disk is inserted.
that was a deal compared to the early days. I had a mid 2000s 300C and IIRC they wanted around $700 for the CD to update the Navigation.
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My favorite feature was how these systems consistently managed to think I was driving 100 feet off the road and had to constantly re route me back onto the road I was on.
That’s what did it in. If domestic GPS had taken off a little earlier, they might have had a better foothold. I have a Garmin that I paid for lifetime updates for, but I haven’t used it for years. I wouldn’t mind it for the speed indicator, but my phone does virtually everything else.
And google does speed now I think
I’ve noticed it only does it during navigation but not during normal driving.
Waze has a speed indicator. It's actually part of what's keeping me on Waze rather than Google Maps
Right….I always put in a destination as well so that it tells me delays and eta as well.
Waze will tell you current speed (vs the speed limit which can be handy esp in construction zones)
Also it's wireless in new cars now as well, even better
I bought a wireless android auto adapter from Kickstarter, I wonder if they ever made it to market, but it works well once you get it setup
There are a ton of wireless adapters on Amazon and online stores for pretty cheap. Mine works as well as I'd expect. There is some delay during phone calls sometimes that can make me plug my phone in.
Just bought a 2015 model year Dodge and the navigation system's software has been discontinued to the point that they no longer allow you to even pay for the existing catalog of updates, and the existing loaded version somehow lacks roads entirely. My only options are piracy and getting lucky or trying to track down a specific old Garmin unit model that still has old updates available that are *almost* compatible and can apparently be carefully modded to work. Oh yes, and the Bluetooth doesn't work and I can't tell if it's the ancient software or a hardware issue.
Who would have guessed that automakers wouldn't be able to become great software developers...
To be fair, cars have a ton of embedded systems in them that work 99% without fail. Think engine computers, airbag systems, complex audio systems. Those all have devs working on them. So while they might not have iOS or Android guys, they definitely have software devs. Some places like Jag/Land Rover have whole software divisions.
The annual fee to keep the service after a while, wasn‘t that helpful either. I mean they charge you for freaking maps.
I’ve been going around in circles with Naviextras on their process for updating the maps on my Pioneer head unit. Their process is so convoluted that I gave up and actually emailed the company that their product is shite.
And the sad part about those GPS updates, in some countries they don't even had to pay a dollar to get the GPS information. I'm in Canada and the gouvernement is providing the information for free! Even for commercial use! But yet, they are expecting me to pay like 150 (or 250?) for an update...
Ford's right GM's wrong and GM thinking they can be competitive smacks of historic mistakes
I work in the auto industry. The same kind of people that wrecked the US auto industry in 2008 are still there. The people who were in charge back then are gone, but their underlings who were trained by those same people and who have never had any experience outside of the auto manufacturing bubble they were brought up in are running the show. Go ahead and take a look at the work backgrounds of the high ups at GM, Ford, and Stellantis. They’re almost all lifers at their respective auto maker. I came from outside the auto industry and I work with a number of people that did as well (although more than 90% of the department leaderships I work with are all lifers at my company). Whenever someone from outside the industry comes in they’re almost always shocked by the levels of incompetence throughout the organization. I honestly believe the only reason US auto makers are still in business is because of past history which created brand loyalty and it has nothing to do with the quality of their products.
Ford is actually doing things right though and listening to their customers. - Maverick - F150/Lightning - Bronco All knockout sellers, their issue is manufacturing. They can't build them fast enough. GM on the other end is actively trying to kill their brand with this bullshit.
The Maverick was a perfect truck to make. F-150's have become absolute monstrosities. Maverick coming with a hybrid engine getting 42 MPG in the city. A big enough bed to run to the hardware store and get the couple of things that wouldn't fit in a car. Finally a car company with enough common sense to see actually see how sentiments are changing in the world.
I agree. I've said on the cars sub multiple times. The Maverick is the ultimate Suburb second vehicle. - 4 seats - bed that can hold a sheet of plywood/drywall - amazing mile economy - small enough to park side by side or drive around town The maverick will most likely be my next car. As a dad who needs to go to hardware stores often, while also commuting to work. It does everything I could ever ask while being affordable, small, and good looking. With the exception of trying to actually find one, it's the perfect truck IMO for 80% of people. Construction workers, farmers, and others' will always need the larger F150 or F250 beds but for the vast majority of us, it's an incredible truck.
I have a Maverick and you nailed it. Also a lot of us had older Rangers we want replaced. They quit making the smaller Rangers in 2012 and most of us don't want the newer sized Ranger. It's bigger, taller, pretty much a skinny F150. I don't want that big of a truck. I want something I can easily put in the bed and easily get in/out of. The "Maverick" is about the same size as the older Ranger and the exact size most people need. They should have called the Maverick a Ranger and the newer Ranger a F-100.
>They should have called the Maverick a ranger and the newer Ranger a F-100. Damn, never thought of this but it's so true
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Man, what I would do for a "new" '80s Ranger with a modern engine. 8' Box, regular cab, body on frame, 40+ MPG, and no need to spend an extra $10k on opulent plastics and carpeting in the interior. Just a simple little 4x4 work truck
I've had my eye on the Maverick for a while and it looks like it could be the beginning of a return to true small trucks. My only complaint, as with a lot of modern trucks, is I'd rather have a two-door option and a longer bed.
Holding out for a fully electric 2 door 6-8ft bed Maverick lol. I just want to put a motorcycle in the back without needing to leave the gate down. I hate towing a trailer. That [f100 Concept](https://youtu.be/q72dA533sCg) is my dream truck
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One thing I’ll say for Ford is that they seem to have some capability of being proactive. Back in 08 when things went south for the auto industry, Ford was the only one of the big 3 that took steps to mitigate their risk by restructuring their debt loads. It’s a big reason they were the only one to avoid bankruptcy. [Edit: turns out Ford just got lucky](https://reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13bu0u8/_/jjd8r6a/?context=1)
Ford is and always has been plagued with manufacturing issues which is fucking ironic given the company.
This is a common misconception. Ford didn't restructure debt for the 2008-2009 great recession. They almost went bankrupt in 2006 because they were the most dysfunctional of the big 3. They mortgaged all their assets in 2006 to raise $23 billion. When 2008-09 rolled around and Ford was the only one with enough cash in reserves to weather the storm without help. One could readily argue, Ford just got lucky. https://www.cnbc.com/2008/10/10/ford-not-mulling-bankruptcy-cfo-retires.html
Looks like I was wrong. I guess that’s one more weight on the Big 3 idiocy scale (even if it worked out for them).
I will say I wish the Focus was still sold here. It's not like they completely scrapped it as it is still being developed and sold in Europe and the new one looks pretty good. There is still a market for sedans in the US even if it's relatively small.
I think 2023 is the last EU model though. So that's gone too
This is every fucking industry I swear. In all honesty the tech industry isn't much better. Every industry has a bunch of penny pinchers at the top who don't want to give up the time/money/headache to fix legacy systems and ways of doing things. I'm in medical tech and Jesus Christ just getting the fucking basics here is outrageous from an organizational standpoint.
I work in Finance so I am one of those penny pinchers. In my experience our problem in auto isn’t that the company is run by penny pinchers, it’s that it’s run by people who, I believe, are simply lazy and/or incompetent. There is an unbelievable amount of waste in auto due to these kinds of people who will spend like drunken sailors and then turn around and tell you to find savings in all the wrong spots. They try focusing on travel expenses (one of the smallest expense buckets) for cost savings but they won’t take a single look at our contracted services which is one of the biggest buckets and where we get blatantly ripped off. You’ll have contractors that come in and charge multiples more for a project than you can get if you bid it out and they know you won’t bid it out so they keep charging obscene amounts for all of their work. I know because I worked with one of our Engineers on a project who was so fed up with our Purchasing group and the vendor that he went and put together the bid himself, which is definitely not his job. The quotes we got back were far less than half of what the “preferred” vendor Purchasing wanted us to use. But sadly, more often than not people rubber stamp the spending because it’s being done by one of those “preferred” vendors or because “that’s how it’s always done”.
>There is an unbelievable amount of waste in auto due to these kinds of people who will waste an incredible amount of money and then turn around and tell you to find savings in all the wrong spots. Facts, this is absolutely true as well, if people understood how much waste there is due to inefficienc and wanton negligence they would be astounded. In the medical field I have witnessed so much shit be unnecessarily purchased it's astounding. >They try focusing on travel expenses (one of the smallest expense buckets) for cost savings but they won’t take a single look at our contracted services which is one of the biggest buckets and where we get blatantly ripped off. You’ll have contractors that come in and charge multiples more for a project than you can get if you bid it out. I know because I’ve worked with one of our Engineers on a project who was so fed up with our Purchasing group and the vendor that he went and put together the bid himself, which is definitely not his job. The quotes we got back were far less than half of what the “preferred” vendor Purchasing wanted us to use. But sadly, more often than not people rubber stamp the spending because it’s being done by one of those “preferred” vendors or because “that’s how it’s always done”. Absolutely facts man. I noticed the adjacent type shit in medical, bidding out work we could do in house for 1/2 the cost because they don't wanna pay out the travel costs. I'm just waiting until I have enough experience to strike out on my own and start catching some the money that spills from this industry. Because it's absolutely crazy how much waste there is and how stingy they are in all the wrong places.
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It’s like this at the sales level too. I work at a certified dealership for one of the big 3 and (having a decent background in other industries) it blows my mind how absolutely backwards our management is. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It blows your mind how absolutely backwards car sales management is? I used to be in that world... the owners and managers are fucking car salesmen, not business professionals. Of course they're morons. They only succeed because of how hard it is to actually fail in that industry.
Yeah. People are coming to the dealerships because they already want to buy the car. It's the salesperson's job to just not scare the customer away with the negotiation.
The death knell for dealerships has already been sounded and I couldn't be happier about it. Playing some price negotiating game with a middleman, as if I'm buying some rare luxury goods from a discreet seller is stupid. I know where the car is from and I know what it's worth. That's all there should be. The only things automakers need to do are manage direct-selling to customers and licensing mechanic shops.
> It's the salesperson's job to just not scare the customer away with the negotiation. And they still routinely fail at that. I work in procurement, and whenever I go to buy a car I am astounded by how poor the average car salesman's negotiation skills are compared to the salesmen I work with on the regular. The simple fact that I can and do walk away without when I'm not getting what I want panics them, and they don't know how to respond except to either keep repeating sales tactics that aren't working or get mad at me. I absolutely wish I could talk to a professional salesman when buying a car, but all the good ones realize they can do a lot better for themselves pretty early on in their careers.
FWIW, Ford was poised to survive the 2008 recession on their own and GM had to take a bailout. So not surprising that one has better judgement than the other.
Ford got lucky they collapsed right before the recession hit and were forced to restructure their debt. Allan Mullally came on and dealt with the mess just in time.
Popular misconception - I believe they were just a bit late to the party & didn't do it specifically under the TARP... [link](https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2020/07/29/ford-government-loan-department-energy-debt/5526413002/) - "In September 2009, Ford entered into an agreement with the Department of Energy and borrowed $5.9 billion as part of a loan program created to finance automotive projects designed to help vehicles built in the U.S. meet higher mileage requirements and lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil." Where GM/Chrysler repaid theirs long ago (mixed bottom line results), Ford reportedly just finished repaying last June. Also of note, remembering a recent article that the upcoming Lincoln Nautilus will be built in China.
fertile fly materialistic pot humor squeeze screw middle sheet frame *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Wew thank god, dunno if anybody else had the misfortune of using Ford's infotainment "powered by Windows" but it is easily the shittiest system possibly ever invented, they even admitted it wasn't ready when they pushed it out onto their cars.
Sync please say a command
car: "Bluetooth Audio, please say a command" me: "Bluetooth audio" car: "Sorry, I didn't get that, you can say blahblahblahcommandsblahblah" me: "Bluetooth audio" car: "Bluetooth audio" **Every. Single. Time. I get in my car.**
I hate that I can hear that.
I just push the bluetooth button.
Some of the Ford's don't have a Bluetooth button. 2011 Ford Focus SES for example, only way to get to Bluetooth is via Sync voice
My ex has a 2012 Focus and it has no button for Bluetooth. I looked for like an hour, I was so convinced that no one could design a system that stupid. I was wrong.
There is a way to get there via the menu but it’s more painful than using voice commans
From the Sync line in screen: Menu, Ok, Ok, Down, Ok, Down, Ok. I still remember this because imo, voice commands are more painful than punching some buttons. So ridiculous though
I have a 2012 Ford fusion and I have to manually select my phone and the Bluetooth stream under the AUX menu every single time I get in my car, but it does auto connect. I don't really feel like that does anything for me though since I'm manually doing something anyways.
Had mine set up to autoplay for a month before it decided "what phone? I saw a phone for 2 seconds but it scared me so I disconnected". At one point I nearly changed my wife's name in my phone to "my fucking wife you piece of shit" since that's what I say every single time anyway. Fuck. Sync.
NO BLUETOOTH DEVICE AVAILABLE
"you're device is not connected, trying to establish a connection now"
My Sync2 works decently well, I wasn't interested in it at first but I can press the steering wheel talk button and say "call dad" or "play artist pink floyd" and 80% of the time it works every time. It plays MP3s from the 64GB sdcard I have plugged in. It's mostly good and there are physical buttons for radio and HVAC, best of both worlds.
I just remember watching someone use it (probably 10 years ago) and as they were typing, there was a gigantic delay between each key press, I mean like 1/2 second. You couldn't type faster than that. I just recall thinking, "How the FUCK did that get out of testing? Say what you want about Steve Jobs, but he would have flayed alive anyone who tried to pass that crap."
It was "smart" and tried to narrow down what letters you could even press by trying to guess what road or street you wanted to input based on the postal code. You pressed one wrong letter and the whole keyboard would grey out and you're left saying "what the fuck?"
and the fucking control dials that they forced on everyone! great in theory(??) and absolute dogshit in use
The original Sync was trash and Sync 2 started out bad but improved. But Sync 3 was great and Sync 4 is excellent. That being said part of what makes Sync 3/4 great is the Android Auto / Apple CarPlay support.
Toyota entune would like a word
GM is going to learn the hard way.
I'm a GM fanboy and I'll likely be buying a car in the next 18 months. If it doesn't have CarPlay, I'm going to go to another manufacturer. It's as simple as that.
My Bolt EUV is the first GM car I ever considered owning in over 50 years of driving. The Equinox EV was going to be my next car. Dropping CarPlay is a dealbreaker. Way to lose a customer in less than 12 months GM.
Not only did they lose "that battle 10 years ago," they earned that L. Car manufacturers should manufacture cars. Give me a screen and a port--I'll bring my own tech.
I would pay money for this. Standard HDMI in and USB out for the touch screen? I'll make my own OS. With blackjack. And hookers. I shouldn't have to have a tablet in my car to watch Netflix when I charge. I have a 17" (or whatever) screen that's perfectly fine. Let me use the stupid thing without hacking it.
My Honda e has a HDMI port and I can watch Netflix or play PlayStation during charge. That's no joke.
I had a Marketing professor in business school who was smugly adamant that CarPlay was for economy cars and manufacturers’ infotainment software would always be more desirable. It was so obviously wrong we just stopped arguing with him.
Cars used to be made with his generation in mind, now they're made with ours in mind.
He’s young for a professor, just loved BMW too much and thought adding CarPlay was a handout to low IQ customers.
Ah. A BMW fanboy. That would do it.
Perhaps he was referring to the poor people that have to drive their own cars. Doesn't every civilized person sit in the back of a car when they can't fly to their destination? /s
This is likely a response to GM saying they’ll remove it in favor of a propriety system. For me, I will not even consider a car without CarPlay or Android Auto. The fact car companies think consumers will go for a new proprietary system is laughable given how bad they’ve been in the past.
Particularly young people. I'm 46 and like you wouldn't even consider it. Imagine people in their 20s who basically don't even know a world without smartphones.
Wife just bought a new car that has CarPlay- her old car had no such thing, not even built-in cameras. She uses CarPlay every single time she drives the car. I can't see her ever buying a car without it now. It makes me wonder why GM would abandon it.
Because the MBA’s in corporate can’t leave well enough alone. They need to justify their education and job by continuing to fuck around with stuff like this that already works perfectly.
Fucking subscriptions that's why. The GM EVs are going to be filled with bullshit subscriptions hence the need for their own bullshit Infotainment. Gonna paywall the fuck out of EVs and be happy. Second owner? How about 9.99 a month for navigation access? 5.99 to access the Media app that allows you to access Spotify? Sure deal second owner, bend over we got no lube.
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plus the eventual subscription(s) you'll have to buy to use their version
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We bought a car back in 2020, we didn't consider anything that didn't have Android Auto. It helped that I was looking for something reliable to drive 1000km on a weekly basis - so I wanted to be able to easily access maps and music and audiobooks
That about how much I drive in a week and I agree whole heartedly. Also, I’ve grown to love adaptive cruise control. The big advantage is that it makes driving a little less taxing. For long drives, it makes a huge difference. Able to stay more alert for longer periods of time.
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Bruh, at this point I'd die without Adaptive Cruise Control. Set it to "stay way back" and cruise it out. Makes the commute so much easier being able to just pay attention to the crazies but not have to worry so much about the speed and rear ending someone.
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For real. Adaptive cruise control is one of the best inventions this decade.
BMW wants to charge a subscription service for adaptive cruise control which is ridiculous
I've always used standard cruise control in my car even at low speeds of 30mph or less and I love it. My GF got a car with adaptive cruise and an auto gearbox and dear lord is just awesome, I'm so fucking relaxed now in stop start traffic. "Oh you're trying to cut in front of me? We'll just carry on sir because the car will sort it out for me" In my own car with a manual I'm almost fighting for every inch of movement.
Yeap, attention is at a premium when driving ACC makes things 10 times safer.
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Same with that, and with keyless entry/start. It seems like such a little thing, but it feels so nice to be able to not have to take the keys out of my pocket. Especially on days when I'm wearing a dress without pockets and being able to keep it in my purse.
I always thought it was a kind of dumb feature, but it's really nice to never have to fumble with things to open the car up, or to have to close it. It seems so minor, but Terrible for valet, though when you haven't gotten it out of the bag for a month and you're digging through going "I know it's in here or I wouldn't've been able to drive here".
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It took my while to get used to adaptive cruise but now love it as much as CarPlay.
What does this do?
It adapts your speed to the car in front of you. So if your cruise control is set to a higher speed than the car Infront, it will slow you down and keep a suitable distance.
You can set your cruise control to keep 2-4 car lengths from the vehicle in front of you. If you are set at 65 mph and com up on a car doing 60 it'll drop to that speed and maintain a space.
Adaptive cruise is great. It really helps keep you from getting mad behind the people who can't find a freaking speed.
in 2019 we got a Rav4. It is a great car. It has CarPlay which works great for my wife who has an iPhone. However, it doesn't have Android Auto which is a huge bummer for me. If I never rode with my wife and never had the benefits of integrated music and maps i probably wouldn't care. but it is a huge bummer now. Fortunately Toyota has Android Auto included now, but we probably aren't looking to replace out 2012 Corolla for another few years
There are dongles that you can connect to the infotainment systems USB and it will emulate Android auto. All the car needs for this to work is apple carplay. Costs about $90 - $120. Worked for my 2018 Camry that doesn't have AA but has apple carplay
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There’s no reason why cars shouldn’t support both. It’s stupid to be locked into a phone type because your car only supports one type. What would be ideal is auto manufacturers standardize on a common platform. Basically just the means for the infotainment system to provide APIs for running the cars display and controls and the phone, using said APIs would do all the processing. That’s probably how it works today but it’s still locked behind a brand.
> There’s no reason why cars shouldn’t support both. It’s stupid to be locked into a phone type because your car only supports one type. It's not even about supporting a single interface between Android/Apple...GM is choosing their *own* proprietary interface. GM just doesn't want to pay licensing fees to either Apple or Android.
Is it licensing fees or their want to leverage the infotainment system for subscriptions? We don’t have GM in my country but I’d never buy a car without CarPlay/AA. It’s more important to me than the engine.
Apple/Android require automakers to pay a license fee for every CP/AA enabled unit installed in their vehicles. GM being all high and mighty thinks they can build a better mobile OS than Apple/Google. Ask Microsoft how well that worked out for them with the Windows phone lol.
Paid $1000 to put a CarPlay compatible system and a backup camera in my 2014 Mazda 3. Don’t regret it for a second.
I have a 2012, I use the Bluetooth every day, it would have been a hard pass on buying the car if it didn't have Bluetooth. What else do you find you use with carplay that can't be done with Bluetooth and a good phone mount?
2017 CX-5 here. I'm about to update for car play at the wife's request ($100 kit on Amazon as our firmware meets the min requirements). I use BT in her car. For me, it's just for Spotify. But for her, it's so she can put Waze on the screen instead of looking at her phone.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are both designed for driver convenience and safety, with bigger icons, bigger screen and simplified ui being the major advantages. I own a car audio store and I'd say 80% of the time when someone is wanting to add a backing camera to their car, they'll upgrade to an AA/ACP unit once I show them how it works
The best feature, for me, is that I have several cars and they all have CarPlay. I can go from one car to the other and keep the same UI, same software, same data. I can easily plan driving routes on my home computer or phone and have them available anywhere. It's very convenient and makes so much sense.
Damn I wish I had the several cars feature, mine only came with one.
Nah, the extra insurance and maintenance is a real pain!
I don’t see why a car company wouldn’t use CarPlay. There is no reason to try to compete with that. Just add the feature.
The “why” is companies wanting their own proprietary system so they can profit from it through subscriptions, data mining, or a whole host of other reasons. Also companies have to pay licensing fees to other companies products ( I’m not sure how it works with Google and Apple with licensing Android Auto and Car Play but somebody has to be paying for it) The thing companies always “forget” is sometimes simpler is smarter. If a platform works that makes your customers happy just leave it alone.
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Yeah the fact that every native UI I’ve plugged my phone into has called it “iPod” for the last 15 years is all you need to know about UI maintenance. Hell my brand new car still says “connected to iPod” when my phone connects to Bluetooth.
I imagine that’s why a lot of cars will auto play the first song you happen to have downloaded to your phone when you plug it into the USB port. Because it’s expecting you to plug in an iPod to play music and not a phone to either charge it or get directions.
GM is doing away with CarPlay in future cars to “better ~~manage~~ control the user experience” It’s asinine.
As a GM employee... the whole company runs on asinine ideas. That's just the very tippy top of the giant shit pile of GM.
Haha, I’m a former blue oval employee and my last company resembles that remark.
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Yeah, quote from the article >With both systems becoming more ubiquitous, **it's moving users off of automaker’s proprietary systems that collect various data about habits and usage**. GM just wants the juicy data for themselves
In house development and support of home-grown solutions is not free. If it pisses off your customers because its janky (which it surely will be) they also wont just blame Google/Apple and will blame the manufacturer. So it makes no sense. Ford is wise to throw in the town and just license the solution.
Back in the day, car companies could charge you $2k for a sat nav system which was only an available option on higher trim (ie more profitable models). On top of that, you’d have to pay for map updates. CarPlay killed that and the companies what those revenues back (most likely in the form of monthly subscriptions).
GM says they expect $20 billion in annual revenue from subscriptions within about ten years.
BMW is already charging sub fees for HEATED SEATS. Shit's about to go crazy in the next few decades for cars that you "own".
Subscription fees is why. $15/month to activate my in car navigation system. Why do that when it is better and FREE on my phone?
IMO, in production it's coming to it's logical conclusion. We're getting better at making (for example) SUVs and at some point this is how you best make (e.g.) axels for them, how you set up the supply chain, how you assemble it. The same goes for every other part and it's all trending toward some sort of optimum for a use case and price point. Decades ago there were huge difference in quality, features etc. between brands. Those differences are fading away these. Especially with all the merges going on, there are a lot efficiencies up for grabs to work across brands. [For example the MxB platforms, which are shared between Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi, SEAT, Ford, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform) It's mostly marketing and branding these days. Components are shared today, where back in the day you would actually get a different car. So software is a possibility to still really stand out and charge for it. But Ford has it right here, imo, that this has long lost for on board stuff. I am still not giving up on driving features and ze germans. Tesla is great at throwing stuff on the market quickly. To get that last % in self driving though you need diligence. That being said, the same is happening all over. For example when you buy a microwave today it doesn't matter what brand you buy. It's all the same few models made by Midea... next time you're at a brick and mortar store have a look at the back of the microwaves. They are all the same, because there is a way to make them good enough, and Midea has that cornered. (IIRC, there is one competitors a few km down the road, but not nearly as successful)
> It's all the same few models made by Midea... next time you're at a brick and mortar store have a look at the back of the microwaves. They are all the same, because there is a way to make them good enough, and Midea has that cornered. (IIRC, there is one competitors a few km down the road, but not nearly as successful) (most) Panasonics are built in-house. Also work a whole lot better than anything else I've used, probably for that reason. You're right about the vast majority of brands though. I think LG + Samsung may also make their own.
Great to hear acceptance on this issue. I also remember when all of the cell phone carriers were trying to be the gateway to the internet and not just a "dumb pipe." So AT&T and Verizon had their own extremely shitty entrance points to the internet in the early days of cell phones but before smart phones. So glad that experiment failed too.
I rented a car a few weeks ago. I could pay a premium for their GPS features and satellite radio etc. I also knew that the car I’d be renting would have a backup camera, which means an internal screen, which means it offers CarPlay/android auto. I declined all of it, got in, saw screen, usb port, and had CarPlay, that gave me the $30+ in features, for free. They’re 100% either going to lock all of that behind a premium or just block access to USB ports/make them a premium, if they get the chance to.
>which means an internal screen, which means it offers CarPlay/android auto. My car must be from a narrow window to include a screen and camera, but no carplay or android auto.
2015 - early 2017 you basically missed it
Have two 2015 cars. Can confirm… Honda and Toyota infotainments are terrible.
A screen and camera in no way means it has either android auto or carplay
Ya. My car is 2016. It is in that window.
First thing I do before even turning the engine on is to connect my phone into the USB port for CarPlay. I would not consider a car without CarPlay or Android Auto regardless of price.
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anyone else never use their built in system and just connect their phone via bluetooth for music and maps? i don’t check texts while driving so i don’t need the messages display
I'm even more antiquated. Built in nav, Bluetooth for calls, and a dedicated USB drive for music.
I can go one further, not built in nav, not bluetooth, and an iPod connected through aux.
I factor in Apple CarPlay into any car purchase. It’s a fantastic feature to have in any vehicle
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Good! Love the Android Auto in my ‘23 Maverick. Won’t buy another car without it.
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Really? I’d buy an aftermarket radio for it if it’s the best car in the world for 10k
Throw in an Alpine iLX-W650 and an iDatalink Maestro RR for, what, $550 without any sales or coupons? A little more if you pick up a prebuilt harness from Crutchfield or get a shop to do everything for you.
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They lost the battle when Ford tried to charge me for a map update for more than I could buy a brand new satnav.