Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen

Despite Apple’s claims that astir consumers volition lone see purchasing vehicles that enactment CarPlay, Rivian says it inactive doesn’t person immoderate plans to follow the iPhone mirroring system. Talking to The Verge EIC Nilay Patel successful today’s occurrence of Decoder, Rivian laminitis and CEO RJ Scaringe likened Rivian adopting CarPlay to Apple choosing to usage Microsoft’s Windows operating systems alternatively of processing its ain in-house iOS and MacOS alternatives.

“We person a large narration with Apple,” helium said. “As overmuch arsenic I emotion their products, there’s a crushed that ironically is precise accordant with Apple ethos for america to privation to power the ecosystem.” CarPlay isn’t “consistent with however we deliberation astir truly creating a axenic merchandise experience,” Scaringe said.

One illustration fixed by Scaringe includes CarPlay’s inability to “leverage different parts of the conveyance experience” which would necessitate Rivian customers to permission the app successful bid to bash things similar unfastened the vehicle’s beforehand trunk. “We’ve taken the presumption of the integer acquisition successful the conveyance wants to consciousness accordant and holistically harmonious crossed each touchpoint,” said Scaringe. Instead, the Rivian CEO says the institution volition yet adhd CarPlay’s astir desirable features “but connected an à la carte basis.”

Rivian isn’t unsocial successful snubbing Apple CarPlay. Tesla has ne'er adopted the feature, and General Motors made the controversial determination past twelvemonth to driblet support for CarPlay and Android Auto connected its aboriginal EV models. Mercedes-Benz besides gave akin reasons earlier this twelvemonth for not adopting CarPlay. Meanwhile, Porsche and Aston Martin volition beryllium the archetypal companies to debut the full-screen “next generation” CarPlay experience.

Scaringe says that excluding CarPlay volition let the institution to beryllium much selective astir features similar routing and mapping charging points, noting that Rivian had acquired way readying app shaper Iternio past twelvemonth to facilitate that.

“We admit that it’ll instrumentality america clip to afloat seizure each diagnostic that’s successful CarPlay, and hopefully, customers are seeing that. I deliberation it often gets much sound than it deserves,” Scaringe said successful the interview. “The different happening beyond mapping that’s coming is amended integration with texting. We cognize that needs to come, and it’s thing that teams are actively moving on.”