he battle is on between Google’s Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay. The prize is the chance to be the brains running on top of tomorrow’s generation of intelligent and Internet-connected cars.
But Porsche apparently didn’t hesitate in going with Apple’s option instead of Google’s, if a new report out Monday by Motor Trend is to be . It claims Porsche felt Google asks for way too much sensitive data about the car’s internals in exchange for using its system — information that is part of the “secret sauce” that makes Porsche models like the 911 Carrera and Carrera S so successful and expensive.
It’s actually an incredibly damning claim, no matter how insignificant it may look on the surface. After all, it’s just one car maker exercising its freedom of choice in a free market, right? Wrong. This could set a precedent for the direction the whole technology takes in that Google may be painted as a dangerous option for car makers, especially at the premium end of the market who want to protect their intellectual property.
The fact that both Google and Apple are both known to be working on their own cars further raises eyebrows. Android Auto, specifically, is asking for data on things like “vehicle speed, throttle position, coolant and oil temp, [and] engine revs,” according to the report. CarPlay, meanwhile, only wants to know if the engine is turned on. Well, that makes for a pretty easy decision of which option to go with for a company like Porsche. Not to mention that Apple is probably seen as the more premium offering by Porsche customers in any case, but that’s an aside and not the issue here.
Why Google wants access to all this data is unclear, but perhaps unsurprising given it’s essentially a data company. The bigger point is, will examples like this by a company such as Porsche be enough to make Google think twice about what it asks for from car makers in exchange for Android Auto?
As we are still in the early stages of the evolution of these two competing auto platforms, it’s super interesting to see how the companies behind them will react and pivot to questionable reports like this.
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