On April 14th, it was reported that General Motors and Rivian faced strong opposition for not adopting Apple’s CarPlay platform, while Ford took a different approach. In a statement to 9to5Mac, Ford explained its reasons for supporting CarPlay.
Ford promotes its commitment to Apple CarPlay to surpass other electric vehicle companies such as General Motors, Tesla, and Rivian. In the past two weeks, General Motors revealed that it will no longer support CarPlay in its electric vehicles starting from 2024 models, while Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe doubled down on his company’s resistance to CarPlay.
General Motors’ decision and Scaringe’s comments have been widely opposed by CarPlay users. In a statement released to 9to5Mac on Thursday, Ford made it clear that it has no plans to abandon CarPlay unlike some of its peers.
A Ford spokesperson said, “We will continue to offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because customers like being able to easily access and control the features of their smartphone applications – especially our EV customers, as some EVs currently do not offer these features.”
For many years, Ford has been a strong supporter of CarPlay and Android Auto. The company recently launched firmware updates for several vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E, to further improve the CarPlay experience.
Doug Field, a former Apple executive who led the Apple Car “Project Titan” team for years, now serves as the Vice President of “EV and Digital Systems” at Ford. Ford is also on the list of car manufacturers committed to supporting Apple’s next-generation CarPlay platform.
