The car industry A/B tested selling a car with and without CarPlay

The 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

This 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...

Yeah 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.

We 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.

Were 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.

It’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.

GM 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.

I 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?

This 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.

I would not buy a car with carplay. I don't want any tech in my car.

A 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.

I 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)

If I didn't know they were the same car I'd probably take Honda without carplay over a Chevrolet with it.

I 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.

Saying 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.

“ 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.

There 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.

I 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.

That's... not what an ab test is.

Even 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).

It 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.

This is not an A/B test, it’s confirmation bias at best

Is it a real A/B test? Honda's reputation is much better than Chevy's overall, regardless of infotainment system.

I would pick Honda over Chevy regardless of car play.

This 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.

I 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.

So like an option....

I 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.

TFA 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.