Ford will not follow in the footsteps of rival General Motors in ditching Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, chief executive Jim Farley recently told The Wall Street Journal.
General Motors is of the belief that with its forthcoming electric vehicles, it can develop an infotainment system that’s better than Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It also says that having its own system will allow it to collect and analyze data from customers and sell them service subscriptions, potentially unlocking a huge source of revenue.
When asked by The Wall Street Journal what he thinks about GM’s decision, Farley said there isn’t a ton of money to be made inside a vehicle.
Read: Ford Is Losing Almost $60,000 For Every EV It Sells
“There are two camps in the software interior car OEMs, Tesla and as it turns out, now GM and the others,” Farley said. “We’re in the other group. I think the first three shippable software content that will be cool for customers is not the interior digital experience. The interior has to be really well done but in terms of content, we kind of lost that battle 10 years ago. So get real with it because you’re not going to make a ton of money on content inside the vehicle, it’s going to be safety/security, partial autonomy, and productivity in our eyes.”
Farley then added that 70% of Ford’s customers in the U.S. are Apple customers.
“Why would I go to an Apple customer and say ‘good luck?’ That doesn’t seem customer-centric. Apple does a really good job so our philosophy is different. Our philosophy is we’re gonna make the best Android, CarPlay experience you can imagine. We’ll put on top of it really good customization opportunities for the customers so they can kind of get what they want out of the interior experience. Let’s ship great productivity, partial autonomy, safety and security software as that’s where the data of the car makes the difference.”
