How so? I mean, they're still manufacturing the actual car itself.

For software-eating-the-world reasons, I'd guess. A chance to differentiate your product as software does more and more, versus a big chunk of the experience being within someone else's control and the underlying vehicle being an interchangeable commodity.

I haven't tried it personally, but people seem pretty passionate about the software on the leading electric vehicle brand, plus its associated do-everything phone app letting you control the vehicle, find a charger, or even order a new model.

The situation will probably be like smart TVs for quite a while: lots of janky experiences and user-hostile behaviour, because it's just so valuable to own a software platform that every company tries.

You could already replace the stereo in a car if you didn't like it, but you still bought the car.

Not really anymore. Most cars don’t have a discrete radio head unit anymore. The radio is way too integrated with vehicle controls.

Maybe so, mine's 10 years old so I haven't checked more recently.

I assume you can stick a CarPlay supporting screen on top of the existing dashboard at least, but it'd be hard to integrate.

Android Automotive is now the native OS for new Volvo and Polestar vehicles. A far better option than anything custom from the manufacturer.

Weirdly enough I never had issues with my previous generation Volvo that used their proprietary OS (circa 2020) compared with the Android Auto built-in my latest Volvo (2023). I've noticed that my backup camera app can be slow to load almost sometimes failing to load or even loading and then crashing when you shift into reverse gear. I don't know if this is Android to be blamed or some flaky code by Volvo but makes me nervous nonetheless. On the plus side when everything works smoothly, its great to be able to load a wider library of Android auto apps compared with the measly selection of apps Volvo provided previously.

Don’t get me wrong. Android and Carplay are heads and shoulders above the manufacturers’ software. But that’s really bad for car manufacturers because the car will become the commodity while the service they provide won’t.