All car infotainment systems are essentially garbage. But BMW and Porsche both have excellent CarPlay support.

The infotainment screen in my Tesla is great. Just the other day I had to drive a relatives car and used google maps navigation on my phone, I was amazed at how subpar google maps navigation is compared to tesla (lacking ability to quickly overview route, missing lane based navigation, screen never auto recenters as you drive)

Google Maps has lane navigation. IDK what you mean about 'auto' recentering. I think it does this though.

There used to be a zoom out/overview feature, but it's def not in Android Auto these days.

Both Tesla's navigation system and Google Maps suck, but in different ways. Neither is able to suggest the best routes - Google Maps will try to make me waste 4km and 6 minutes suggesting a crappy route - only to update (showing much improved distance and ETA) when I disregard its guidance and take what road I know is more direct. The Tesla maps are surprisingly better in this regard but they are often completely unaware of traffic or road closures (this is in Germany mind you - maybe in the US they behave better). Also they flood you with useless instructions (keep left to stay on Highway XX. How about you only tell me when it's time to leave the highway, not to remain on it?).

I just look at both in the morning, make my own opinion on what road would be best, then I close them both and use Waze for the alerts.

But for example, if I'm traveling somewhere far away, with charging stops, I _have_ to use the Tesla maps because the car will then start preheating the battery on approach to a charger.

with there being a limited number of auto manufacturers, with the general consensus seeming to be that consumers should own increasingly nothing and increasingly like it, there aren’t many alternatives.

which is why it becomes less and less crazy to imagine apple offering a car subscription - might as well, they have the payment platform and the customers have already spent their anger on the incumbents. not that apple is alone.

I've tried Android Auto a couple of times and it was much worse than the BMW's iDrive for navigation and for the entertainment. Perhaps different consumers have different preferences?

That’s also my experience. However my wife still prefers to use CarPlay over iDrive, mainly because of access to messaging in WhatsApp (CarPlay reads the messages to you and it’s possible to reply back via voice to text).

I'm guessing that when buying a car most people can't afford to be picky with the infotainment system and will prioritize buying a better car over infotainment quality.

Worst-case scenario these days is not too bad either, you'll get an aux connector or somewhat stable Bluetooth (if you set it up once and avoid doing anything other than play/pause/next). Yeah, from the software engineering point of view it's slow unreliable crap, but as a consumer you have little power to fix things.

As a data point, I buy used cars because they are not a tool I use for work so they are not like my laptop. It's pointless to pay the full price for a car: it is 100% a cost, the car has not ways to give me back some of the money I spend on it.

So my cars are always about 5 or 6 years old when I buy them. I optimize for price and costs of running and maintaining them. What's important is that they handle well, brake as they should, be reasonably safe in case of crashes and that's it.

Infotainment and navigation, I put my phone on a holder and I use it. The car could be a dumb one from 70 years ago and I wouldn't notice. I only use Bluetooth to make hand free calls. If it had no Bluetooth I guess I'd have to find some solution for a noise canceling mic.

By the way, my current car came with a version of Android auto that Google stopped supporting the year before I bought it and the manufacturer never updated the car. However I don't care, my phone is always updated and it's exactly the same UI I'm used to when I'm not in the car. This beats having to learn two of them.

How long do you keep such cars? Also, 5/6 years old depending on mileage & make is usually the time for some expensive part replacements. Eg. water pump, thermostat & related sensors for BMW F30.

I drive a 2006 diesel VW Beetle. I've had it for 7 years and aside from some electrical weirdness I've only had to change the oil. It cost me $6500. the infotainment system is a CD player with an aux cable. Amazing value.

(this car pre-dates the emissions scandal, I checked.)

I kept one car for 11 years. I was doing very little km. I bought my current car 3 years ago. I'm doing more km now. Maybe my next car has already been sold. I'm not liking what I see around. At least the lower end cars I buy have less enshittyfication inside. My friend's Mercedes and BMWs are a nightmare. They want to do too much and in their own way. They (and their manufacturers) should accept that they are only tools like a screwdriver.

Do the expensive part replacements even get close to the price difference of getting a new car? What if you try to account for insurance and maintenance?

I bought a 2017 Mercedes a few months ago and was disgusted to find that I was unable to update my map data beyond 2020. In the first week of ownership I had driven on to roads that didn't exist in their map.

Also, it appeared to have no network connection so would not pick routes according to traffic.

I spent $600 on an aftermarket CarPlay and Android Auto device and couldn't be happier.

Punish how? What can I do after I bought a car which I intend to drive for at least the next 10 years?

BMW infotainment system has been considered the bet in the market for a long time. Far from shitty experience.

How would you compare that with Tesla? For high end cars, I mentally compare in car compute UX to using an iPad and Tesla was the first car company that impressed me. BMW does not belong on the same tier.