My own car is too old for Android Auto, but I sometimes drive a car that's from 2017 or so, and Android Auto works just fine on it, it's a pleasure to use (with the caveat that the phone has to be plugged in the USB port, wireless came later). So to me it seems like it always worked well.

My reflection was only that I was surprised at how well the built in apps worked when I tried them… but I definitely take it on board that it’s unlikely to still work this well 5, 10, or 15 years from now, so it’s important that the car still has projection available as a fallback.

It's puzzling to see this push for general computing on devices that need to far outlast the typical release cycle of GC devices. There is nothing good that can come out of installing Android in your TV, fridge, let alone a - for fuck's sake! - a car.

If your consumer hardware needs to last for decades, then the core functionality and automation should be provided by sturdy embedded computers that are self-contained and do not require any kind of network access or regular updates, while the general computing functions functions should be provided by the user's own device or a replaceable/upgradable computer with a standardized interface.

Now I have a lovely vision of the Android Auto device getting Garbage Collected when nothing depends on it.

Real life GC would be a fun project to see a geek movie of.

Android Auto is not Android on the car, it's a protocol that allows an Android phone to use the car's system as a display, with limited UI integration.

This is not what the GP is describing though, he's talking about the experience of a built in infotainment system running Android that can (for the time being) sync with his device.

They’ve at least got some incentive to keep this working so they can keep showing you ads.