Tesla’s Walled Garden May Finally Get an Apple Gate
canadianPhotographer56 / Shutterstock
Toggle Dark Mode
Tesla owners may have something extra to be thankful for this holiday season, as the carmaker appears to be making preparations to finally embrace CarPlay in its vehicles.
Tesla has been one of the longest — and most notable — holdouts in not supporting Apple’s CarPlay system. While the iPhone would seem like a natural fit for Tesla’s high-tech vehicles, the company has always preferred to control its software from top to bottom.
While Tesla’s intransigence may have been understandable in the early years of CarPlay, by 2017, nearly a quarter of new car buyers surveyed considered a lack of CarPlay a deal-breaker, and over half said it would be enough to tilt the scales when shopping for a new vehicle. By 2021, over 80 percent of new vehicles had CarPlay built in, leaving Tesla as the odd one out.
The unique nature of Tesla’s vehicles makes it an open question how much the lack of CarPlay support has hurt sales. Tesla’s customer base is already fiercely loyal — arguably as devoted as Apple’s — and it’s unclear how much the Venn diagram overlaps between the two. Still, that kind of fanbase means that some enterprising developers have come up with some clever workarounds.
The good news for those who do have one foot strongly in both ecosystems is that Tesla may finally be bowing to the inevitable. In a new report for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman and Edward Ludlow reveal that Tesla is actively developing support for CarPlay in its vehicles and could even roll it out in the next few months.
Mending Fences?
One thing that bodes well for CarPlay on Tesla is the end of what could have turned into a competitive rivalry between the two companies. The mythic Apple Car had been widely viewed as a spiritual cousin to the Tesla brand — another ultra-high-tech vehicle that could diminish Tesla’s competitive edge in the EV space. Apple never publicly admitted to working on such a thing, but the initiative — dubbed “Project Titan” — was probably its worst-kept secret for the better part of a decade.
However, that all came to a crashing halt last year when the Apple brass decided the company had poured enough billions into the project without seeing results. That makes Apple far less of a “frenemy” and lowers the risks of the two companies cozying up a bit more.
It doesn’t help that Tesla isn’t selling nearly as many cars these days. While there are surely plenty of reasons for that beyond CarPlay, some buyers have cited the lack of true iPhone integration as one of the reasons for not opting for a Tesla.
If CarPlay does make it onto Tesla’s center consoles, it will still be done in the company’s own unique way. Sources told Bloomberg that CarPlay will run in a window, rather than taking over the whole screen, leaving a lot of visual real estate for Tesla’s own features. It also won’t tie into Tesla’s own vehicle features. For example, users who want to use full self-driving mode won’t be able to rely on Apple Maps; they’ll have to use Tesla’s own navigation system instead.
That last point isn’t surprising, since it appears Tesla is only opting for the standard CarPlay, and not the more sophisticated CarPlay Ultra that Apple rolled out earlier this year. It’s far from alone in that, as the only brand currently on board is Aston Martin, and many of the automakers who committed to the idea early on, like Mercedes-Benz, have since reversed course. Even without those industry reversals, Tesla was the least likely candidate for CarPlay Ultra, which requires the kind of deep vehicle-systems integration the company would almost certainly balk at.
Tesla getting on board with CarPlay would be a major win for Apple, as it’s not just another vehicle brand, but one that fits Apple’s own in appealing to a more upwardly mobile and tech-savvy customer base. It would also take some of the sting out of GM’s recent decision to ditch CarPlay across all its vehicles.
It’s an ironic twist that while GM sees a future without Apple, Tesla may be willing to admit that its own ecosystem is strong enough to accommodate the iPhone without being overshadowed by it.
Still, CarPlay support is far from a sure thing at this point, and plans could change. After all, Tesla has been known to kill off features it’s spent even more time and resources on, so we wouldn’t bet on CarPlay until there’s an official announcement.
