Volvo to Use Google Assistant, Play Store and Maps in Next-Gen Infotainment

Finally a car manufacturer realizes it can&#x27;t out-compete a software company at making good software.<p>The reason infotainment sucks so hard is that car companies want to &quot;own the experience&quot; and also want to cut costs, so they underinvest and create poor experiences.

If you want Next-Gen infotainment with Assistant and Maps, you need to buy a new shiny Volvo car... or, you know, just use your Android phone and hack a Raspberry Pi and install Crankshaft on it.<p>Crankshaft does all of the above, plus it doesn&#x27;t talk to the cloud, doesn&#x27;t require you to be connected to &quot;the cloud,&quot; doesn&#x27;t collect your data, doesn&#x27;t ask you to buy a new expensive car, doesn&#x27;t nudge you to subscribe to any service, and has a stallmanism approach to software freedom.<p>Disclaimer: I made it.

The switch to Google Maps will definitely be nice since their current maps are crap. Not sure about the other pieces but it probably can&#x27;t get worse than it currently is. I have the newest XC90 and the on-screen stuff is absolutely horrible. I run into many bugs every day and the response from support has been abysmal.

Considering the lifecycle of a car vs an Android device, they better just build in a touch screen w&#x2F; a HDMI + USB connection, and let the compute brains get swapped out inexpensively ...

It will be interesting to see how useful this will be vs. vanilla Android Auto &amp; CarPlay.<p>I&#x27;ve had CarPlay for the last couple years, and I use it exclusively now. Even for things like radio, I&#x27;ve started using the Sirius app via CarPlay instead of the native radio interface. I don&#x27;t use built-in navigation either, I just use my phone&#x27;s on the same head unit.<p>What kind of benefits can the deliver through a tighter integration? And will they be able to keep it up-to-date as easily I keep my phone up-to-date? Will be interesting to watch.

I feel like all I really want is Chromecast&#x2F;AirPlay and otherwise the car should mostly be a dumb terminal.<p>Install the Volvo app on my phone, pair, done.<p>don&#x27;t really want random apps running in my car.

Why can I trust a multi-national company to track movements and locations over time of a personal vehicle ?

What&#x27;s Volvo&#x27;s plan regarding OS and security updates?<p>If I&#x27;m going to have a car connected at all time to a LTE network, I want the software on it to be secure.

Looking at how bad car companies are at security it makes sense to have someone that knows how it is done<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bleepingcomputer.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;security&#x2F;volkswagen-and-audi-cars-vulnerable-to-remote-hacking&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bleepingcomputer.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;security&#x2F;volkswagen-an...</a> Volkswagen and Audi Cars Vulnerable to Remote Hacking

With the rate at which Google deprecates software this seems like a bad idea.

Here&#x27;s a demo of the Volvo system<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2BuRMdjij4g" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2BuRMdjij4g</a><p>Here&#x27;s Audi&#x27;s system<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2Xf5hVqZHPY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2Xf5hVqZHPY</a>

Man I was really hoping they would bootstrap something awesome. Since they were acquired by Geely I was thinking that they would go there own path and pave a way for AI cars in China’s future.<p>Maybe they are just evaluating it to get an idea of what to copy in the future?

I need Google maps more then most as have poor sense of direction. But so dangerous looking at phone. Love to just have Google maps built into the car.

I own a Volvo but not a mobile device? Any &quot;advanced&quot; tech baked into a vehicle makes zero sense to me. Tech runs in to 2-3 yr leap cycles. An auto can last you (+ a 2nd or 3rd owner) 10+ years.<p>Why would a manufacturer intentionally hurt the Blue Book value of their vehicles?

So, can I replace these or are they embedded-embedded?<p>The Google Assistant seems to have custom code, so it would be understandable, if I can&#x27;t replace that, but then it&#x27;s hopefully at least possible to turn it off.<p>If not, I&#x27;m not buying a Volvo in my lifetime.

I was thinking about getting a volvo, not a google car, so this is a deal breaker for me.

Interesting considering that Volvo are Chinese owned. Since their parent company are at the front of EV development and since the 5 year plan of China is 80% of the global EV market it looks to me like we will have lots of Waymo cars in due course. Maybe they have decided to go with mere Carplay for now with a view to future Waymo tech being what the real deal is to be.<p>In car tech is set on autopilot features which stymies development of anything that does not share that future. You can&#x27;t invest $$$ in the next dashboard gizmos if you know that autopilot is going to &#x27;change everything&#x27;. So it makes sense to just hnd it all over to Google now.

Nice. Stand by for roadside billboards linked into your Google account which flashes custom advertising as your car nears.<p>Google - &quot;You are our product&quot;