Hyundai must feel good about the U.S. market right now: It just posted “record-breaking” November sales, led by its electric and hybrid vehicles.
It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch for the South Korean automaker to believe it must be doing something right about answering the demands of the market. And at least one recurring feature at Hyundai has been a willingness to keep offering a flexible range of options for drivers.
The latest example comes in the form of Hyundai’s commitment to continue offering CarPlay and Android Auto, the in-car phone-mirroring apps.
“Right now, we’re still maintaining Android Auto and Carplay,” Olabisi Boyle, senior vice president of product planning at Hyundai, told InsideEVs in a new interview.
Of course, Hyundai has the benefit of having witnessed the negative reactions that followed General Motors’ 2023 decision to stop offering the apps for its vehicles. According to a McKinsey study, not having these apps available is enough of a factor to turn off nearly half of new-vehicle buyers.
But keeping all options available is also part of Hyundai’s approach to the market.
“It’s a little bit like EV charging,” Boyle says. “As we’re moving, give people all the options.”
Hyundai vehicles already provided access to charging stations via the traditional combined charging system (CCS) ports. But the automaker decided to also provide Tesla’s NACS charging ports, giving drivers access to over 28,000 SuperChargers in North America, for its new Ioniq 5.
Of course, keeping or ditching CarPlay and Android Auto is a question that never came up for the likes of Tesla and Rivian: They never offered the apps in the first place, preferring to develop their own cutting-edge software and electrical systems.
Boyle thinks Hyundai and the whole auto industry may eventually find better alternatives to CarPlay and Android Auto. “That may be the future,” she says.
But in the meantime, Hyundai is sticking to its philosophy of covering all the bases.