Rivian CEO Says His Vehicles Will Never Get Apple CarPlay

Image: Rivian

Despite being a requirement for many car buyers, Rivian is one of the few automakers that doesn’t use Apple CarPlay. Rivian’s founder and CEO confirmed Monday the automaker won’t be using CarPlay in any of its vehicles any time in the future either.

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Speaking to the Verge’s editor in chief Nilay Patel on the site’s Decoder podcast, RJ Scaringe likened Rivian using Apple CarPlay to Apple using Windows as an operating system instead of developing its own OS. He told Patel he wants to create a unique operating experience for owners.

“We have a great relationship with Apple,” he said. “As much as I love their products, there’s a reason that ironically is very consistent with Apple ethos for us to want to control the ecosystem.” CarPlay isn’t “consistent with how we think about really creating a pure product experience,” Scaringe said.

Essentially, Scaringe doesn’t want Apple in control of what he describes as Rivian’s “ecosystem.” He gave an example of what he meant by pure product ecosystem: CarPlay’s inability to do vehicle functions without having to leave the CarPlay App.

One example given by Scaringe includes CarPlay’s inability to “leverage other parts of the vehicle experience,” which would require Rivian customers to leave the app in order to do things like open the vehicle’s front trunk. “We’ve taken the view of the digital experience in the vehicle wants to feel consistent and holistically harmonious across every touchpoint,” said Scaringe.

Scaringe did mention that some of CarPlay’s most popular and desirable features would come to Rivian eventually, but only “on an à la carte basis.”

Rivian recently updated its native infotainment system and, according to our own Daniel Golson, the system is excellent and runs seamlessly. Rivian isn’t alone in ditching Apple’s infotainment app; GM announced it would ditch CarPlay in favor of its own infotainment system last year. It wasn’t too long ago that automakers had their infotainment systems roundly panned by owners and critics, but maybe they’ve learned enough to mimic or even improve on the CarPlay experience. An automaker just has to make sure its own system is just as good or better.