At Code­lab, we own rich auto­mo­ti­ve expe­ri­ence with various embedded plat­forms, but we con­stant­ly track new tech­no­lo­gies that will dri­ve auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try in the future. We see that Android Auto­mo­ti­ve has poten­ti­al in future deve­lo­p­ment of auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try as an alter­na­ti­ve OS offe­red by Goog­le. As engi­neers who know Android as mobi­le OS and how it can con­nect to car info­tain­ment sys­tems, we are inte­res­ted to see how the new OS will work on dif­fe­rent types of hard­ware. We are also curious to see how it works with exter­nal devices and what the dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween Android Auto­mo­ti­ve and the other tech­no­lo­gies used in the indus­try are.

What’s Android Automotive?
It’s an Ope­ra­ting Sys­tem craf­ted for use in vehic­le dash­boards intro­du­ced in 2017 by Goog­le and Intel in coope­ra­ti­on with Vol­vo and Audi. Crea­tors cla­im not only it could be used as an info­tain­ment sys­tem but also it could con­trol some car func­tions. Android Auto­mo­ti­ve OS based on AOSP (Android Open Source Pro­ject) might be a useful code­ba­se for car manu­fac­tu­r­ers who may want to use it as a base for their own ver­si­on of ope­ra­ting sys­tem. Android Auto­mo­ti­ve is Android, it shares the same repo­si­to­ry as Android ship­ped on pho­nes, tablets, car radi­os, wat­ches, hel­mets etc. Android Auto­mo­ti­ve extends Android with fea­tures, requi­re­ments and tech­no­lo­gies which are spe­ci­fic to auto­mo­ti­ve industry.

Is this alre­a­dy used?
It’s alre­a­dy used in Pole­star – brand of Volvo’s elec­tric cars. Pole­star 2 is the first car using Android Auto­mo­ti­ve OS. As this tech­no­lo­gy is new and as every new thing, it needs time for deve­lo­p­ment and test­ing. All bugs and errors need to be fixed to pro­vi­de safe­ty for its users – that’s a key part of auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try – cars need to meet very high stan­dards of safe­ty for cus­to­mers. As we watch the indus­try evol­ve, we see that Android Auto­mo­ti­ve OS might be an inte­res­t­ing alter­na­ti­ve. Espe­ci­al­ly that Goog­le is ste­adi­ly incre­asing its invol­vement in car tech­no­lo­gies: self-dri­ving car (WAY­MO), navi­ga­ti­on, pho­ne con­nec­ti­vi­ty etc.

Who from auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try is inte­res­ted in using Android Auto­mo­ti­ve software?
The first was Vol­vo and Audi, then in Sep­tem­ber 2018 Renault-Nis­san-Mitsu­bi­shi Alli­ance, Gene­ral Motors in Sep­tem­ber 2019 and the PSA Group in July 2020. As Android Auto­mo­ti­ve is new for this indus­try and we alre­a­dy see well-known brands using it, we can only sup­po­se that in the future other auto­mo­ti­ve com­pa­nies could be inte­res­ted in using this tech­no­lo­gy in their cars.

Did you know?
We are loo­king for Android Auto­mo­ti­ve Developers!