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!