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Bruce Newton17 Aug 2018
NEWS

Why Apple CarPlay is years away for Toyota Australia

And why Toyotas may never offer Android Auto smartphone connectivity here

iPhone integration in Toyota vehicles via Apple CarPlay is still years away in Australia.

And Android’s Auto equivalent may never be seen here.

Instead, Amazon’s Alexa voice-activated assistant is more likely to eventually make it into Toyota’s Australian new-vehicle line-up alongside CarPlay.

“It’s more in the scope of years than months,” confirmed Toyota Australia spokesman Orlando Rodriguez when asked about the local introduction timing for Apple CarPlay in Australia.

Expectations that Toyota Australia would finally start offering at least Apple CarPlay in its vehicles were heightened after Toyota and Lexus did a deal with Apple in North America recently.

The first Toyota launched with standard Apple CarPlay in North America was the Avalon earlier this year.

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Until that point Toyota had steadfastly resisted allowing smartphone brands access to its vehicle multimedia systems, primarily because it did not want to share the data being harvested.

But a fear of losing new-generation customers drove the change of policy.

Toyota’s new 12th generation Corolla is now on sale in North America with Apple CarPlay (pictured), but Toyota Australia spokesman Orlando Rodriguez said different technology fitted to the new Corolla launched here last week stopped Australia following suit.

“In the United States their multimedia platform is different on Corolla to ours,” he explained. “It has been developed to be compatible with Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa.

“Our multimedia system is slightly different even if it looks much the same. What we are looking at is adopting that platform, modifying that to be able to be used in the Australian market.

“It may not end up being rolled out in Corolla first. It might end up being in another vehicle before that because it’s more about the development of the platform itself rather than individual head units.

“Once that development is done and the platform can be used here the chances of it rolling out are high.”

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Toyota in North America is citing “privacy concerns” as the reason it has not yet done a deal with Google to use Android Auto.

“It’s highly unlikely we will get Android Auto here,” confirmed Rodriguez.

Nor is there a decision yet about retrofitting Apple CarPlay to Toyota vehicles in Australia.

“It’s too early to say about that,” said Rodriguez. “But it is something we will be looking at hard,” he confirmed.

Mazda Australia will fit Apple Car Play as standard in all models it launches from now on, starting with the upgraded CX-3 later this month, then the updated CX-9 and MX-5 in September.

Australia’s number two vehicle brand behind Toyota has also announced that Apple CarPlay will be retro-fittable in Mazda vehicles built from 2014 onwards and fitted with the MZD Connect system, but is yet to announce pricing.

Toyota’s resistance to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto makes the Corolla – Australia’s top-selling car — one of the few small cars without them, and also extends to its luxury sister brand Lexus, which is yet to offer any models with either system.

But Rodriguez played down the prospect of Toyota Australia losing sales because the smartphone-mirroring technologies were missing from its vehicles, which instead come with the company’s proprietary Toyota Link multimedia system.

“Our research has shown there is a strong desire for those features, but it’s not something that is necessarily causing us to lose sales.

“So, it’s not a make or break proposition.”

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