Toyota & Lexus Look to Ford for Infotainment Solution

krew

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krew
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Toyota and Ford are exploring a collaboration in regards to smartphone vehicle intergration, using Ford’s SmartDeviceLink (SDL) technology.
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Oh really? The MyLink is a disaster, it's extremly cumbersome to use and frustrating. Why don't Toyota collaborate with Sony, or Panasonic, to solve this problem? Frankly, i love the plush ride of a Lexus, but its infotainment system, especially on the LX570, looks outdated and really complicatied. But at least, it's far better than the CUE and Jaguar Land Rover's system.
 
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Why do car companies insist of thinking they can write better software than software companies?! Classic case in point was the BMW i3 that wasn't even using a secure channel for communication. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31093065
 

DoingDamage

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The quicker a car company can integrate someone's smart phone into their media system, the better. I don't think Toyota needs to team up with Ford, but with some software technology companies, like Google.

It would be a dream to use apps that are on my phone in my car's electronic system. Waze would be my GPS (no more buying expensive updated maps, lets me know Police are ahead, better traffic). Google would be my choice for search engine. No expensive upgrade to have SiriusXM in your car, when you can get the App. The idea is to have the apps YOU like to use, and not to be limited.

Maybe Lexus needs to team up with Samsung, LG, or someone, put out a smart phone or tablet, and have seamless integration. Get emails or text when maintenance is required, the key fob can be your phone, turns on bluetooth when detected inside the car, be able to adjust the thermostat at your house from inside your vehicle's system, etc.... Right now, I roll around with my Tablet sitting in front of the Lexus system, hooked up via bluetooth. The only thing that I need the Lexus system for is climate controls and maintenance items. If I had those 2 integrated in my tablet, ........ Have the speech recognition able to send text messages, if you had a HUD it could read you text messages or subjects of an email.

Then, you open up highly skilled app developers to come in and invent, create, push the limits. Just my two cents.
 

GuoxJason

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So Lexus wanted something more reliable by avoiding Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and going to Ford's system that ruined Ford's quality ratings... One of those absurd things that corporate Lexus does.
 

corradoMR2

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Although I'm a Microsoft fan, I wasn't a fan of the My Touch when I had a rental on a recent business trip. It's laggy and unresponsive at times. Not sure if the new gen will have MS bones but it better be rock solid to be Lexus (or Toyota)-worthy.
 

jwk

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This is the biggest mistake that Toyota is making.
This was the same mistake Nokia did and they went out of the mobile phone business.
They bet on Microsoft's small and relative unknown Windows Mobile solution. Where are they now.

It is simple things like car info-system that are going to change the world.

Please Toyota already the Kia's and Hundiah's are giving u a hard time. Android and iOS devices are everywhere in the world, why make a decision to alienate yourself.

Be careful of your advices, they would lead you to doom.
 

Mohammed Taha

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Apple and Google can provide, maps, apps and a few other fancy things but when it comes down to accessing and integrating with the car, none of the two will go that deep. Most android phones/tablets are a copy of each other with minor differences. Most of the differences are cosmetic but the internal are almost the same. So should Lexus spend it's time making changes to their car to work with the software or make changes to software so that it works for the car?

Open source means that they can collaborate during R&D, understand the intricacies of the platform, which is essentially a media engine, but operate independently.

Finally, did any of you actually look into SDL?

SDL officially supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android. Support for other platforms may be found in the source code.

Lexus will have to use an OS where they can use SDL on, the question is, which one!
 
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Dreski

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So did Toyota HQ spend time in Ford's equipped with their infortainment system and was like "Presto! This is the system we want!" Jesus LORD! smh.... I've gotten their rental a few times this past two years and the only thing pleasurable was the USB connection to my iPhone. Horrible, laggy, dumb UI.
 
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http://wardsauto.com/vehicles-technology/lentz-says-privacy-concerns-behind-ford-tie
YORK TOWNSHIP, MI – Toyota’s partnership with Ford on telematics is an effort to respect “the desires of our buyers and the privacy that they demand.”

So says Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz here ahead of a groundbreaking ceremony for an expansion of the automaker’s Ann Arbor-area technical centers.

Last week, Toyota announced it was exploring doing an open-source version of Ford’s AppLink connected-car infotainment system.


“Who controls (the) data (created by using these systems)? We believe it’s the customers,” Lentz says when asked why Toyota simply would not use an Apple or Android-based connected-car system, as many of its competitors are doing.


“Not everyone in the industry may share that same belief,” he says of data-ownership concerns.


The tie-up with Ford is another element of a partnership that began in 2009 when Toyota and the Dearborn, MI-based automaker were going to develop a one-motor hybrid pickup. That collaboration is now defunct.


Outside of the world of telematics, Lentz says he would consider Google and Apple to be competitors if they moved into making automobiles. But he cautions they may not know what they’re in for.


“It’s one thing to compete in telematics, it’s another thing to compete in automobiles,” he tells media during a roundtable discussion. “You don’t see too many new entrants (in the auto industry), because it’s a very, very costly, very difficult business to be in.”


Further on the issue of tie-ups, Lentz says Toyota has no interest in pairing with FCA and that he has not personally been contacted by FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne. He doesn’t believe his bosses at Toyota headquarters in Japan have, either.

“It’s something that we would not be interested in. We have enough scale right now to do what we need to do,” he says while lauding FCA’s Jeep brand as a valuable asset in these times of low fuel prices.

Lentz, now located at Toyota’s new North American headquarters city of Plano, TX, was in Michigan for the groundbreaking for two new buildings to be built at the automaker’s campus in York Township, 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Detroit.

Some 250 employees have relocated or will relocate from Toyota’s former purchasing unit in Erlanger, KY, to a new 130,000-sq.-ft. (12,077 sq.-m) building, while 50 employees will work in a new 260,000-sq.-ft. (24,155 sq.-m) prototype development facility. The prototype-center employees are moving from two separate facilities in nearby Plymouth or Livonia, MI.

Additionally, 85 Toyota powertrain workers are moving from California to existing TTC office space.

Toyota also is building a 50,000-sq.-ft. (4,645 sq.-m) expansion to its nearby powertrain campus in Ann Arbor proper.

The two York Twp. buildings and one Ann Arbor addition represent a $126 million investment by Toyota in its Michigan R&D facilities.

The York Twp. additions should be complete by late 2016. That’s roughly the same time Toyota will open its new North American headquarters in Plano, which consolidates many of the automaker’s North American departments onto one campus in a move Lentz bills as creating “One Toyota.”
 
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CIF

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As always, well said by Mark Templin. The only new automaker in modern times is Tesla, and they remain a highly niche automaker, who is led by a one-in-a-billion super-genius of a CEO in Elon Musk.
 

spwolf

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News media is not reporting this properly because they dont understand the technology.

So lets clarify this:
1. Android Auto and CarPlay go on the top of existing infotainment solutions, they do not replace them. This is biggest confusion - people thinking CarPlay replaced manufacturers infotainment - for instance in Volvo XC90 - this is not the case, it is basically an APP that runs on existing XC90 infotainment that integrates it with iOS when you connect iOS device. Otherwise you would have to own Android phone or iOS phone to use your vehicle. Both Android Auto and CarPlay ONLY work if you connect their matching phone to it.

2. New Ford infotainment solution - Sync3 is now QNX based... Toyota infotainment solution is also QNX based. No more Microsoft in Ford.

3. What is being discussed is common interface in QNX for app builders to build their apps. So basically Spotify could build single app and it would work on all Toyota and all Ford vehicles. Right now they have to build separate apps for Toyota and separate apps for new Ford Sync 3. This makes it much easier for app builders which means that there will be many more apps in the future.

4. All of the above being said, it has nothing to do with Android Auto or CarPlay because they would run on the top of customized QNX infotainment system that Sync 3 and Toyota use, not replace it. Basically it would be just an app in QNX. That way billions of people who dont have latest Android 5.01 and iOS 8.x can still use apps, and those who dont have (or dont have desire to connect theirs) Android/iOS phone can continue using their cars.