More on GM Dropping CarPlay

Brian Sozzi, reporting for Yahoo Finance:

GM told investors on Tuesday it’s looking to achieve profit margins of more than 20% on “new businesses” by 2030. That would be above the company’s overall 2030 operating margin goal of 12% to 14%.

Pros have speculated GM could charge subscriptions for services such as insurance by tapping into an accumulating stream of data that it owns.

“It’s part of where we’re going as a company,” Jacobson added. “Obviously data and software is a big competitive space across the board.”

The more I read about GM’s thinking, the more alarming it seems. It doesn’t seem to be about being able to provide a better experience than CarPlay, but instead about collecting surveillance data that Apple’s privacy rules don’t allow. Sozzi just breezes past this notion of using surveillance data to sell car insurance, but a car that reports such data to insurance companies seems like a privacy disaster. My insurance company doesn’t need to know how fast I drive, or where I go and when.

★ Friday, 28 April 2023