Apple CarPlay? Meh.

How the heck does that work? I believe you spelled it out previously, but that sounds like the Kafkaesque school of economics.

 

Yeah, it's hard to believe. But that's the number I get. I paid a total of ~$23K for my 2020 PP LE MSRP of $28814 purchased 10 mo ago. This is the OTD price with all fees and tax, registration, etc. I am due to receive a full $4502 tax credit for this purchase. Making the final cost to me at ~$18.5K. I just sold the car for ~$22.5K to Carvana after 10 months of driving ~3700miles. That is a net gain of ~$4000 on the car. If I calculate all the fuel, electricity, insurance, tax, fees, accessories for the car, everything I spent on the car for the last 10 months, it comes up to be a net gain of ~$180/mo or ~$1800 total pure gain to own and operate this car for 10 months.

 

Yeah, seriously, those opps don’t exist around here. Or even decent Toyota incentives on Prime, which seem inexistent in Canada. The best I see is 1.9% financing, or 2.9% on 60 months for the prior model year (2020).

We did benefit from a large incentive on our Leaf in 2016 ($12.5K, just before it was upped to $14K), so we paid around $27K for a $40K car (loaded SL model). I didn’t really look closely in the 6 months-1 year that follow, but pretty sure the best would have been losing $3-$5K on the car. The incentives ended in 2018 or 2019 (don’t remember exactly). Currently, AutoTrader has a couple 2016 Leafs for around $14K, but lower trims. So in theory we could probably get $15K or $16K, but that is still a nearly 50% depreciation in about 5 years. Meh. We’ll keep the car. Anyway, I digress, getting OT here.

On the topic of CarPlay, I did get a chance to use it last year when we rented a 2019 Sienna for long road trip to Florida, and it was great to run Waze on the car screen. I especially liked how the phone acted as a second screen that had full screen turn by turn directions while the car screen had the map. My next car will certainly have CarPlay.

 

Just for the fun of it, when I got the offer from Carvana (an online used car seller/buyer), I looked at used BEVs. Yeah, I did find quite a few older Leafs with relatively low miles on them selling for a very affordable price. But, for the US market with a huge cashback and tax credit, buying a new 2020 Leaf is still a far better deal than buying a used Leaf. For example, one offer I got from a dealer was $39K (either loaded SV or base S Plus) could be purchased around $28K OTD. After $7500 tax credit, the final cost will be around $20K or roughly half of the MSRP. Almost the same used 2020 Leaf SV was selling at Carvana for $23K.

BTW, which is your wife's car? Leaf or PiP?

 

As someone who has been using CarPlay on my '19 Bolt since end of Jan 2019 and also used it on two rental cars ('19 Altima and '18 Elantra), I like it.

It is NOT a copy of the iPhone's screen. It is NOT screen mirroring.

For navigation apps, for the two I usually use (Waze and Apple Maps), if you're receiving guidance, the phone's screen can display directions a few steps ahead. Also, for apps like Spotify, there are some extra controls and buttons on the phone's screen not on the car's display.

Attached are examples from long ago (old iOS versions) on my Bolt using Apple Maps vs. Waze on a rental Altima.

 

I doubt that'll happen anytime in the near future (say 5 years), despite "rumors". Yes, but you'll need to get a car with either wireless CarPlay support or you'll need to buy an adapter to enable that in cars with only wired CarPlay (most of the existing and even some new vehicles out there w/CarPlay). There are some 3rd-party ones of the latter but their reliability is questionable.

I will be rather annoyed if it ever happens.

 

Im out of the subject i was looking to one of your older post about a nintendo popeye tabletop that you found long time ago... do you still have it... if so and if you have interest about sale it... contact me

 

She drives the Leaf and I have the Prius since I did much more driving for my job in Sales (pre-Covid). The PiP was intended to be a “temporary” car until the Prime was available since I was in a position where I had to replace my 2nd Gen in 2016, but alas life got in the way (and the Prime came out as a 4-seater which was a bit negative for me, etc) and here we are...

 

Don't have an iPhone and no intention of buying one, so CarPlay is not important for me. But, my feeling is that Toyota's implementation of CarPlay on the 2020 model and up (and probably AA on the 2021 model and up) seems to rely on the functioning Toyota App on the head unit. At least that seemed to be the case for my 2020 PP LE with a 7" display.

The problem I encountered was that during the short time I have owned the car there were several HU app update that was required in order to keep using any phone-based apps. This Update requirement happened at the worst timing for me. And unlike usual app updates that can be ignored and keep using the older version, in the case of Toyota HU, it cannot be ignored. Until I update the app, all the functionality is disabled.

This was so crazy. I had the Update required warning that came up in the middle of the trip where I had a very unreliable internet connection and did not have time to play with the phone or car set up. I lost the navigation (Scout GPS), Alexa, and all of the Entune based apps (weather, traffic, music, etc.). I had to use unlinked stand-alone phone apps for the rest of the way home.

All the complications of the connected apps via smartphone, made me rethink the usefulness of CarPlay or AndroidAuto.