Porsche Reportedly Considering Google Connected Car Deal

Carmaker Porsche is reportedly considering integrating Google software into its vehicles.

The deal would let Porsche drivers access applications such as Google Maps without having to connect their cars to an Android device, Reuters reported Thursday (Jan. 12), citing a source close to the German automaker.

The arrangement is only being considered for Porsche vehicles, and not for Porsche’s parent company Volkswagen at large, the source said.

PYMNTS has contacted both companies for comment but has not yet received a reply.

In an earnings call last year, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said the company had talked to Apple and other tech companies in 2021 about possible joint projects.

“We already have Apple CarPlay,” he said of the software that connects iPhones to most new cars. “We will expand on that. We discussed a range of exciting projects with the Apple [executives].”

Google, meanwhile, recently expanded its connected car partnership with carmaker Renault, allowing the automaker to offer over-the-air software updates to its vehicles.

“We want to make the car an intelligent object that learns and one that can be upgraded over the air like a mobile phone,” Renault CEO Luca de Meo told Bloomberg News in November.

The two companies began working together in 2018. The extended collaboration helps Renault boost its “end-to-end digital transformation, from the design of the car to its market launch through its production,” de Meo said.

As PYMNTS has written, these collaborations are part of a potential boom in the global automotive software market, which one recent study projects will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% by the end of the decade. That’s according to “Reshaping Global Business With Connected Vehicles,” a collaboration between PYMNTS and American Express.

“Connected cars will drive the transformation of global wireless data networks to more sophisticated personalized and experiences,” Tatia Adams Fox, vice president and general manager of the Travel and Entertainment National Client Group at American Express, said when interviewed for the report.

“They will also drive B2B and B2C businesses to aggressively invest in innovative connected vehicle technologies as well as market and consumer data that inevitably create new revenue streams,” Fox said.

PYMNTS also noted last month that the rise of connected vehicles could be hampered by an ongoing shortage of chips.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Onsemi CEO Hassane El-Khoury said his company had already “sold out” of silicon carbide chips (SiC), advanced power semiconductors chiefly used in electric cars, at least to the end of 2023 due to demand. demand.

“There’s nothing you can do now to change 2023,” said El-Khoury. “We will be adding capacity every quarter, every month in 2023 to meet our customer demand.”