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Comment by tt | Hacker News Reader

Once an OEM opens up its vehicle data and control to Android (and/or Google Automotive), it's game over for them. The OEM becomes a commodity hardware maker. Plenty of analogy with mobile phones manufacturers. The OEM will not make a dime after the sale of the vehicle while Google will build and strengthen a development platform to enable third-party applications and services and profit from them (something Google knows how to do really well). Think Turo/Getaround, cleaning, refueling, charging, insurance, package delivery, in-car applications, etc.

One way out of this is for the major OEMs to band together and create their own standardized platform that works across OEMs. At minimum, that platform should expose a single standard interface to all third-party service providers.

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>One way out of this is for the major OEMs to band together and create their own standardized platform that works across OEMs. At minimum, that platform should expose a single standard interface to all third-party service providers.

This already exists, and it's why there's a slew of Bluetooth-enabled apps on the app stores that let you self-diagnose your own car. It's called OBD-II and it's federally mandated on every vehicle since 1996 in the US and since 2003 in the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics

The OBD interface is too cumbersome (vehicle owners have to mess with hardware installation, etc...) and is more geared towards aftermarket devices and software. This effort must be at the core of each OEM and be completely seamless to the end-users and even third-party developers.

OBD-II isn't actually a real standard. The OEMs all tack on additional stuff to it, so none of the implementations are fully compatible with each other. Ford and Mazda, for instance, use a medium-speed CAN bus that other OEMs don't, so most OBD-II readers can't access anything on that bus. Also, the whole point of OBD was supposed to be standardizing diagnostic messages so anyone could read the trouble codes. However, all the OEMs have lots of proprietary codes that aren't in the standard. The whole thing is a mess.

Finally, OBD-II isn't a standard bus anyway. It's an interface to the end user or technician. The various modules on the car are interconnected with a variety of buses: CAN (high-speed or low-speed or medium-speed), LIN, MOST, etc.

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