skullgiver , 6 hours ago

The OS offers fewer services. That means developing for Android Auto is more work, some app features simply don’t work, and maintainance is even worse than on normal Android. Who needs Doze power saving when you’ve got a few dozen liters of fuel in the back? The stuff that it doesn’t do can sometimes be done by a connected phone instead, which also saves the CPU of the head unit some cycles.

Plus, the OS can be designed for fast boot. Android generally isn’t. How often do you even reboot your phone? The important part is that once it’s running, it doesn’t suck down too much power. It doesn’t really matter if it takes 30 seconds to boot because that’s 30 seconds every month. A car needs to start and be ready to use in seconds.

The infotainment screen also contains a lot of stuff that it doesn’t need to load anything for because it’s handled by another CPU running elsewhere in the car. Your infotainment system isn’t usually controlling your speedometer, window wipers, or AC, it just provides a button that sends a network packet to a bunch of other computers that take care of the featurea for you. Turning on your car actually turns on a dozen of tiny computers.

Also, your infotainment system isn’t hooked up to a 3000mAh battery. It can suck down voltage like crazy compared to phones or tablets. Outfit a mobile CPU from a few years ago with a heat sink and disable power savings and that thing will suddenly become tolerable.

Lastly, not every head unit is that fast. I’ve been in cars that took full minutes to get to a state where navigation would allow input. Android Auto and Carplay units may be slow, but they’re lightning fast compared to what car manufacturers would put in their cars if it weren’t for Big Tech’s hardware requirements.