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It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me if I was buying a low cost used car, although at this point it has been around for long enough that even the beater Camry rental I’m driving right now has it.

But if I’m paying big bucks for a new car I can’t imagine not having CarPlay. Ironically it’s the expensive “high-tech” brands like Tesla and Rivian that don’t support it.

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My Tesla driving friend let his Tesla subscription lapse over a card failure last week, and the infotainment system, that has Spotify -- with an account he pays for -- no longer functions.

But like, if he paired his bluetooth, he'd get Spotify playback capability, he'd just have to use his voice to explore Spotify music.

Meanwhile, me in my 2004; with an aftermarket radio - with wireless tethering to my phone OR a google Fi sim, can do Carplay OR independently run maps and spotify -- for $0 extra a month.

You can still do wifi tethering and then the build in service will work.

According to the email I got from Tesla about an upcoming end of free Premium Connectivity, Music Streaming still works when tethered to a smartphone.

The main drawback of letting the subscription lapse is loss of live traffic data on the map. The other lost feature is satellite view maps. Everything else works when tethered via wifi.

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