Ford says “millions” of its vehicles will run on Google’s Android from 2023

Ford is the latest automaker to deliver its vehicle operating systems to Google. The Dearborn, Michigan based company said it will use Google’s Android to power the infotainment systems in “millions” of its cars starting in 2023. That means Google’s Voice-activated Assistant, Google Maps and other apps Android cars will be available in Ford cars without requiring the use of an Android smartphone.

The deep integration of Android will allow drivers and passengers to use Google Assistant to change things like weather settings, and will also allow for over-the-air updates that can add new features or solve some maintenance issues, according to Ford. But folks at the iPhone, don’t despair: Ford’s system will still be compatible with the Apple CarPlay. And Ford will continue to offer Amazon’s Alexa, also as an option.

Ford did not say which of its vehicles will have the Android operating system as of 2023, only that “millions” of vehicles under the Ford and Lincoln brands will have it. The vehicles will be available worldwide, except in China. But Ford did not say whether to use Google’s Android Automotive product, which is natively embedded in the vehicle. Instead, its use of Android would be “exclusively Ford and Lincoln,” Ford Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships, David McClelland, said in a conference call with reporters.

In addition, Ford is signing a six-year partnership with Google to use the technology giant’s cloud as its preferred cloud provider for its connected vehicle services. And Ford and Google will create a new group, made up of employees from both companies, called Team Upshift, which will be tasked with finding other areas of innovation.

“We will leverage both companies’ talent and assets to push the boundaries of Ford’s transformation, unlock personalized consumer experiences and generate disruptive data-based opportunities,” McClelland said in a Medium post. “This can include projects ranging from modernizing our factories through AI vision, developing new retail experiences when purchasing a vehicle, creating new property offers based on data from connected vehicles and more.”

It’s a huge blow to Google, which has been exercising its muscles by adding a number of major car manufacturers to its customer base that use Android in their vehicles. Ford joins Volvo, General Motors and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance to strike a deal with Google to use its software to power its vehicle information entertainment services.

But it can also be a slippery slope. At first, automakers seemed to want to keep large technology companies at bay to prevent them from accessing the lucrative data flows of customers entering and leaving their vehicles. But Ford estimates that by leaving Google under the hood, it is likely to be able to sell more cars to customers who would prefer a more smartphone-like experience than the software currently provided by the automaker.

It is unclear where this leaves Ford’s Sync infotainment system. All of the automaker’s latest models, such as the recently launched Mustang Mach-E, run on Sync 4 to power features like navigation, radio and weather settings. In a conference call with reporters, McClelland said Sync was a “differentiated brand” that operated on millions of vehicles, but he would not directly address the future of the operating system.

Ford shouldn’t have to abandon synchronization altogether, given the flexibility offered by Google’s native Android automotive system. This approach allows Google to do more of the heavy lifting on the software side, while giving automakers the freedom to design the operating system to suit their tastes. For example, the Android system built into Polestar 2, which is made by Volvo and Geely, looks a lot like Volvo’s Sensus infotainment system.

There have been other big pairs between automakers and technology companies in the past few weeks. Microsoft and GM’s subsidiary Cruise recently announced that they will team up to accelerate the development of autonomous cars. And it is rumored that Apple is in talks with Hyundai over a similar partnership.

It is an interesting development in the relationship between the oldest automakers in the country and its largest technology company. There were rumors that Ford and Google would form a joint venture around autonomous vehicles in 2016, but it never worked. Although the JV never materialized, the two companies kept things open and clearly, given today’s news, they never lost touch with each other.