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Google Partners With Car Alliance For Android Auto

Google is partnering with the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance to build Android-based entertainment and GPS systems for their cars.

The systems will offer apps through the Google Play Store, Google Maps navigation and Google Assistant voice commands.

The auto alliance collectively sold 10.6 million cars globally in 2017 and 5.54 vehicles in the first half of this year, making it by far the largest such alliance in the world.

The Android-based systems are not due for deployment until 2022, by which time the alliance expects to be selling 14 million cars a year.

Google’s attempts to move into the car space in a major way have previously been hampered by car manufacturers such as BMW and Mercedes preferring to build and install their own GPS systems for their new cars. There were also fears of handing over too much proprietary data to Google in any form of partnership.

Millions of drivers all over the world already use Google Maps and other apps in traffic, however, and Google already offers its Android Auto service for free, making their offerings extremely attractive for consumers globally.

Google says its GPS systems will still be compatible with mobile devices that run on other OSs such as Apple’s CarPlay.