Android Auto available in Hyundai, Kia cars

A model shows an Android device connected to a Hyundai Motor car through Google's Android Auto phone-car connecting service. Hyundai and Kia Motors said all of their cars currently on sale are compatible to the service from Thursday. / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor

By Nam Hyun-woo

Android Auto, a Google service enabling drivers to use their Android smartphone features on their vehicles' dashboard monitors, has become available for Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors cars in Korea, the automakers said Thursday.

Hyundai and Kia said all their vehicles will be equipped with the Android Auto phone-car connection.

The firms released the world's first cars featuring Android Auto in May 2015 in the U.S. market, but locked the feature out of their cars on the domestic market. This was because Google had postponed domestic use of the service citing its own navigation service unable to operate due to the Korean government's 2016 ban on having detailed map data about Korea stored abroad.

Unlike Apple's CarPlay, which offers similar services for iOS devices and uses a domestic firm's map data, Google had stayed with its own navigation system, but partnered with Kakaonavi by domestic tech giant Kakao to start its domestic service 20 months after the government ban.

“Given that more than 80 percent of smartphone users in Korea use Android OS, the launch of Android Auto will significantly improve customer satisfaction,” a Hyundai Motor official said.

The companies said Android Auto is more than a simple mirroring of the phone's display on the car's main display. It shows qualified apps on the vehicle's display with a simpler, driver-friendly user interface.

By connecting a smartphone to a USB port in the car, Android Auto can be initiated. Available apps include GPS navigation, telephone, text messaging and media play.

For text messaging, Android Auto can read out text messages received for the driver to prevent the driver taking their eyes off the road.

The biggest difference between overseas Android Auto and the domestic version is the navigation app. Kakaonavi is one of the most widely used mapping apps in Korea.

All of Android Auto's features can be controlled by Google Assistant in order to allow the driver to control them through voice commands with less distraction.

Users can check whether their vehicles are compatible with Android Auto at Hyundai and Kia websites.

“We are very delighted that Hyundai and Kia, which are the world's first companies to embed Android Auto, are finally providing the service to customers in our home country,” Hyundai Motor Infotainment Development Group Head Choo Kyo-woong said. “We will continue making efforts for various connected car services.”

Connected cars are one of the main domains which Hyundai and Kia believe are game changers in the automobile industry.

After establishing a big data center in Korea in 2013, the Hyundai Motor Group brands are expanding their capacity for data analysis, setting up a global big data center in China in September last year.

In Hyundai's connected cars development pipeline are an operating system, which manages data created in the vehicle, and a services platform that connects the car to a cloud server, which provides useful information to the driver.

For that, Hyundai has built partnerships with Kakao, SoundHound, Baidu, SK Telecom, KT and many other information and communication technology firms.