I’ve rented several cars in France, Japan, Greece and Spain over the past few years. Gasoline-slurpers, EV’s such as a Volvo EX30 and a Polestar 2, small, mid-sized, all with automatic transmission, etc. But one thing I keep noticing when I return home and start driving my Tesla Model Y again: I miss Apple CarPlay.

Although Tesla adding Apple Podcasts and Apple Music lessened the pain a bit (but not a lot, as Podcasts does not contain my private feeds), I still miss the native iMessage experience, Apple Maps, but more important: WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Waze, FlitsMeister and A Better RoutePlanner. And sometimes, even Microsoft Teams.

Looking back, it’s crazy that I had all these options in a relatively simple edition of a Seat Leon, and this has still not appeared on a so called technologically advanced Tesla. Hoping that the current rumors are true, a windowed CarPlay experience would still be so much better than whatever Tesla has now.

While we’re on the subject, my car lease will expire end of next year. So what’s next? Polestar 4? Volvo EX40/EX60? Zeekr 7x? Let’s see…