By Steven Symes 
The STLA SmartCockpit, a software package Amazon and Stellantis were collaborating on, is officially dead. Back on January 5, 2022 Stellantis announced the joint venture, saying it would “transform the in-vehicle experience for millions of Stellantis customers and advance the mobility industry’s transition to a sustainable, software-defined future.”
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Now that vision is dead, with both companies telling Reuters it’s all “winding down.” Originally, the SmartCockpit was going to debut in 2024, but those sorts of deadlines aren’t always set in stone.
The vision for STLA SmartCockpit was that your car would use advanced AI to speak with your smart home equipment, automatically turning on lights upon your arrival and recalibrating the thermostat setting if you’re on your way back from an extended trip.
Automakers have been trying to team up with tech companies to create more advanced in-car software and features with mixed success. While the SmartCockpit is done, Aston Martin is debuting Apple CarPlay Ultra, which affects all the screens in a car, including the digital gauge cluster.
This doesn’t mean Amazon and Stellantis are parting ways. The two companies are still scheming up ways to serve up digital content to people riding in cars. After all, the potential to make a lot of money off you while you’re on a road trip or commuting is just too great of a temptation.
But like we’ve covered before, Dodge owners are already sick of pop up ads in their vehicles, which might have helped the automaker rethink how it’s going about things. At least we hope it does.
Being bombarded with ads and targeted marketing while you’re driving not only would be annoying, it could end up being dangerous.
Plus, as cars become more like smartphones on wheels, other problems arise. Not only can automakers try to demand monthly subscriptions to unlock certain features like seat heaters, as we’ve seen with Acura, they can just cancel connected services with little forewarning.
Image via Stellantis