Android Automotive

Renault’s Mégane E-Tech Electric is the first Android Automotive car powered by an ARM chip from Qualcomm

Abner Li | Sep 6 2021 - 10:45 pm PT

Back in 2018, the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance announced that it would adopt Google’s native car operating system to offer built-in Assistant, Maps, and Play Store. Renault today announced the Mégane E-Tech Electric with Android Automotive and a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

The Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric is a crossover SUV available with 40 kWh (300 km range / 186 miles) or 60 kWh (470 km / 292 miles) battery packs:

With these technologies, a journey between Paris and Lyon, Paris and La Rochelle, Hanover and Copenhagen or Munich and Venice only requires a single short charging stop of 30 min, with an optimized consumption of only 12,8 kWh/100 km (WLTP).

There’s a 12.3-inch (1920 x 720) dashboard display and 9 (1250 x 834) or 12-inch (1250 x 1562) “multimedia” touchscreen to interact with Android Automotive. You get Assistant voice commands and the Play Store for third-party audio and navigation apps. Meanwhile, directions in Google Maps take into account EV chargers and recharge times.

Like other carmakers using the AA OS, Renault is skinning the UI with five top tabs for navigation, music, calling, user profile switcher, and car settings. For example, you can choose between 48 different colours for the door panels and instrument panel lights. The bottom always shows temperature, fan speed, and other climate information with physical buttons below the screen.

This Renault Mégane looks to be the first Android Automotive vehicle powered by an ARM chipset. The carmaker says it’s using “the latest-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon processor,” which is part of the 3rd Generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms.

Current offerings from Polestar, Volvo, and the upcoming Hummer EV all use the Intel Atom x7 A3960 (x86) chipset.