New Android Auto free update starts rolling out – prepares your car for a big feature push

There's a new update rolling-out for Android Auto that could make some fundamental changes to the way that the phone-based car system operates. The foundations laid by the update could make Android Auto much more usable in the future.

According to the latest stats from Google, Android Auto is available in over 200 million cars. While that pales in comparison to the 3 billion active Android users, it's still an important element for many drivers. Indeed, a recent survey (via iMore) revealed that 30%of buyers would consider no Android Auto or Apple CarPlay to be a deal breaker.

The latest iteration of Android Auto is version 13 and while it doesn't arrive with any surface-level enhancements for you to immediately get to grips with, it contains a lot more code relating to an highly-anticipated feature – car media. The details were discovered by 9to5Google.

Currently, when using Android Auto, any audio that you play is streamed via your device. That means you need to have a data tariff and connection to listen to music, for example. But, your car already has a tuner in it that powers its own radio, and this is what Google is looking to tap into.

This would mean that from within the Android Auto interface you could control your car's radio, using the FM tuner for example, and removing the need for streaming via your phone. There's also been reference to local media, for example stored on a USB connected to the car. The big change for users would be that you wouldn't need to return to the car's interface to change the radio.

This could be especially useful for cars that don't offer radio controls via the driver display or steering wheel buttons, which some do.

The bad news is that there's no indicator when this might happen and what is means for your car. It could be that manufacturers need to support the new function in some way, or that it only works with particular types of local car media.

However, there's clearly a lot of work happening behind the scenes to make this a possibility.