Spotify Pulls the Plug on Car Thing – What That Means for Car Mornings
In an unexpected retreat from the hardware frontier, Spotify has ditched its Car Thing—and it’s all because the world of car audio is a fast lane for bigger players.
Why the Whistle‑Blowing Started
- Spotify launched Car Thing in November 2023 after a quick trial run at the end of 2019 and a limited release in early 2021.
- Within five months, sales fell short of what the company had invested—roughly $31 million.
- Daniel Ek, the CEO, summed it up: “We just can’t get it to an attractive economical profile.”
The Hardware Roadblock
Building a device that talks to your car’s speakers isn’t a walk in the park—especially without an established ecosystem. As Frank Gillett from IDC noted, a music‑streaming titan needs an infrastructure, just like Apple had with the iPod.
Success or Fail?
- Google’s Glass and Snap’s original Spectacles stumbled.
- Meta’s Portal and its 2013 phone partnership missed the mark.
- Apple, by contrast, emerged as a hardware hero by aligning with its OS and devices.
Spotify’s vision was simple: let anyone with an older car snag music or podcasts without a subscription upgrade. But Car Thing proved it was easier to invest in Apple CarPlay or Android Auto—both backed by billions of vehicles—than to forge a new niche.
Price Tags & Supply Shock
CFO Paul Vogel revealed two key roadblocks:
- High component costs spiked by inflation.
- A chip shortage that made spare parts a rarity.
And the market simply wasn’t on board. Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies echoed a common refrain: “98% of new U.S. cars already ship Apple CarPlay. This is dead in the water.”
Lessons Learned
“Launching a device without a solid ecosystem is extremely challenging,” Gillett said. “We can’t compete directly with CarPlay or Android Auto in terms of features like navigation or calling.”
Spotify’s attempt to blend streaming services with physical hardware was bold, but the automotive world proved a demanding test. As the company pulls the stop sign on Car Thing, the rest of the music industry watches—perhaps to learn that monetizing a next‑gen stereo requires more than great playlists.
