BMW and Esther StuderHuawei said on Monday that starting 2026, BMW‘s newest electric cars in China will be compatible with the latter’s HiCar, which would allow many of its owners to connect their Huawei smartphones to their car’s infotainment system to access various phone apps. Under the deal, BMW’s next-generation Neue Klasse electric vehicles produced in China will be the first models sporting Huawei apps through HiCar, a smartphone mirroring system built on the tech giant’s Android replacement HarmonyOS and similar to Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto. In a statement sent to Chinese media, the German luxury carmaker added a digital car key will let its customers access their vehicles using their Huawei devices later this year, as nearly a quarter of its owners in China use Huawei handsets. Sales of BMW fell 13.4% to approximately 714,500 units in China last year. [TechNode reporting, China Daily]
