On 21 June 2023 XPENG and the Japanese software house ACCESS announced that Twine4Car would supply the infotainment in XPENG’s new electric cars. The release is datelined Oberhausen and Guangzhou. The rollout started with the P7, due for European delivery that summer.
Twine4Car is described as an app store handling both HTML5 and native Android apps, a game portal with streamed console-class titles, Sync Play across several screens at once, and parental control over content type and playing time. Apps are for use while the car is parked or charging, the release says. ACCESS is listed in Tokyo, was founded in 1984, and says its mobile software sits on more than 1.5 billion devices.
The release names no car beyond the P7 and no streaming service. The promised update for existing cars has neither a date nor a model list; it says moving forward and no more.
Text and pictures do not match either. The release is about the P7 sedan, and both photographs in the set show an SUV.
What it means
The app and streaming layer in a European XPENG was bought in rather than built in Guangzhou. That is part of why a European car behaves differently from a Chinese one on this particular point. Whether Twine4Car still runs in the cars today is not something this release can tell you, and it should not be read that way.
Eric Xu, then VP of international markets, supplied the line about giving European drivers a more thoughtful approach to mobility. What was actually delivered has to be judged on the cars. The XPENG P7 page has the model and the XPENG company page has the background.
Images: XPENG
Sources
XPENG and ACCESS: Twine4Car chosen as the infotainment for XPENG's new EVs · 21 June 2023