Android Automotive is getting Material Design, but it’s not for the driver

Ben Schoon | May 5 2023 - 12:22 pm PT

Google’s Android Automotive OS is set to appear on more and more vehicles in the years to come, and now it’s getting a taste of Material You.

As highlighted by Mishaal Rahman on Twitter, Google laying out the foundation of Material You support on Android Automotive OS, but it’s going to be a feature focused on the car’s maker rather than you as the driver. Google is calling this take on Material You design “OEM Design Tokens.”

Google’s documentation on this new feature references a fixed library of “design tokens” that are set by the OEM and can’t be changed based on the end user or their choices. So this is less Material You, and more Material Design.

Google explains:

Unlike the algorithmic or user selection approach for token values on mobile, OEMs designate design token values. Design tokens represent the small, repeated design decisions that make up a design system’s visual style and replace static values with self-explanatory names. Tokens are analogous to those defined by the Material Design system.

Notably, though, this static select of colors doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be seeing the same color scheme all the time. The shared library can pull different colors for different scenarios, with Rahman bringing out the example of different drive modes.

It’s unclear when we’ll see this available in vehicles with Android Automotive, though.