Here's a big dump from Volkswagen: http://media.vw.com/release/1032/

In short, VW is doing something a bit interesting and a bit annoying. The interesting bit is that they've providing a variety of smartphone-based remote services for your car, stuff like "where am I parked" and "turn on the AC". Tesla does all this stuff, and others probably do as well, but VW is about to roll it out in a big way.

They're also supporting Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, although it sounds like those are "yeah, that too" features rather than front-and-center. They're really pushing their homebrew stuff like "2.5D navigation" and "jukebox" functionality. Yawn, but if you want the bigger screen, you're paying for all that extra stuff.

But wait, "Customers purchasing new Volkswagen models equipped with VW Car-Net will receive a no-charge trial for six months after purchase. To extend the benefits of this connectivity system, customers can choose from a number of VW Car-Net payment options: 1 year, for $199; 2 years for $378; 3 years for $540; or, month-to-month, for $17.99."

So, yeah, $15-18/month, depending on whether you pay in advance or not, to have a bunch of stuff you maybe don't care about, just so you can have Android Auto, which has zero ongoing costs to VW to support since it's just a fancy version of VNC screen scraping.

Color me irked. The whole idea behind Android Auto and Apple CarPlay is that they're supposed to get the car out of the being-smart business and leave that to the phone.

My reading of it that the phone integration via CarPlay/Android Auto/MirrorLink is part of "Volkswagen App-Connect", and will be separate from the monthly costs of any of the "Volkswagen Car-Net" features.

I hope you're right, but let me expand that quote a bit:
So, App-Connect is part of Car-Net, and Car-Net costs money. But wait, roll earlier in the press release, and they write:

So the basic unit has App-Connect and you need a higher trim level for other Car-Net features? Color me confused.

It continues to boggle my mind how badly car companies handle in-car entertainment. I get that they have a ton of things to think about when it comes to things that can potentially distract the driver, but there's plenty of stuff that they get wrong that have nothing to do with safety. For example, I'm still not sure why the updated map DVDs for the nav systems in my Toyota and my wife's Honda have to cost around $150+ each. I can understand a small fee, but how many drivers are paying for an upgrade at that price? Besides, at the rate that roads change in the DC area, my maps would be outdated in months. It also seems that the DVDs are outdated in the first place, usually using two year old data.

Anyway, to bring this around to relevancy, all this leaves me unsurprised that Toyota has decided to buck the current trend of supporting Apple and Google's systems, and go with their own system (using a partnership, I believe).

My question is this: which company is going to let me - when I first buy the car - select my preferred interface (Android Auto, in my case), and have the car automatically bring that up every time I turn it on. I don't want to have to launch it every time. Honestly, if one of these manufacturers does that, they'll be the first test drive the next time I need a new car.

There is a significant cost to maintaining the map data, estimated at perhaps $2 billion per year.

http://www.asymco.com/2015/06/15/where-are-maps-going/

It is informative that there are very few global map databases and only a handful of companies with the means to continue maintaining and expanding the map data.

The distribution mechanism to the end users for the map updates also carries overhead as there are many different encoding formats and proprietary cruft. Many cars still need a physical DVD inserted to update the map data even if the navigation system uses a hard drive to hold the current maps.

The car makers are resistant to providing integration of outside technology into the core of the dashboard, yet they recognize that the old model of integrating technology that is effectively frozen in time during vehicle manufacture is unsatisfactory.

Apple CarPlay (as an example) is limited in scope as the car makers seem to currently be unwilling to allow deeper access between the Apple ecosystem and the core data the car itself has, such as real time fuel consumption, car configuration, engine status, vehicle speed, braking force, etc. Some of this data is available via the ODB II port but many cars use proprietary modes for the brand specific details.