Its standard subscription is $10 a month, though it comes as cheap as $5 a month for students. That means on top of the $90 you pay for the hardware, you also must pay for a Spotify membership. To Spotify, that meant drivers in roughly 140 million cars might stream Spotify more - or start paying for it if they don't already - if a device could replicate Apple's Car Play or Android Auto for them.Ĭurrently, Car Thing works only with Spotify's premium tier. But while roughly 50% to 70% of cars on US roads may be able to connect to a phone, they're not so fresh-off-the-line as to have an entertainment display that easily streams tunes and podcasts. He says Americans spent an 'insane' 70 billion hours a year on the road pre-pandemic.

Spotify's main listening location is the home, but the car is a close second, said Gustav Söderström, Spotify's chief research and development officer. But getting the device and using it - you can understand more the problem they're going after.' 'I was just interested in seeing Spotify's take on actually building their own hardware,' said Suda, a 26-year-old student in Houston, who drives a 2012 Honda. But Spotify is betting that Suda and about 140 million of you have something in common: Your car doesn't have a fancy infotainment system to rival a Tesla's. Unlike him, you probably didn't spend more time streaming music than sleeping last year.

Suda was one of the earliest customers to get his hands on an invite-only release of Car Thing, Spotify's first-ever hardware device, which goes on sale Tuesday.

Matt Suda spent 206,989 of them - more than a third of last year - listening to Spotify.

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