During this year’s I/O, Google announced Android Auto, the official child of the Open Automotive Alliance and Android L’s effort to come to your car’s dashboard. During the announcement, 25 car manufacturing partners were revealed and we were told that we should expect Auto-enabled cars by the end of this year. One thing that kept me from getting excited, however, was the question of whether I would actually need to buy a new car to use Auto. Turns out that I won’t — and you won’t either.

The news came through All About Android’s podcast, episode 168 (yes, I am late on my podcast feeds), where Gina Trapani and Jason Howell explain, at the 1:00:00 mark and again at 1:01:55, that they raised the question to Google employees during their Auto test drive at I/O. The answer to whether you could mount your own smartphone to the windshield and launch Auto in some form was yes. And we can all stop wondering where we’ll get the thousands of dollars necessary to buy a new car!

And doesn’t that make sense? After all, the whole execution of Auto is reliant on the phone being the main vehicle (pun intended) to the software, and your car’s dashboard acting as a dumb touchscreen. It was designed that way so you don’t have to worry about connectivity on the move or upgrading you car’s software or hardware. But then why should you *need* another screen? If you still don’t own an Auto-enabled car, you have to be able to get the same car-friendly interface on your phone with its large touchscreen, at least to protect you from fiddling with tiny buttons while you drive

Right now, we only have Jason and Gina’s account of a Google demo employee’s answer to go on. We don’t know how it will all be executed: through the same app that will handle sending Auto to your car, a separate dashboard-viewing app, or will it be a native mode to Android L? And will the audio be rooted to your car’s speakers or will you have to listen through the phone?

But, the news is exciting. With this out of the way, Android Auto has solved the 3 concerns I had about it coming to the car. So as someone who drives about 90 minutes per day on average, and is quite happy with her current car, I can’t wait to try out Auto and benefit from its simpler and safer interface.