The first car equipped with Google’s Android mobile operating system will hit the streets this April 23. It’s called the Roewe 350, and it will launch at the Beijing Auto Show.

Roewe vehicles are luxury cars made by Chinese car company SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) using technology purchased from British company MG Rover, which has been owned by BMW in the past.

The 2.1 version of Google Android — the same that Google used in the Nexus One and Motorola Droid — is installed on the vehicle’s GPS computer. You can use the computer for directions and traffic reports just as you can with many other GPS devices. But it’s not all vanilla; you can also surf the web and engage in some form of Internet chatting. There’s no telling yet which chat service you’ll be using, but hopefully you won’t be doing it while you’re driving!

We haven’t heard whether or not you’ll be able to install apps from the Android Market yet. We also don’t know how the device connects to the Internet. The car will cost between 70,000 and 130,000 yuan, or about $10,250 – $19,000.

[via The Next Web]
[img credit: autohome.com.cn]

Tags: android, android 2.1, car, Google Android, gps, roewe 350

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